This morning at 1145, I was out on my porch enjoying the beautiful sunshine when I found myself nodding off. I thought, shit I am not getting much sleep at night; I might as well try taking a nap. I went back to my dark bedroom and snuggled under the covers just so certain that I would finally get some sleep. After about three hours I was still awake (but still feeling very sleepy), so I just stayed there all cosy (such a different experience than at night). Then I *woke up* at 1715 (yay for me, I got some sleep). Almost immediately, I recalled this vivid dream (I always have vivid dreams, I just never remember them upon awakening—they are just fleeting images), and began sobbing. The emotions flooding through me were painfully piercing.
Evidently, I was a mother to this cute, precocious girl of about 6 who was very obese, yet happy as lark to my suggestion that we go out to our swimming pool. My husband (egad, is that Freudian or what) was played by John Travolta (I kid you not) and had disappeared on us yet again (this dream came complete with this woman’s memories). He was employed as a hit man and received his orders in the mail. Well, this little girl ran out to get the mail and I heard her shrieking. When she put her hand in the mailbox, a shard of glass had practically shredded her wrist at the site where most people slice their wrist (yet again, how Freudian) and was bleeding profusely. Then she goes limp in my arms. Somewhere there was this a strange man (a neighbour perhaps responding to her shrieking outside??) was standing there and I yelled to call 911 while I tried to staunch the bleeding without removing the glass. I remember feeling that it was all my husband’s fault because of the line of work he was in. All of a sudden, the dream flash-forwards to the ER while I am in there waiting, so sure she wasn’t going to make it. My “husband” magically appears running into the ER demanding to know what I had done to his daughter
OK, so here is the BPD breakdown and my reaction to the dream: 1) I hate myself because I am a horrible mother. I let this adorable child get as obese, so therefore I am a failure; 2) my “husband” abandons us at our time of need—rejected and abandoned yet again; 3) again I’m a horrible mother because I had no idea that my child had gone running out to the mailbox situated on a street curb nearby traffic that could have killed her if she had walked out into the street; 4) based on my “husband’s” reaction upon arrival to the ER, everything is my fault—more guilt and shame.
Give me a fucking break. If I am going to enjoy some sleep and have dreams, can’t they at least be dreams of escape from my wretched life?©2009
