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Dreams: Running, Flying, Dying
Lately I’ve been dreaming about flying. I fly across the room to go get a small item or fly to the store through the air as if it were the most natural thing ever. I’ve even had a few dreams that took place at night which is unusual for me.
Last night I had a dream that I ran a marathon in Madrid, Spain then someplace in China. The runners all put their belongings in a huge pile on the floor of an empty stadium. Someone I didn’t know suggested we pilfer whatever was of value. I began looking for high top red converse but didn’t find them. As we sifted through their belongings I looked to the left of me out of the window. Outside the window was a huge, beautiful castle, something you’d see at Disney World but without that dang on mouse hanging around. It looked real but still had a Disney quality to it. I decided not to investigate but to continue through the stadium to meet friends for lunch. Once I got to the cafeteria it ended up being a huge group therapy session. I sat and chatted with a large black woman who told me she keeps her distance because I can go from 100 mph to zero in 60 seconds flat and that I’m temperamental, arrogant and not willing to listen to reason. She said she felt there was a lot of hope for me but she couldn’t be of assistance in my healing process because our personalities didn’t mix. I basically fed her back everything she said and apologized for being so unstable and unpredictable. She then handed me 3 cigarettes and escorted me out of the door.
Mismatch Thoughts
I wish Barney hadn’t left a dowel rod on the kitchen counter for a week. I wish I’d said something about it a week ago. Why didn’t I ask him to move it?
I can’t give you another chance. I won’t give you another chance.
I have the money to go buy those red converse but I just can’t bring myself to go get them.
I liked giving you that gift but I didn’t do it out of kindness.
I won’t do too much panicking until the asshole moves in and gives me a specific reason to panic. I can’t believe he’s bringing his little dog. As anal as he is I’m sure he has a Shitzu.
The only colour in this house that’s bright is red.
When I go shopping if I don’t bring home something red I feel sad. It’s strange.
My house is girly. That’s not a complaint.
I don’t look my therapist in the eye when I talk to him.
I miss Maureen.
I’ve been jumpy lately.
You really know how to turn a small imposition into a catastrophe.
When I’m angry my language gets rough. I seem to curse like a sailor. It gets really bad. “Do you want a fuckin cookie? You want some motherfuckin’ milk with that shit?” It really gets bad, not quite that bad but bad enough. My language right now could use some soap.
When everything else seems out of control and unstable I grab onto whatever I feel I can control or keep stable. I just need one thing to stay the same and not change. I’ve eaten pizza daily for over two weeks now. This has to change because I’m lactose intolerant. I’m sure that sounds funny but I’m not happy about the change.
I’ve been painting pretty much non-stop for a few weeks now. There’s a large piece of paper on the door to the restroom, the door leading to Barney’s area as well as in the hallway. I also doodle and have 3 small paintings I’m working on. I need the feel and sound of brush against paper.
Joan
Mismatch Thoughts-Wednesday, May 14th, 2008-1:06AM EST
Dream Therapy: I Need You
I was standing in a Texas bar listening to the band play. They’d just finished up and my sister decided to sing a little bit. She was half hidden behind an oriental screen, you could only see long reddish-brown hair and the top of her. The band noticed that she was pretty and began making comments about it. As they walked towards her I put my head down and hid behind the rim of my hat. There were 3 band members that surrounded her and made comments about her long legs and beautiful hair. Then they decided to carry her off. My mother sat there, did nothing at all as they carried her oldest daughter off to rape her. I jumped on the back of one man and pounded and screamed, “She’s just a child, she’s a baby! She’s just a child.” In the dream she was about 17, the men were in their 40’s. One man turned and looked me in the eye and I said in a begging tone, “Please, she’s just a baby, let her go.”
I could tell that it hit home but he still wanted to go along with his boys. I followed them and kept grabbing and beating on the one I figured I could get through to. They took her to a movie theater. Two men disappeared with her. I kept fist fighting with the one I thought I could get through to. “Give her back, she’s just a child.” I realized every time I said, “She’s just a child.” I’d get a different look in his eye, like it hurt him to hear he was about to take part in the rape of a child. I figured if I said it enough maybe he’d make his boys let her go. So I kept saying it and kept saying it, pulling on him, fighting him, screaming at him, begging him, “she’s just a child.” After a bit his heart hardened and he just wanted to distract me so his boys could hurt my sister. He fell down on the theater stairs which lead to the auditorium. His head faced down, his feet faced the top of the stairs. I walked slowly up to him to see if he was dead, if he wasn’t I had a rock I intended to finish him off with. When I went to investigate his condition he jumped up, laughed and ran back up the stairs to mock me again. He fell the same way, head down, feet towards the top of the stairs. I realized I was wasting my time pleading to him so I left him on the stairs and went looking for my sister.
Dream Therapy: Rough Terrain Part 1of2
Two TV’s watched in the living room by strangers. One TV worked clearly, the other was blurry. I talked to the mother on the phone as I steam cleaned the carpet and strangers watched my TV. I poured dirty water from a small bucket into a large bucket as I explained to the mother that our recent phone conversations weren’t helpful but hurtful. We talked while there was a chimp sitting on the sofa, this chimp’s name is Bob. A pigeon perched on my desk which had been moved into the hallway while I cleaned the carpet. The desk blocked the restroom and bedroom from any entry at all.
The mother and I began to argue about what to feed Captain. She said her co-workers thought I should feed Captain differently. At that moment Captain was outside with two snakes in his mouth, one gold and black spotted, the other black and white striped. I told her when her friends pay his vet bills they can have a say in how I feed him. He seemed quite content with his new feeding program of wild animals he caught in the yard. The mother went on to tell me she was sorry she’d let me down recently. She then said she was going to have to let me down 4 more times. I asked what she meant. She said she was bringing home 4 new people to live with us. I told her that’s not letting me down but they can’t sleep in my room. I can’t share a room with anyone I told her. My sister, who had been quietly watching TV with complete strangers piped up and asked, “Since when can you not share a room with anyone?” “Since right now!” I said, “I’m not sharing a room with anyone.” The mother and I chatted a bit longer then hang up.
Dream Therapy: Rough Terrain Part 2of2
Walked back out to find the mother and two other people that would be coming home with us. By the time we hit the exit door there was only one person coming with us. We walked together through rough terrain to get to the car. There were craters to avoid, high hills to climb, all in the dark. It started off light but the walk was so long it got dark. The other person we were with decided to take a different route to the car so we split up. That just left the mother and myself to try and find the best way around our obstacles and get to the car.
On our walk we tried several different ways to get over these obstacles but ended up exerting ourselves too much. I remembered I’d come over the same rough terrain alone and that if I just sat for a bit to think how I did it I could get us both to the car without more energy loss to either of us. As we set my plan in motion the mother became very tired. We’d found a sidewalk that took us around all the craters and hills but she was becoming delirious and tired. She said she needed to stop and rest just for a moment. We walked a few steps further which was to the entrance of a shopping mall. She opened the door, felt the cool breeze and collapsed in the doorway. I woke up.
Control Is A Handicap
What would it be like for me to express pain, to express simple pains like stubbing my toe or getting a paper cut? One question lead to a conversation that had me running from the therapy office to the restroom to toss my cookies. For me, expressing pain means losing control and letting the pain or giver of pain have the satisfaction of knowing they can hurt me. I stifle all groans and rarely flinch or grimace even when something really hurts. I can be in an extraordinary amount of pain and not drop a tear and never hint that I’m suffering. I saw that as a strength when I was younger, now I see it as a handicap. I can’t express a physical ouch let alone severe, should be doubled over in pain type reactions. That reaction was warranted today when I went to cross my legs in therapy. My knee cracked and sent a pain shooting up the left leg, right where the degeneration is the worst. He said that was the first time he’s ever seen me grimace, as he called it. I didn’t realize I did. I felt rather stupid, embarrassed that he saw it. Through everything we’ve talked about and all the times I’ve shown up hurting so badly, today was the first time he saw any sign at all that I was physically uncomfortable.
He asked what it would be like if I were to express pain as others do. The question confused me but then I asked him, Don’t people usually feel embarrassed when they’re in pain? He said not really, no. I started to think about how embarrassed I was to cry because it meant being laughed at, being mocked, scolded and told how shocked they were because they knew I didn’t have a heart so where were the tears coming from? And of course I recall how horribly my sister was made fun of for crying. My goodness they laughed at her, right in her face and told her she was making a circus clown out of herself. They mocked her, jumped up and down like she was doing and did the “oh this hurts” dance. They told her she could win an Oscar for such a performance. How could I break down, lose control that way and subject myself to that? No sign of pain meant no satisfaction for giving it and no scolding or mocking for expressing it. It also meant I’d carry that lesson with me into my adult years and apply it to situations where it’s not warranted.
Tried It. Didn’t Like It!
I already knew when I walked in the door that therapy would be interesting. I had no idea one comment would lead to a headache of a session. I’m overwhelmed by the thought of a “few changes” that are taking place here at home but what Dr. D thinks about my views on parents and what he thinks I might deep down want are just dead wrong.
I told him that Princess Fife (Barney’s daughter) her husband and their 8 year old son will be moving in this house with us in a few short weeks. Of course there is much trepidation on my part because this means less privacy. I need my privacy. They won’t be living in my area at all but the fact still remains, I’ll share some space with 3 other people, one of which is a son of a bitch to the empth degree. I can handle Princess Fife and the boy but Prince Jackass is a bit much to take. He’s more OCD than I am he also has a very strong Obsessive Compulsive Personality. He needs everything and everyone around him to be perfect. Sorry, but that doesn’t work for me. So anyway, I told Dr. D that I understand why Barney won’t tell Princess Fife that she and her Slave Master can’t come here. I said, just like every little girl should, she’s got her father Barney wrapped tightly around her finger. It’s just the natural order of things. Every little girl should have her father wrapped around her little finger. Okay, so we went on to discuss the clear problems this whole situation presents but he got back to me and my father. I’m not sure why he can’t let go of the idea that there is a woman out here that has no longing for a father figure. I’m sorry but the idea of me having a father wrapped around my finger is totally different than what I think others should have. I can’t even think in those terms, of having a parental figure that I trust and depend upon or take for granted. Me and parental figures don’t mix. I’m sorry but I see parents as offenders. I look at Barney and his daughter and think “this is how it’s supposed to be” but I keep my personal experiences separate from them because if I don’t I’ll start looking for signs that she’s pretending to feel okay around him but in actuality he hurt her. If I do not put up a wall when watching normal interactions I’ll skew them with my own experiences which aren’t good ones.
Humiliation: Dream Therapy 1of3
If you saw him wouldn’t you publically humiliate him too? From there I went on a verbal abuse tirade. I was shocked and horrified that a van full of children and their mother ranging from 14 to 7 were yelling at my 3 year old brother for wetting himself in public.
The dream started out gross and ended bloody and down right disturbing but still telling. I felt so sick when I woke. It started off with my brother having a bowel movement on a brick wall at a store. He stood against the wall and you could see this mustard yellow BM go on the wall. The mother and I were in lawn chairs outside the store looking out at the parking lot. I asked my mother why she was allowing him to use the restroom on the wall. I don’t remember her answer but she let him continue. In several places the toddler marked the wall with BM. I told him to stop and that I’d take him to the restroom. He got angry and ran into the street. I ran after him to keep him from getting hit. Just before I reached him a van stopped because they saw feces on him. The mother, who was also the driver, got out of the metallic coral coloured mini-van, picked my brother up and began calling him names. Two young teenage boys (maybe 13 years of age) jumped from the side door and grabbed my brother holding him high in the air mocking him. The sun was out, it was a very hot day. The parking lot was packed with cars, traffic was heavy. The boys held him up mocking him because he had diarrhea on his shirt. I took him out of their arms and scolded the boys for their actions. None of the children in the car understood why I was so angry with them and their mother. They continued laughing at my brother. The mother said had I seen my brother use the restroom on himself wouldn’t I do the same thing? She wondered if I’d seen him use the restroom on himself and if I had witnessed it she thought I too would parade him through the streets humiliating him.
The mother and her children were well dressed. The hair of the children was dark, they looked Jewish which is of strong significance for me. They looked like a middle class family the kind society assumes has it together and would never behave in such a cruel way.
Humiliation: Dream Therapy 2of3
(Same dream continued)
I needed to go clean my brother up so I started walking to a professional building across the street from the department store. The mother didn’t want me to do it. She was irritated that I was going to take him off and clean him up. As I walked across the street my sister appeared beside me. The walk should have been short. Instead of just going across the street we ended up walking down a winding country road which lead to the professional building. Once inside I began washing my brother in the only water source they had which was the water fountain. The water was cold. He objected but I kept washing him. At that point my mother called my cell phone to see how things were going. We got into an argument about something. I don’t remember what. I ended up hanging up on her. My phone turned into a Caress soap box, coral pink box saturated by cold fountain water. I left it on the table and went to the restroom. I left my brother with my sister.
I entered a room where the restroom was at the back corner. The room was familiar to me. It was a fixer upper. You could see plaster and dry wall that hadn’t yet been hung. Some of the antique white paint hadn’t dried yet. Paint cans and brushes lay helter-skelter around the construction area.
Humiliation: Dream Therapy Re-Write 3of3
The idea behind dream therapy is to re-write a dream so that it ends the way you want it to. This is to give the dreamer a feeling of control. In some dreams I needed to re-write it so that I was the victor and not the victim but in this case I need to re-write the dream so that events unfold in a way I can accept without emotional burden.
The dream would start off exactly how it did, with my brother using the restroom on the wall of the department store by the parking lot. I’d reach over to him and ask if he wanted to go inside the store to use the restroom. He pulls away from me and runs into the street. A family in their van jump out, snatch my brother up and begin scolding and mocking him for having BM on his shirt. I remove my brother from their arms and call out for the police. There’s no way they can put their hands on this child and hold him up for the world to scorn and not answer for it. No words I can say will do, I need to call the police. The police show up and I make a formal report that this so-called mother put their hands on my brother. She’s furious that I’ve called the police but not apologetic. She doesn’t understand why I’m making such a big deal out of this. I tell her it’s because no one should be treated the way she just treated my brother and that she has no right at all to ever put her hands on him.
