Healing Dream
I’ve written here before about dreams I’ve had – ones where I’m still living at home with my parents but I’m an adult but I’m not allowed to move out. Sounds kind of boring but the fact is they are nightmares that leave me anxious for days afterwards.
Anyway, the night before last I had a similar dream but with a new twist. This time my parents were yelling at me to move out. It was very strange because I’ve been having this dream for 15 years or something, and this is the first time that happened!
It was kind of interesting. It was liberating and scary all at the same time. When I was being yelled at in the dream I was feeling kind of overwhelmed, like how can I manage on my own, but at the same time it was a “phew” kind of moment, like finally that’s over and now I’m free!
I also remember I didn’t like being yelled at in the dream. But I don’t like that in real life and my parents did lots of yelling … which is why when in happens in real life I kinda shut down. But that’s sort of a side note to the dream, but interesting none the less.
When I woke up I felt tired but emotionally relaxed. I looked around and felt like the chaos was mine, like I owned it. I wasn’t feeling anxious at all.
Through that dream I feel like I emotionally broke away from something, if that makes any sense. The last few weeks I’ve been thinking about why I don’t act like an adult in certain parts of my life, and the way I maintain my home is a big part of that. Because really, I don’t maintain it. I just kind of sit around like a sulky kid waiting for mom to clean up and dad to do the handywork.
And I guess when I was married I was kind of the same. I expected my husband to do a lot around the house to keep it up – which he did. I did my share too, but only because I felt like if I didn’t he’d chastise me – which he wouldn’t have done because he wasn’t like that. He’d certainly ask what the heck was going on and why wasn’t I doing anything – but it would have been more like one roommate to another – not like he was my parent or in charge of my behaviour. More like why is he doing more than me … ha.
Anyway – once I got out on my own I guess I just stopped doing everything. I know my hoarding is way more complex then that. But I think I attached a lot of things onto my husband because he really wasn’t parental with me – I think I just sometimes thought of him that way because that’s how my mind worked. So because of that I did certain things around the house thinking I’d get in trouble otherwise … eventho nothing like that would have happened. And when I got out on my own, I just stopped doing stuff. Kind of like a rebellious thing. Since no one was around to tell me what to do I’d do nothing.
So … I think that dream has finally released me from that internal emotional nightmare. I’ve untangled that and am now free from some internal parent I created for myself … to keep myself in line, or more to the point, to keep me a child.
Dreams, Fantasies, Nightmares, Life
It’s very warm here today and I’m debating whether or not to put the air conditioner in the window. I hate the sound of the AC and it takes up almost my entire window, which sucks. Plus it’s extremely heavy and I’m not even sure I can do it myself – and there’s no way I’m asking someone to come in and help. But I get it up there every year on my own so I’m guessing I can do it again on my own.
It’s funny that on this first warm day of the season I was looking at winter photos online. Trisha Romance’s artwork caught my eye. It’s so pretty. I think I like the nostalgia, eventhough I don’t ever remember a time like this.
I do find it interesting that most of the paintings I like of hers either have no people or only one child in them. I think that’s because I think of myself as a child, not an adult. As for the paintings with no one in them that may come from the fact that as a kid whenever I’d dream of my future there was usually no one in it. It was usually just me dreaming of me being alone. How prophetic.
That painting of the little girl at the door feels so comforting to me. I was pretty independent as a kid – well independent or ignored. Which brings me to the 2nd painting with the kid outside all alone. That’s very familiar. But I like the images. They’re sweet and a little sad.
I love this painting because it reminds me of some dream-like fantasy I had of what kind of house I’d love to live in. The odd thing is when I was a kid and would dream of such things quite often I was one of the kids of a large loving family, not necessarily the parent. If I did think of me as the adult I’d usually be alone, or maybe be married with kids … but that was a bit of a foggy dream, not really clear. Sometimes I’d think of me as an older woman with my life behind me, living with memories of a family who had once lived there. I think that’s kind of odd, actually. Rarely did I ever dream of, or have fantasies of, me interacting with people. I find that very telling of my real life.
The few times I was interacting with people quite often it would be with my parents, mostly I’d be showing them how much better of a parent I was then they were – telling them the right way to parent a child like me. Sometimes now as an adult I have similar dreams. It’s kind of like I’m going back and re-parenting a part of myself. I find those dreams kind of comforting. Perhaps my subconscious is helping me to feel better, I don’t know.
Anyway, a lot of this is on my mind lately because I’ve been having some reoccurring nightmares. They’re not gruesome or anything, but they do leave me with my heart pounding and with lots of fear, anger and ultimately just sadness. Sometimes they’re so emotionally overwhelming I’m just kinda numb. Then in order to avoid them I try to stay awake as long as possible which triggers my insomnia which obviously creates more chaos in my life.
The dreams are about me being an adult and still living with my parents. That may sound humourous but it’s not. And I think I pretty much understand what they’re telling me. They’re telling me to break free of all this crap I put on myself and to take control of my own life. To live my life on my own terms without torturing myself with what I think my parents would say.
My subconscious is basically telling me to grow up, I guess. I find I have these dreams when I’m really stressed or when I’m trying to make changes. I’m in the middle of lots of changes right now so it makes sense that they are happening now.
The dreams are quite scary. My parents are caricatures of all their negative personality traits. I’m acting like I can do whatever I want because I’m an adult and then I realize no – I can’t do that. There’s that startling moment where I realize I’m trapped and am unable of doing anything I want to do or unable of doing anything positive for myself. It’s that feeling of being “trapped” that is so fearful. My future is laid out before me and it’s unchanging and trapped and ugly and scary and it all makes me angry and hopeless.
I wake up and feel like there’s a heavy burden put upon me. I remember all the very negative experiences I had from childhood and the memories are intense and vivid. Then I’m burdened with the consequences of all those experiences – that being my current life. All of that leaves me feeling overwhelmed and often unable to do anything constructive.
Like today, I’ve been in a lot of physical pain. Not because of the dreams but because of PMS, etc., and I’ve pretty much spent the day drugged-up so I wouldn’t feel the pain. Which totally makes sense, but it highlights how I’ve spent most of my life – I’ve done things (still do things) to avoid my feelings. Things like hoarding, overeating and hiding in my apartment. I don’t use substances to numb myself, instead I’ve found other destructive ways to accomplish that numbness.
So when these ‘dreams of me being stuck as an adult living with my parents’ come along it highlights how I’ve been hurting myself. It forces me to look at how badly I treat myself on a daily basis. Most times I don’t look beyond that because I’m too afraid, but just writing about it, for the first time, is helping me to now move on. For the first time I’m reacting to these dreams in a different way – so I hope to get a different outcome.
I didn’t even start out writing this post thinking this is where I’d get to. I was just going to write about how I liked the paintings – and now look where I’ve ended up. Like most posts, this is kind of like a stream of consciousness for me. But it’s been good for me to get these thoughts out there. The more I put them ‘out there’ the less they’re able to stay rotting inside of me.
