Like stone

1:30 in the morning;
Another bad dream
Arise you idiot
I silently scream

Shake it off--
My logical voice.
My God, how I try
too much noise

I sit visiting the dark
At my beat-up desk
Mentally wiping
The hurt from my chest

I try to read or breathe
Watch a film til it's done
Nothing works
And 4:30 comes

I take Nyquil
Just to quiet my head
But the dream remains
As I lay down in bed

The lump is there
The struggle is rough
The first sob escapes
Silent but tough

I will not cry
I think in my mind
Another sob
And another behind

Tears fall like pebbles
Tiny dings as they hit
Soaking my pillow
Making my hair stick

I beat myself up
Fool! Idiot! Baby! I hear
But they keep on,
More and more tears

Another bad dream
Same four nights in a row
Set on repeat
I cry to my pillow.

Peace?

Had another nightmare last night - of him. Woke myself up screaming. God I wish he knew how horribly he hurt me. I wish he could feel the fear - even if just for a moment.

I recently met a woman who told me her father, too, had molested her but that he did 10 years in prison for it and died recently - in December.

"It was the first time in my life I've ever felt peace," she said. "Not that I wished him dead, just it was the first time I ever felt peace."

It made me cry. Her mother had been a staunch supporter of her through it all and I wondered - marveled - at that. Wondered what that would be like.

But then I kind of lost it and I realized I won't ever know when my father dies. How long does that mean I have to wait for peace? And what about the others? I won't know when they're gone. I cried for two hours over this. Sobbed.

Is that when you find peace after all this? When they're all cold in the ground or sitting in an urn on a mantle somewhere?

Knowing there's a rapist around every corner in every walk of life, will there ever be peace?

Anxiety

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

I heard a term on a t.v. show that I looked up yesterday: Rape Trauma Syndrome.I read something that struck me immediately: "pronounced internal tremor."

I was knocked aback. I have described this before as feeling as if "my bones were shaking" - it was relieving to see there's a name for it, and an apt one, at that.

My anxiety has gone through the roof and has made me, at times, completely dysfunctional. The only option for me, for medications, is to go to the emergency room....which causes me huge anxiety. How ironic.

My therapist says the reason I don't find benzos (benzodiazapines) addictive, is because of the level of my anxiety. Rather than "getting high" from them -as I know some do - it brings my anxiety level to a manageable point so I don't feel any affects, other than that, which is why I am able to take them PRN.

I have always been an opponent of medications and, even therapy.

But my anxiety levels have gotten so bad that I have spent days at a time holed up and terrified. Now, I cannot tolerate touch - I can't even tolerate the touch of a door frame if I walk through a door. I have to be careful not to touch it. Every touch, it feels as if my all my cells are screaming, "DON'T TOUCH ME!"

The anxiety manifests itself in other, more troubling physical ways but I won't go into it because it is embarrassing and I don't understand it. It is frightening.

I have been listening to a guided meditation nightly  for about two or three weeks (I believe). I have to wonder if - because of this meditation - my mind is opening to levels of memory and awareness as I sleep. I like this particular one because - even though it claims to be for abundance - it is really about awareness and moving forward. I like this.

But I wonder if it hasn't opened some windows and doors in my mind because the symptoms I am experiencing have really intensified over the past couple weeks. It's hard to say because it collaborates with the timing of extreme stress and having no anti-anxiety medications.

So perhaps it is a combination. Who knows.

Regardless the cause, the memories and anxiety, sleeplessness and  nightmares, are debilitating.

The meditation works well to help me sleep, although it doesn't help me stay asleep.

Today I awoke (again), feeling as wound as a guitar string. It is difficult to function because such high anxiety causes physical exhaustion, but my mind won't stop spinning or slow down so I can't sleep. Everything is amplified. I am so damn tired.

I have to go out today - it's laundry day. I wish I had a dryer. Then I could do the laundry here. Ugh.

My anxiety shoots up on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It's not the typical "oh brother, it's Monday again," kind of thing. It's a dread that I can't even describe. It's a fear; it's a hope that I can make it through another four days of high-anxiety and high-stress. When Thursdays come, I relax more, but it is still very difficult.

I will be glad when I am through this.

Sex with Daddy, a Dream (TRIGGER WARNING)

I call it a dream, not a nightmare. I described it to Bill as if I were telling him how to bake cookies - no attachment, no feelings. I felt nothing, yet his response was, "Wow that's a nightmare!"

It is? I didn't wake up sweating or shaking or crying.... isn't that what nightmares are?

I have never (or don't remember ever) having a dream or dreams of any nature about my father (or any of my abuse or rapes, for that matter). I have a snapshot of him in my mind - this vision of him from more than 20 years ago, and though I've been told he's now fat and bald, I remember him to be beautiful...so handsome, hair that women would die for...he was a fabulously good-looking man. That is what I see in my mind...

And that is what I saw in my dream.

Begin Trigger
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We were in my apartment, only it wasn't this apartment...it was somewhere else. I recall that I initiated sex with him. I was aroused. In my dream, I was the same age I am now. He did not say anything, just smiled as I commenced to performing fellatio on him.

From there, somehow I was able to have intercourse with him while also receiving oral sex from him. Again, I was wanting it. I initiated it.

Next thing in the dream, we are sitting on the floor, and I was leaning against a bed frame. There was no mattress or box spring - just a space where they used to be. Beneath where the bed was supposed to be, were a few pair of shoes - one of which was a pair of little girl's black shoes. I remember thinking, "Wow I haven't seen those in a long time." There were other shoes but those stick out the most in my mind.
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End Trigger

I told my father I was going to sweep while I could get to it...

As I began to sweep, I looked over and my father was drinking a glass of wine. I didn't know where he'd gotten it because, in my dream, I had no wine. Furthermore, he was drinking this "wine" from one of the margarita glasses that I left at Gary's house when we split up. I looked at what he was drinking and it wasn't wine; it was juice.

Coincidentally, this is what Gary's father used to do. He once told me, "I like to drink cranberry juice out of a wine glass so I can fit in."

Obviously there are things that stick out - the little girl's shoes....but one thing that troubles me deeply is, in the dream, as I was initiating, I was feeling the same feelings for my father, that I have for Bill. This hopelessly in-love feeling...this complete devotion.

It's worth noting, as well, that my adoptive father recently bought me a bed frame.

When trying to interpret this dream, I struggled. Usually Dreammoods is pretty good, but this left me blank.

It's also worth noting that I recently ran out of anti-depressants and have not been taking them. I have read that anti-depressants will amplify dissociation so I wonder if not taking these medications for a few days now, might have unblocked some things, along with my getting in touch with some intense new feelings that I have had with Bill.

After it all sank in....after I thought about it, I was saturated with shame. I felt like a whore. How could I even possibly dream this?? This is despicable!! *I* am disgusting! Who dreams this shit?!

Is this possibly me, getting in touch with parts of myself that I have never touched, via new, healthy, restorative relationships and feelings with new people?

I've never once given thought to whether or not I wanted to be molested. I didn't. Ever. Yet I willingly participated for a lot of different reasons. Some are obvious, others probably not. Being told by my therapist yesterday that it's okay for me to love....did that open up something?

Will these dreams continue? Will they get worse?

Living in Limbo

My name is Cristina D. Johnson

Had another nightmare about "him" last night. Third night in a row, only last night I woke up crying.

There are good things happening, of course. I mean I have the help and support of some wonderful people.

Therapy's been tough because of the concept of boundaries and relationships. I suppose it all goes back to living in that black-and-white world. Yes or no. No gray.

In therapy, though, it's obvious that things are out of whack here at home. My new apartment is beautiful. I have an antiquated kitchen but it's super roomy. All wood floors (except the living room) and I have a dining room, living room, and upstairs I have two bedrooms and a bathroom and then, upstairs (where I am now) is my private space - my 'writing room' as I call it - and outside each window is nothing but trees and green. The breeze blows through the windows and I hear the rustle of the leaves and it should be soothing.

But I feel like I'm in limbo - I feel as if I have lived here now for about two months and I haven't exhaled. So much is uncertain and I sometimes feel like I'm being taken for granted (hence the conversation about boundaries in therapy).

Part of my apprehension is knowing "he" has the power to take it away from me and he knows it, too. I would like to think he wouldn't be so cruel, but then again, if history is any indication, there's really no limit to the cruelty so who knows? I don't know..... I feel so stupid.

Bill helps me a lot. We talk every day: morning, lunch time and after he gets off work. He swears he's not going to let me go again. There's something very powerful in hearing him say those things. Not that he only says those things, but he says other things - beautiful things - and he's absolutely wonderful to Trevor, who adores him.

Bill knows I question my relationships now - an unfortunate truth - and he says he's glad I do this. I am grateful for that space - for that lenience and compassion. He's the only one who truly saw the every-day struggle I went through after the break-up so he knows how deep it goes. During those days and nights, he nursed me so gently. I will never, ever forget this.

Yet at the same time, I can't help but feel this timeless kind of love for him. It's always been that way between us. Very unconditional. Very honest. In many ways, he raised the bar as far as relationships go. In many ways, "the other guy" never would or could measure up, even though - to his credit - he had some redeeming qualities.

I have yet to call it home. It's "the house" or "the apartment" and Michelle (my therapist) says that's because everything is still unsettled. (Also I have Bill's cat - Snowball - and I'm not supposed to have animals so I'm scared of that and not sure how to handle it yet).

Michelle says we can't even get into trauma work until my life is no longer stressful and in crisis. She's right. I can't even think right now. Just scared of everything.

Most of the time in my life - in the past - I have not had to worry like this. Things just were, what they were and I never expected to have a home - always expected to be abandoned or kicked out or whatever. But now that I'm trying so hard to actually have a home, I am terrified of losing it.

Everything is in limbo and my back sometimes feels like it could snap.