fucking nightmares

I hate when I have nightmares, especially the ones where you wake up relieved and go back to sleep just to go right back into it. That’s what happened to me last night. It was two different nightmares that I kept going back and forth from, or maybe it was the same one but different times in the same place? I don’t know. They were new nightmares though, ones I had never had before. That’s probably why I felt so shook when I woke up. Usually when I have nightmares, it’s me stuck in a loop in my old neighborhood in Germany. This time, I was in a house that seemed familiar, but also new.

The beginning of my nightmare started with me and Mav on a ride. The ride wasn’t secured, so I had to hold Mav with one hand and the seat with the other. The ride got faster and faster and we were being tossed around until we finally launched into what looked like a window. We crashed into a dark hallway, and Mav was limp. His eyes were barely opening, and he was barely responsive. I was running around trying to call for help, but no one would help me. They said I shouldn’t have done that if I knew what was going to happen. They said it was my fault. All I did was cry and cry. When I woke up, my heart was racing - but was put at ease when I was able to touch Mav’s warm body next to me, sound asleep.

The next part of the dream was me wandering these hallways that seemed so familiar. I was looking for a restroom that looked like something out of Harry Potter, lol. But no one would come with me because spirits were wandering in the hallways. One spirit in particular kept following me, it was a shadow of a woman that I couldn’t make out. I kept trying to escape the area she was in, but she kept popping up. I woke up again. It was hard to sleep. I kept going in and out of my dreams, and each time, touching Mav’s body to make sure he was alive.

Today was a pretty rough day. I really hope I never have that nightmare again.

bent necked lady and why I was so afraid

It took me exactly 2 years to watch the Haunting of Hill House. I watched the first episode with Sean last year and when I saw the bent neck lady, I told him that it was a series that I was not willing to watch. Not in fear of the bent neck lady, but the fear of living through what the show was going to go through. After watching it, there are some things that completely hit home for me where I could say, “yeah I can completely relate to that. fuck.” other things, I was just like, “meh that’s stupid.”

But looking back at it, it was… well, kind of the bent neck lady that scared me. I would find myself afraid at night to go to sleep or to even think her name aloud. It wasn’t her that I was afraid of, it was the image of my brother hanging that I was afraid of. I don’t think I’ve ever written that in my blog. I always mention my brother committed suicide, but I never mentioned how - he was a bent neck boy. So to close my eyes, and see my brother as my own personal bent neck figure, is probably the scariest thing that I can imagine. Because sometimes, I imagine it is a bent neck lady, but that lady is me.

easier said than done

I get frustrated when my son cries at night, even though I know it’s all part of his development. He’s most likely teething and in pain, but the sound of his cry triggers more anxiety than it does nurturing. That’s hard for me. My husband will say, “we have to remember that he’s a baby and that’s how he communicates.” Of course I know that. But that doesn’t change the fact that my head starts throbbing and my emotions become overwhelmed when it happens.

I say, “I didn’t sign up for this.” I signed up to be a mom to a baby, and I know what it takes to care for a child. But I didn’t sign up to be a mom with postpartum depression trying to heal from her own trauma and ptsd all at once. I didn’t sign up to be the mom that needed to time nursing and pumping sessions with medications to make sure I got the least amount of medications in it. I didn’t sign up to be the mom who needed her husband to lock up her medications because she wanted to take all of them at once when things became too much to handle.

I wish I could be like every mom I know right now, happily watering plants and rocking the whole “working mom” thing and making fucking bento box lunches for everyone in the family. But I’m gonna settle for the “trying to keep it together while faking like we’re doing okay” kind of mom right now, and that’s just gonna have to be good enough.

the voices in my head: welcome back billy

In 2019, I finally opened up about hearing voices. Not that tiny voice in your head that everyone has, aka, your conscience. This voice is like it’s someone else in the room, someone else around. I introduced Billy to the world. I thought I’d bring him up again because it’s starting to pick up again. I hear him grumbling off things I can’t really understand most of the time, but now that I’m feeling more and more anxious, the voice is angrier.

I recently read something about how mentally ill people are portrayed during Halloween. Why are they seen as scary? Why so often are scary films and tv shows based on people who have mental illness? I recently finished the Haunting series (Hill House and Bly Manor), and honestly, I wasn’t as afraid as I thought I’d be. Why? Because I feel like that on a daily basis.

The night terrors, the nightmares, the voices, the feeling of being uneasy, those aren’t new to me. But watching it on television definitely makes me feel a little uneasy about opening up about it. There was a journal prompt the other day that I didn’t do: “if you saw your situation on television, what would you think? who would side with? what would your thoughts be about what you saw?”

And after watching the Haunting of Hill House, it made me not want to open up. I’m debating on whether to make this blog public again or just open it to people with a password. Seeing how Olivia and Nellie were treated and thought of after they committed suicide, or spoke about their ghosts, man… Talk about negative vibes and stigma on mental health.

Unless you’ve experienced it before, or have seen someone completely lose their mind while dealing with it, you shouldn’t get to have a say in what’s real or not. Because for us, it’s very real, and if that’s too much for you, then maybe it’s a good thing that we aren’t really friends.

physical manifestations of mental illness that get really annoying

I’m exhausted, guys. I feel like I’m running on fumes some days. Other days, it’s a miracle that I leave my bed. Every morning I wake up with a headache, and the feeling of my teeth rocking loose from all of the grinding and clenching I do at night. My neck hurts, my back hurts, everything hurts. And that’s just after me opening my eyes. Getting out of bed is a completely different story. My feet hit the ground and all I feel is sharp pain shooting up from my heels to my knees, and I can’t even walk on my left foot right away. I have to walk on the lateral side until by some miracle, my foot cracks into place.

But that’s just the physical manifestation of my initial wake. That doesn’t include the heaviness I feel on my chest. The pain that sits on me making it hard to breathe. Not to mention the dizziness and nausea that follows after I take my psychiatric medications. It’s like the entire world is toppling over, like I’m experiencing another bout of vertigo (absolutely no fun).

I think the worst thing right now is the immeasurable amount of tears I can cry when emotions flood over me. It happens out of nowhere. I could be completely fine, but once I zone out, that’s it - I’m overwhelmed.

I think I’ve finally reached my breaking point. Every triggering subject that’s come up lately has made it difficult to push memories back into that hidden box in my head. It’s honestly why I got rid of my Facebook, because the topics became too much to handle. It made it even worse when I realized some of my ‘friends’ thought that these things were worth joking about, or even seemed to condone some actions.

I hope this therapy works. I know it’s a long road ahead, but at least I’m on it, right?