Recurring Nightmares

The name of the image above is “The Nightmare Hill.”  I think it’s beautiful.  I love gloom and a big harvest moon!  I wish my dreams were about Nightmare Hill!  Then I’d be sleeping much better I think…

I keep dreaming night after night that my old grade school sent me some letter saying that I need to go back for some classes or my 8th grade graduation will be rendered invalid.  Nevermind that I am 30 and graduated with honors from University of IL with a Bachelors in one of the Sciences.  I am told by the school principal and this creepy, bullyish teacher that all my education could be rendered invalid, because they didn’t teach me fractions thoroughly enough the first time I went to grade school.  They tell me I may never have a job again, because when prospective employers call my grade school to confirm I graduated, the grade school will tell them that I never did.  No freakin’ joke.

So, I end up in various classrooms at the old grade school being taught stuff I already know very well.  Sure, I admit that I didn’t learn much about math in grade school or even high school, but once I got to uni, I was tutoring my friends and making the top grades in my calculus classes.  It took some time for my math brain to turn on or something, but that shouldn’t mean that I have to go back to GRADE SCHOOL!!!  Anyhoo, I’m sitting in this little desk for kids and all my old classmates are there.  I went to a very small village school so that most of the kids I went to kindergarten with I also graduated 8th grade with.  I’m sitting in one of those swivel chairs attached to the desk and trying not to make eye contact with any of my old bullies. I’m trying not to piss of the teacher, so I can just get the heck out of there.  I want to know when I can get back to my normal life.

Normally, I don’t put a lot of effort into trying to understand my dreams.  I’ve also learned that when they are recurring like this and so disturbing to me that I wake up extra early in the morning even though I’m still very sleepy just to avoid more dreams – that it is time to dig deeper.

Last night, my dream even included a locker room scene before phys. ed.  None of my old clothes fit, so I refused to go play kickball.  This is a real frustration for me today.  I recently gained weight and most of my old stuff doesn’t fit.  If money weren’t so tight, I would order some cute stuff from Torid or go to that plus size store in the city I read about.  It does help me feel better to remember that there are clothes out there for me, even if the Gap or many of the average weighted stores don’t sell them.

Not having clothes that fit well and feel good is this big trigger for me.  I’ve posted before about how for much of my life I couldn’t find anything that fit and felt right.  My brain still defaults to the thinking that says that there simply are no clothes out there for me.  All designers hate me.  I am not even worthy of clothes… that is how ugly and lazy and stupid I am.  My brain is full of fun stuff, right?  Hah.

I suppose this is time to remind myself that there are clothes out there for me… for lots of sizes!  OMG… Torid’s stuff is SO CUTE!  I cannot wait to have some extra cash to splurge on some of their awesomeness!  And, for now anyway, Target’s plus-size section is working for me pretty well as far as pants and shorts go.  The words “plus size” used to bring up feelings of shame for me.  Nowadays, I think more about being extra awesome.  I have so many great qualities.  I am a darn spiffy person.  I deserve awesome clothes, darn it!  So, plus-size must be awesome then.  😉  See how that thinking works?

I believe some of my recent struggles with non-helpful thinking and dreams has to do with a change in meds.  Every time my ADD or anti-depressant med dosage changes, I go through a few weeks of nausea, fatigue, depression, weird dreams and old/icky thoughts coming back up in full force.  I think I see a light in the tunnel.  It’s been almost two weeks since my anti-dep dosage change and I feel myself stabilizing… which is good, because I had a week there where I felt pretty paranoid and had several days of feeling compelled to be invisible by not leaving the couch or doing anything that could bring attention to me.  Sigh.  A few days ago, the fog started receding and I’m enjoying doing stuff again.  But, wow… just two days in that state of mind can feel like TWO YEARS.  Time becomes warped.  Every second takes a week and every second is full of mental and physical anguish.  It’s heaps of fun.  I am one of those lucky people whose depression symptoms often manifests as physical pain.  My back hurt so much that it was hard to sleep for several days.  I feel like I’m just catching up on getting some better sleep now… I feel like I’m always trying to catch up on sleep.

What are the points of these various tangents?  I feel deep down that these struggles and frustrations are somehow liked to my dreams.  Last week was hard – very hard.  Maybe the insecure feelings that came up that week inspired memories of the other time of my life where I was so insecure that I was paralyzed – grade school.  I’ve noticed that challenging the waking thoughts that seem related to dreams can help the dreams go away more quickly… and I am SO SICK of going back to grade school where I was so bullied and alienated.  At least I have the good sense in my dreams to become angry at a ridiculous situation and try to fight back.  It always bugs me when (even if it’s just in dreams) that I just accept some bullshit like it’s okay and normal just because someone says it is.  It seems I’ve grown some background – even in my dreams.  I think that’s a good sign.

Before I fall asleep tonight, I’m going to rewrite my dreams a bit… where I leave that crazy grade-school and those people behind and live my life how I want to.  If they wanna go over fractions again – fine, but unless they want to pay me to teach the class (the only way I’d have any interest in it), I’m going on my merry way…

–AngryGrayRainbows