Nightmares - Parents Are In My Nightmares - Page 2

bob · #11 06-12-2006, 08:29 PM

Sorry that sounded a bit aggressive. What I meant to say is that I've already received a diagnosis of complex PTSD from a qualified doctor. There is a whole bunch of stuff I haven't mentioned to you like being beaten up, mugged, seeing people killed. I didn't come here for a second diagnosis, I came here to talk.

bob · #12 06-12-2006, 10:43 PM

OK here is some more information, this is something I posted on another forum:

Quote:

I don't want this to be a "poor me" thread but I'm really struggling and it would help to put some of this down on paper, as it were. I've been diagnosed with PTSD, this is just really about how I got into such a state.

My mum and dad have always been pretty absent. My mum's parents abandoned her when she was in single figures. Her dad left and her mum died, she was left living with her Aunt and felt she had to "look after" her younger sister. Needless to say it left her emotionally scarred. My mum had post natal depression after me and my sister as well as her ongoing problems, so there was probably an attachment problem from the begninning. She was always a bit emotionally absent, although she was there physically it felt like she was elsewhere. My dad used to come home from work and pass out in front of the telly. Mum and dad used to fight a lot and they both used to beat me. They used to banish me to bedroom a lot and sometimes come up and beat me. They also called me names like "useless" and "waste of space" quite often. One time I was sitting on a grass bank outside my friend's house with three friends when my dad came and punched me in the face, giving me a black eye. I don't remember what I'd done to deserve it. There's a huge rift in my family, I haven't spoken to my sister for some years and I can't stand to be around my parents.

At school I was bullied from the age of about 9 to about 15. I was a misfit kind of kid, my appearance was unusual, I didn't have the trendy clothes of my friends and usually had a silly haircut. I was also pretty socially inept. A group of kids used to wait outside the shool gates to kick me off my bike. In school the would surround me and call me names, and take pleasure from humiliating me in whatever possible. I was punched and kicked and held down and beaten, had snow rubbed in my face, chewing gum put in my hair. Sometimes kids who I thought were my friends would join in with the bullies, which hurt more than anything else.

Around the village I lived in older kids would bully me, shouting names at me, surrounding me and beating me up. Nowhere was a safe place for, everywhere I went I was scared and nervous.

I was expelled from school at 16 for drugs and generally misbehaving. It was a good school, my parents were very angry with me. I was then expelled from another school soon after.

When I was 16 my girlfriend left me for one of the kids that used to bully me. I got wrecked on drugs and alcohol one night and her mum found me lying in the road wrecked and took me home. My parents locked me in my bedroom. I jumped out the window and ran away, I was running up a dual carriageway a few miles from home when my sister appeared in a car and took me home.

My best friend at the time messed up on drugs and ended up in hostipal long term with a mental illness, drugged up to the eyeballs. I went to see him and it scared the wotsits out of me, he was really out of it.

When I was 17 or so I was arrested by the police. They drove me 10 miles to the station. There were two policemen. One was driving, the other one was in the back with me. He held my hands up behind my back in cuffs and was punching me repeatly around the back of the head and the back and ribs. They were both mocking and laughing at me while I was crying. One of them was a senior officer and I made a complaint, nothing came of it. The assh*le caught up with me on my bike sometime after, he stopped the car and he threatened me. I don't think I can ever trust police again.

When I was 18 my parents threw me out. I spent a night in january sleeping rough in woodland without a coat and almost got hyperthermia. I went to college the next day trying to hold back the tears, a filthy mess. Then I wandered round the streets for a week or so until they let me back in. I don't remember it much, I was drunk and stoned.

I was sitting outside a pub once when one of the locals thought it would be fun to come out and beat the crap out of me, smashing my head against a wall. Another time my "friends" turned on me and one of them hit me over the head with a big spanner, making a bloody mess. Another time I was drunk and offered a big schoolkid out for a fight, he knocked me out with a single punch and his ring cause a big gash by my eye, then he slammed my head in a door. Another time I saw my friend beaten almost to death by two thugs with a baseball bat. His head was pouring with blood. Then I saw a woman run over and killed by a bus, blood pouring out of her head and her poor kid screaming. I was mugged once and almost a second time. Some of these smaller traumatic events I have somehow been unable to come to terms with.

I have recurring nightmares about my family that have been going on for 20 years or so. The nightmares vary but one theme had remained constant throughout:- I'm trying to communicate with my parents in some way and they are not listening. Typically I am screaming at one or both of them trying to make them understand something. I get more and more upset and sometimes wake up shouting and sweating. I have these nightmares at least once per week, sometimes as much as 3 times per night. In my awake state I also have violent fantasies. They can be brought on by stress, sometimes stress at work, sometimes by drivers cutting me up when I'm on my bike. You get the picture.

And so I have PTSD from a number of traumatic events over some years.

I have ongoing problems with self-esteem. The low self-esteem comes from being bullied and abused and from the memories of bad things I have seen and done. I have used drugs on and off for some years. Sometimes I have a bad day and things get really heavy, I start crying uncontrollably or get very angry or suicidal or have violent fantasies. It's very intrusive and hard to deal with.

Well that's me, warts and all. It's not a very pretty picture but I'm doing my best to make things better in the future, although struggling some in the process.

I would add to that that I very much have PTSD and am struggling with the symptoms daily, please no more doubt about that.

Nam · #13 07-12-2006, 03:25 AM

Hi Bob. You've gone through a crap load in life thus far. It seems that you had no place where you felt like you belong. I hope here, you find that place.

I am not a doctor or a dream analyzer, but I think your dreams are telling you something significant. You said it yourself that it seems you can't communicate with your parents. Once we get this emotional issue out of you, hopefully you can begin on the other traumas.

I did an exercise at one point during my therapy. I was given up for adoption at the age of five, and there were so many things I wanted to say to my birthmom. Painful questions that I wanted to ask. She lives in a different country with a different language..so basically unreachable. My therapist suggested that I write her a letter. She most certainly never will receive it, but I got my feelings down on paper. I started it just like so....

Dear Birthmom,

You could write one separately, one for mom, and one for dad. I think this might help you resolve some of your feelings and maybe get a decent night's rest. Take care..

veiled · #14 07-12-2006, 05:18 AM

He was only trying to help based on the info you gave, now that you have given more info the better the support can be. No one here claims to be a doc, just we have this too and try to offer support, suggest things that work for us. No one doubted you anywhere I am aware of... that just goes back to little info of what is happening where to help. But you fixed that up real quick.

Do like so many others here... Take what helps you and your situation and leave the rest.

Dreams carry so much emotion and yours really scream anger. Yeah, I know took a rocket scientist to figure that one out. Have your parents been on your mind heavily more than usual prior to these starting up? Anything else in life causing anger currently? Your post in themself show you have a lot of anger.

Really working through your issues and understanding what ever it is you are currently facing in life effects the nightmares, the emotions in them, and their frequency.

Can you see any where that your anger is being increased in day to day life and why? Is it maybe the holidays? They are hard to handle for a lot of us. Anything happen before around this time of year that pulled so much anger up?

Sometimes it is obvious and sometimes you have to really dig to resolve the issue to lead to a calmer nights sleep.

bob · #15 07-12-2006, 06:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by veiled

He was only trying to help based on the info you gave, now that you have given more info the better the support can be. No one here claims to be a doc, just we have this too and try to offer support, suggest things that work for us.

Yes! It's just that I'm hypersensitive and hypervigilant (these are symptoms of PTSD, right?). I guess I felt criticised in a way, almost like being attacked. But these feelings are irrational as I realise now, and I feel sorry for being irrational and abrupt in my post.

I suppose I also push away people who try to help me as I find it hard to talk about my problems or even think about them. I don't want to push people away.

I will read through the rest of your comment.

bob · #16 07-12-2006, 07:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by veiled

He was only trying to help based on the info you gave, now that you have given more info the better the support can be. No one here claims to be a doc, just we have this too and try to offer support, suggest things that work for us. No one doubted you anywhere I am aware of... that just goes back to little info of what is happening where to help. But you fixed that up real quick.

Do like so many others here... Take what helps you and your situation and leave the rest.

Dreams carry so much emotion and yours really scream anger. Yeah, I know took a rocket scientist to figure that one out. Have your parents been on your mind heavily more than usual prior to these starting up? Anything else in life causing anger currently? Your post in themself show you have a lot of anger.

Yes my parents have been on my mind. I have had altercations with both of them recently. I am not in contact with them at the moment, for the last couple of months.

Quote:

Originally Posted by veiled

Really working through your issues and understanding what ever it is you are currently facing in life effects the nightmares, the emotions in them, and their frequency.

Can you see any where that your anger is being increased in day to day life and why? Is it maybe the holidays? They are hard to handle for a lot of us. Anything happen before around this time of year that pulled so much anger up?

I've been having nightmares for a few years now. The subject has been changing, they're almost always to to do with family now, or at least thats how it seems. Maybe I have just become more aware of them, but I have always had nightmares about my family, even going back to my childhood from 8 or 9 years or possibly younger. I find I also forget the nightmares quickly and have trouble recalling them, although they are very real at the time.

There are a number of sources of stress and worry in my life. My job, money, my relationship with my parents, the state of my house, the usual stuff. These have been fairly constant for a while, apart from the recent altercations with my parents as I mentioned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by veiled

Sometimes it is obvious and sometimes you have to really dig to resolve the issue to lead to a calmer nights sleep.

Well it would seem the issue is with my family, but I'm not sure how to stop the nightmares. I can't seem to resolve my feelings by talking them. Talking to them almost invariably leaves me feeling frustrated and angry, or at least a little tired and anxious. I think the best strategy is for me to ignore them and try to work through my issues with my counsellor, who I started with one session ago.

bob · #17 07-12-2006, 07:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nam

Dear Birthmom,

You could write one separately, one for mom, and one for dad. I think this might help you resolve some of your feelings and maybe get a decent night's rest. Take care..

Thanks for the tip. I actually use that whenever I can't sleep and I'm feeling angry at my parents after a row or a nightmare. I find it helps quite a lot. At the moment I'm not getting too much insomia due to getting lots of exercise, but when I fall asleep I often have nightmares. Getting back to sleep again is not too hard, but I'm left feeling tired in the morning (and sometimes exhausted when I have nightmares for nights on end) due to all the brain activity that has been going on in my nightmares.

veiled · #18 07-12-2006, 07:38 AM

Only you know if a break from them would do you good... And it sounds like that may be just what you need. Do they know you have PTSD? Do they know they are a contributer? Is this the cause of the fight?

Some times the anger makes us so blind to what we are really feeling. There is a list of emotions in the information section... Look into it and see if you can find the emotions in relation to your parents from the past and present and see how you are really feeling that is fueling the anger. Once you see them and acknowledge them it may bring you some relief. Write out how it makes you feel each of those emotions and why you have that emotion. You will see a more wounded soul than a truly angered one.

For me and my experience I dodge my mom at every chance and live hundreds of miles away for good reason. She is teetering on being cut off. But being a parent it is hard to do.

My dad on the other hand I put on the chopping block about 5 years ago and am so much better for it. It was what I had to do to move forward. Because all those emotions they kept causing, kept hurting me, kept wounding me, kept fueling my rage.

I have so much more peace when my dad was cut off from me. I don't have to deal with BS drama of that side of the family. My mom, again I said she is teetering... I am unsure what to do with her yet, but she is trying from I gather to learn about PTSD. She is pressing me as how I got it. She is a dumbass, she knows and she knowingly put me in harms way to go out and get drunk. So I haven't blurted it or gone in a rage, but my cell phone does conviently lose its signal! I barely see her, at the most once a year.

I had some weird nightmares pop up about my dad a while back, all I had to do that round was discuss problems again, the emotions behind it and how he made me feel, like I just needed to air it. Then they went back to the old normal rape ones I get when overly stressed! Still working on a couple of those myself. But working through a lot of my emotional states with that has brought me relief. I hope it can for you.

I don't write all my nightmares, if I did I would dwell on it all day and a sure fire way for more to follow, I forget most of mine fairly quick (I like that) and it is the emotions that are harder to shake some times I have no recall just would wake in panic. But I think if you work on those emotions it may bring you some relief... Ease your anger.

anonymous · #19 07-12-2006, 11:41 AM

I have nightmares every night so I can relate. Hope you sleep well.:sleeping:

anthony · #20 07-12-2006, 05:20 PM

Hi Bob,

Sorry, I was not out to offend you or attack you, just trying to work on what you had provided. As veiled stated above, you cleared that up by providing a bigger picture. If I knew this, I would not have eluded to hopefully not having PTSD. I say this too people, because I would not wish this upon anyone, even my worst enemies in life. I will say, I think you have suffered an endless amount of shit, and no wonder you have been diagnosed with complex PTSD.

Bob, nightmares are a residual effect off your trauma. Nothing more, nothing less. We have nightmares because we fear our trauma. That is what a nightmare is, dreaming of something we fear. So the obvious solution to this, is to work at your trauma. By healing our trauma, we in turn heal most of our symptoms at the same time. Why? Because it is our trauma that feeds PTSD. Remove the past trauma, and PTSD can only feed from what we provide it in our present, and future events. This is fact, not fiction.

I would love to give you a solution to help you with your nightmares, but honestly, there isn't one. You can do breathing exercises, relaxation, blah blah blah... all bandaids, none of which work long term, and that is also factual. The only true way in which to stop nightmares, is by doing the extremely hard yards by tackling your trauma head on. You must pull your trauma apart in order to understand it, reason with it, remove guilt from it, accept it, remove fear... If you no longer fear your past, you no longer have nightmares, you no longer have sleep issues, you no longer have memory issues, and the long list goes on.