When I’m feeling stressed one of the ways my body let’s me know I’m stressed out is by having stress dreams. These dreams for me are specific kinds of dreams that only occur when I’m stressed.
Stress dreams are so stressful. I know that sounds so very obvious. They bring up old feels that are hard to shake off; which just leads to more stress when you can’t shake it off. For me, my stress dreams usually follow certain types of themes. They leave me feeling more tired the next day. As though I really didn’t get to sleep.
It’s never fun to relive old childhood feelings that leave you feeling:
>Ignored
>Vulnerable
>Not a priority
>Not wanted
>Invisible
>Feeling as though you can do nothing right.
>Etc.
The two biggest themes for me is no one listening to me while I try to worn them about my abuser; and family members deciding to choose my abuser over me. In reality my family was supportive of me when I told them about the abuse. However, there were many times growing up where I felt dismissed and unwanted. I think deep down I felt expendable growing up. There was certainly times in the beginning of my healing journey where I felt my abuse was not allowed to be about what I went through but was about how it affected my mom. My family focused on her and expected me to pick-up the pieces and put her back together.
I wasn’t allowed to express my feelings growing up so now they come out in these dreams. In these dreams I am able to express my anger and frustration. To speak up for myself and to give myself a voice. I get to decide what my boundaries are. While these are positive things they tend to be overshadowed by the negative feelings that come with these dreams.
Stress dreams leave me feeling unheard, betrayed, cast aside, and the lingering feeling of something being inherently wrong with me. Since in these dreams I’m unable to get anyone to listen to me or to choose me over my abuser; I wake up feeling all those negative emotions I had growing up. These things are hard for me to shake off.
Sometimes I just get tired of feeling broken, and as though there is just something inherently wrong with me. It’s hard to shake these feelings off. I feel fine most of the time. However, when I start having these stress dreams they really affect how I feel about myself, and it usually takes some time for me to shake it off after these stress dreams stop.
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