Bipolar 2 From Inside and Out

Posts tagged ‘dreams’

Releasing Old Ghosts

I don’t know what the proper term is (exorcise? banish? reject?), probably because I don’t believe in ghosts. What I do believe in are memories – persons and situations that haunt you, follow you, and inhabit your dreams.

I’ve had my share, especially of the dreams sort.

When I first got out of a truly destructive relationship, I was undiagnosed with bipolar disorder, medicated with valium (prescribed for temporomandibular joint syndrome) and self-medicated with wine. I was not in good shape.

For a long while, anything associated with that harrowing relationship, I shunned. Rex had like blue spruce trees. I avoided them. He had collected cobalt blue glassware. I could barely stand to look at them. He gave me heart-shaped boxes as gifts. I threw away every one I had, even the ones that were actually pretty and useful. He shamed me for my cooking. I gave it up. I gave up things I enjoyed, things that had been part of me. And I didn’t allow myself to explore things that Rex once loved.

He haunted me. I would have dreams in which I was going to meet him, where I was in a place I knew he might show up. I dreamed I was in his house, with cheerful parties going on around me as I panicked. I would have flashbacks to cruel things he had said, such as an obscene song he had written “in my honor.” Times when he said I had “betrayed his honor” for something as simple as cooking the wrong dish for a gathering. Plenty of others.

Now, it seems, the dreams have faded. I have reclaimed parts of my life I used to enjoy. I have banished things that were only his obsessions. The flashbacks are nearly gone.

What has helped me banish these destructive ghosts?

Time, of course, though you’d be surprised how many years it took. And it was gradual. He didn’t vanish from my brain like a puff of smoke. At times I still remembered music in particular – festivals and concerts we had been to together, the obscene song. (As I write this, they come bubbling up again.)

People. A few even from the time that the relationship was going on, who have helped me realize that I should not have been there, that I should not have gone through what I did, that I should have left sooner. I treasure these people. They saw me at my worst, knew me as I was recovering, and are still my friends today.

Other people – friends I had from long before Rex – have steadfastly remained in or reappeared in my life. I may have been bipolar and undiagnosed when I knew them, but these people stood by me, put up with my mood swings and odd behaviors. They have been part of my support system. And new friends, who have no association with those times, but who have had similar feelings and experiences.

Psychiatrists and therapists – also important parts of my support system for all these years. Ones who diagnosed my illness and medicated me properly so that I could deal with the issues that remained. Ones who helped me realize that I had some good memories from those times, that I could rebuild myself by retaining anything that I liked, that I had tools and techniques that I could develop and use to help me do that. I had done bargello needlework for Rex. I switched to cross-stitch. He called the kind of music I liked shit. I delved even further into it, reveled in it. Having developed a love of cats when I lived with him, I’ve never been without one again.

Love. One of the people I met during the next-to-last weekend of my time with Rex is now my husband. He has been with me through the dreams, the flashbacks, and the memories and has been the mainstay of my support system. And there are other people I love, and who have loved me back.

It seems strange that I was with Rex only a little over a year and it has taken me decades to work to this point where the memories have faded, the ghosts no longer haunt me, when it all seems like simply a bad time that has receded into, if not oblivion, at least only a clog that has slowly been removed from my psychological plumbing.

Now I know the right word. It’s time to flush those ghosts that plug up our mental and emotional systems.

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Mental Health

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Disaster in Dreams

On May 27th, our house was destroyed by a tornado. I was on the second floor of the building at the time and the roof came off. I emerged without a scratch.

On June 12th, I had my first dream about the tornado.

Up until then, I had been coping with the disaster, putting one foot in front of the other, dealing with what must be dealt with, eating the elephant one bite at a time. Now, it appears, my disorder or my subconscious has caught up with me.

As is typical with dreams, there are both similarities and differences with real life. As for the similarities, the dream took place in a wooden building and I was on the second floor. I wasn’t wearing shoes at the time. (In the dream I was looking for a pair of boots that fit me. In real life, I was able to slip on a pair of shoes before the rescuers ordered me out.)

But there were significant differences. In the dream, I was not in my house but in a riding stable that shows up on occasion in my various dream landscapes. I was waiting for a horse to ride, which may have been related to my desire to escape.

In real life, I had little to no knowledge that the tornado was coming. I heard about it with no time to get downstairs to a safe place. I put a pillow over my head and hoped for the best. I was alone when the roof blew off.

In the dream, I knew that the tornado was coming. I could see it through a window or maybe through a skylight (which is what our great room became).

The biggest difference, though, is that in the dream I was terrified. I panicked. I screamed. There may have been someone there with me in the dream, but no one who could help me. In real life, I was alone, though rather calm, but as soon as he could, my husband came for me and then the rescue squad came for us both.

I’m not a Freudian when it comes to interpreting dreams and in this case, I didn’t have to be. It was frighteningly literal. Clearly, my conscious mind had fed my subconscious mind all the details it needed to recreate the event in a slightly altered but basically straightforward form.

I had been proud of myself for keepin’ on keepin’ on, doing the things that had to be done. But by the time the dream hit, the mundane details were 90 percent taken care of. We were in a residential hotel instead of a shelter. Our cats, who also survived (there was a part of the dream about missing cats), were with us. The insurance company and rental agents and salvage people were on the job and on the spot. My husband was keeping track of physical details while I worked the phones and the bureaucracy. A friend remarked how well I was handling it all, without having the breakdown everyone including me had expected.

Since that dream, I’ve been more troubled by phenomena like wind, thunder, and lightning. There is less coping to do to distract me and my disorder takes over. Even as I write this, there are high winds and I worry about the hotel’s roof blowing off. (We are on the top floor, which may have been a bad idea. They said it was the “quietest” floor.)

I’ve also had a bad-hotel-experience dream which was almost amusing in its details but seems to me to be a symptom of a deeper disquiet with our current living situation.

My husband and I are not on the same page with all this. His memories reside in things much more than mine do and I cannot be entirely sympathetic with his grief over the losses we suffered. To me, we rebuild and refurnish and salvage what we can and let go of the rest. He’s had his meltdowns too, though he remains solicitous of mine. As far as I know, his dreams are untroubled, though his daily life is, to the extent that he’s considering seeing a therapist. (A local college is offering free counseling to tornado victims – or survivors, however you prefer to think about it.)

I do not like the loss of my composure. I do not like the dreams or the fact that I am having them. I have expected them but was still not ready for them to come. I’m now having trouble getting to sleep at night.

I know this was inevitable but I do not like it. I’m lucky that it held off long enough for me to function effectively. I wonder how long it will be with me. Other traumas I have suffered have recurred in my dreams for literally decades. I hope this one is different.

 

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