Hi friends. As I go along this journey of healing from CPTSD (complex or childhood post traumatic stress disorder) I learn new things every day. Last night, I had a dream (nightmare) which demonstrated one of the weirdest and most devastating aftershocks of childhood abandonment, endangerment and neglect by my four dark tetrad parents.
First of all, let me explain that I dream a lot: every night all night long, very disturbing, frightening dreams. Chaotic dreams of being responsible for many people, in dangerous, overwhelming situation. I wake up crying out, feeling like I'm strangling, I once almost suffocated myself because my face was pressed in the pillow and sleep paralysis made me unable to move. I could sleep for 12 hours and not feel rested.
Most of my dreams involve being responsible for many children while also being expected to do all kinds of housework, chores, cooking, laundry, etc. The environment is always filthy, broken down and unsafe. These, my husband pointed out, are probably more in the nature of memories. Pretty much all the housework was put on me as a kid. I was parentified and made to care for my parents, their two new spouses and all their children. I didn't get proper medical care. I have serious back damage from doing heavy work too young.
My parents have neglected and endangered me all my life. At times, they've randomly abandoned me. I was dumped at a summer camp and and then with strangers (in Alaska, 4000 miles from my family) at six. I was a latchkey kid at 8, before there was a word for it. I was left home alone all summer once. I have wandered alone in strange cities not knowing where my parents were. I was playing alone in a park two blocks from home at four
Scary, abusive and sexually off people were put in my life. Some slept in my room. I have lived in very sketchy situations including being transient with parents and sleeping on the floor or on unheated porches. I was kicked out of the house at 16 and had to fend as best I could. I know this sounds made up. I wish it was.
That all changed when I got married. Life was consistent and good. We never had much but it was clean and safe for our children. My husband loved me and was always there for me. The children had what they needed and I took good care of them. At least I think I did. My dreams tell another story and that's what's so weird and disturbing.
In my dreams, I'm the one neglecting my children. But I don't know how it happens. I mean that all of a sudden, a baby appears which is my own. But I haven't nursed her or held her for weeks. I don't know where she came from or who has been caring for her. It's not like she was lost. It's more like I was and only just found myself. I'm confused, anxious and very worried. This happens in other dreams with various children of different ages.
I'm not caring for them because I don't know where they are. Then there are the dreams of having large groups of kids I'm trying to care for. Terrifying things happen to them. They get abducted, lost, badly injured, fall off cliffs or drown. I'm working so hard to protect them and they still get hurt. Sometimes it's one of my grandchildren or children. Sometimes kids I don't know. My husband says I'm always waking up looking for the children.
I wake up completely bewildered. It takes me about 10 minutes to come into reality. But in the back of my mind, the fears lurk. Did it happen? Is there a baby needing me? Have I abandoned my children? If so WHERE ARE THEY?? And the dreams, while not completely repetitive are always similar. They don't go away and become part of my memory bank. I have often said I have more nightmare memories than actual memories.
So I think part of it stems from the loss of two stillborn daughters. I will always grieve them. But I think it might be little me that I'm grieving too. I think my mind can't wrap itself around how my parents could so endanger, abandon and neglect me. And then with equally callous disregard, make me be responsible to them for all they didn't do for me. How they could endanger AND exploit, neglect me and expect me to serve them. That's the definition of dark tetrad, I've learned. But I didn't know it then.
I think my child brain can't accept that they were not safe, loving, nurturing parents but threats and slavedrivers. The very people who were supposed to keep me safe not only didn't but purposely put me in harm's way. I think my inner child can't process how afraid and helpless I felt. So I think my dreams cast me as the neglectful parent because this I can do something about.
My inner child knows, I think, that if I was her parent, I would not have allowed these terrible things to happen to her. I would have kept her safe. I wouldn't have put her in such awful situations it the first place. And if accidents happened I'd have been there to do my damnedest to rescue her. I would have cared.
And you know, I've got to say, it's pretty pathetic not only that I had to endure such frightening things alone but also that I have to relive them each night as the perpetrator. The ones who should be nightmaring all night are my parents. But such is the paradoxical dilemma of childhood trauma. Literally the definition of shit and shoved in it.
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