Hello my friends. Today in my journey to heal from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm taking a closer look and listen to my dreams because I think they have lessons to reveal. Here are shocking things my dreams are teaching me. For background, I experienced abuse, neglect, endangerment, parentification, abandonment, exploitation, invalidation, scapegoating, bullying and gaslighting about it all by four narcissistic parents (two bio, two step) all my life. Literally, to their deaths, they continued and continue to torment. That's a malignant narcissist for you.
Also, for context, I don't dream like normal people, occasionally and kind of vague. Mine are shockingly intense, terrifying, exhausting, bizarre, complicated and continual. I dream every night multiple times. I wake more tired than when I went to bed. I have done this for as long as I can remember. None of my dreams are peaceful and are all more nightmare than anything.
So that in itself teaches me that I have CPTSD (complex post traumatic stress disorder), dreams and nightmares being a manifestation of PTSD and CPTSD. My brain has been damaged by narcissistic parent abuse. From infancy I was indoctrinated in their cult of selfish, arrogant, hypocritical, cruel, Machiavellian double standards. Right was wrong for me and wrong was right for them. They enmeshed in me, stole my identity and coerced me into enslavement to them.
They owed me nothing, they said, while I owed them everything. By them, I mean both parents, their new partners and all their children. By nothing and everything, I mean just that. Basic care was not given me, including food, safety, parental care, clothing, a roof over my head, a proper bed. I was forced to co-sleep with their children as if I was the parent. I was lied to, stolen from, cheated and conned all my life. Self-care was selfish, I was taught. My duty was abject groveling, dogged obedience and selfless service with no thought for me. God expected all this of me. It was all I deserved, they said.
And in my dreams, I replay these experiences every night. But what has confused me for so long is that they aren't direct memory dreams. They are weird new scenarios with faces and places changed. But the feelings they induce are the same. And that is a huge learning curve for me. That what I'm dreaming is a reenactment of past traumas. I never saw that till, after having told my husband of yet another disturbing dream, he said "those are memories." Like the shell-shocked soldier, my mind goes back to my own personal Battle of the Somme, every night.
I'm also learning that what I experienced was so caustically toxic that it scarred my brain. And that it really was as terrible as I DON'T recall. Or maybe I should say didn't recall for the longest time. My memories are kind of a jumble sale of clutter with no order or system. I've been auto-gaslighting myself and defending their actions for so long that I've been able to compress memories into little manageable bricks. And thereby stack them to create a tidy firewall around my memory.
But when exposed, these blocks explode into ginormous uncontrollable, messy all-encompassing nightmares. Which my dreams both expose and are composed of. All the ick and goo and trauma and crazy just come apart in my dreams. And I'm completely and unilaterally and categorically overwhelmed by them. Just like I always was overwhelmed by in real life. But by ignoring the pain I was able to somehow navigate. Again, like a soldier who survives in battle what is unimaginable in real life. And because it's unthinkable, he rehashes it nightly in dreams, endlessly trying to make sense of the senseless brutality.
Because our core, muscle memory remembers. And our dreams care about us. They want us to avoid what hurts and heal from past hurt. They provide the clarity that our gaslit minds cannot see. They show us what really happened, how bad it really was and how incredibly awful we felt and still feel about it. My dreams are trying to teach me what I need to know to come to grips with trauma.
And what do my dreams show me? A lifetime lived in servitude, coercive control, belittling, bullying, irrational demands, dangerous expectations and abuse by narcissistic parents. In my dreams, as in life, I'm ALWAYS overburdened with work put on me by others. I'm having to clean people's homes, care for countless children, cook for them, and do countless confusing tasks that no one has even explained just expected me to know. I'm in unfamiliar, scary, unsafe, unsanitary, filthy, horrible places trying to do all this. Night after night, I dream that a child is hurt or killed on my watch because I can't be in all the places or do all the things they expect me to be or do. It always happens before I even realize that I'm supposed to be caring for them.
It is so overwhelmingly confusing and exhausting that I can't even begin to describe. I don't have words just unbearable feeling. It wearies me just thinking about it. It's like a movie in fast forward and I'm hurtling through one awful experience after another, under the control of many unfamiliar people all of whom have an endless list of commands and are always upset and angry with me. There's never an ending, with any closure or completion, just on to the next list of strange demands.
And I am always, always ALWAYS kowtowing, obeying and trying desperately to do whatever it is they want. And failing. And it is always hurting me. I'm apologizing and feeling so ashamed and guilty. I wake up sweating, cringing, screaming, crying, whimpering and terrified. And I realize that this is because, like the soldier, I am reliving each night, the chaos and horror. And the hell they called Suvla Bay, I called home. Like my husband said. These aren't dreams. They are memories. And I see that, after pulling my hands off my eyes and out of my ears, he's right. I dream chaos because I never lived anything but chaos.
Having said all that, there is one ray of hope in this Pandora's Box. Since he said that, I've been looking at my dreams more closely. The dreams aren't getting less stressful but they are getting clearer. I'm actually able to remember the events instead of just the chaos. I'm more able to trace back and see where they are coming from. I'm digging down to the roots under the surface. And I'm seeing how narcissistic parent abuse conditioned me to behave and how my dreams are begging me to see the abuse behind them. They are also making me see that the dreams aren't what is so bizarre. It's my actual life that was so disturbing. The dreams are just dramatized recreations with actors portraying my real experiences.
So here's an example. In last night's dream which is very pattern to my other dreams just with different places and faces, I was told to do something by someone I didn't know. And I did it unquestioningly. Didn't know 'em from Adam but was perfectly willing to line up and sign up for whatever they said. Story of my life.
In this dream, a random man told me to watch his random children and handed me three dollars saying that's what he'd pay me. But also that I had to use it for the kids' lunch. No specified time he'd be back, where he was going or why in God's name I should take care of his kids. And he left me in an unknown city with unknown kids to feed on three dollars. I was totally bewildered, worried sick and helpless. I had left my car and cellphone behind for whatever reason and was trying to take all these little kids on a bike.
But in this dream, unlike the others, I was not alone. A woman suddenly appeared out of nowhere (people do that a lot in my dreams) and asked why I was taking care of kids I didn't know. And why I agreed to do it for 3 bucks. Then she showed me that one dollar was actually just a coupon for some store. So two bucks. And I thought to myself. Hmm, good question. Why am I? Well, for one thing, if I walk away, who will take care of the kids? Then the friend said: That's not your problem. They're his kids. You can leave. It's your dream and not real. And, still feeling very guilty, I...did. And they just disappeared and then I woke up.
This is a pivotal difference in my dreams for several reasons. This friend's appearance interrupted the usual cycle of events. Normally, whoever it was that told me to do the impossible thing would return randomly and be furious that I hadn't done whatever impossible thing he expected. I would be accused of being selfish, unreliable, abusive, arrogant, all manner of bad things. There would be no one to speak up for me to him. To tell him he was out of line and if he wanted an impossible task done he could do it himself. Because no one ever did in my real life. No one corrected my narcissistic parents when they made irrational demands and then character assassinated me. And when no one defends you, you believe that it's all true.
But because someone showed up for me, the father figure did not come back. Did not attack me. My dream showed me that he wouldn't because he was afraid of exposure. Someone would see his actions and set me straight. And that is something narcissist parent bullies wilt under--their child having a champion. Someone who sees the shit the parents are doing and isn't afraid to call it out. Thank you, God, for truth tellers.
Upon waking, I still felt the shame and confusion. But I was able to connect the dots back to all the times I have done just that. Rolled over. Catered to. Danced attendance upon. Whatever I am told, no matter how impossible or crazy dangerous it is to me. I don't even think about it. I comply. That is one of my trauma responses, give in and give them what they want. At any personal cost. Like the stranger who told me to watch his kids. Not asked. Told. I realize I was rarely if ever, asked to do things. I sometimes wasn't even told. I was EXPECTED to divine what they wanted and do it. Like a bloody mind reader.
But now, this dream has created a chink that I can see through. Maybe not perfectly clearly, however there is a light at the end that I can move toward. A way out. A reprieve. Like the mysterious friend said, they're my dreams. And they're just dreams. They were my reality but they are not anymore. I can do what I want. I don't owe anyone anything, least of all blind obedience to hurtful, exploitative, cruel people.
So this would be a good place to end this post. But I do just have to reiterate one thing and that is how bogglingly extreme this feeling of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) is, both in dreams and real life. And what that teaches me is that I am not irresponsible, unreliable, immature, selfish, etc. I am too reliable. Too mature. Too dependable. Too others-centered. I think it's also telling that the most terrifying thing to me, about my dreams is that something will happen to the people I'm supposed to be caring for. If I'm so neglectful and selfish why is their safety my first concern? Why am I so reluctant to leave kids untended, even in my dreams?
What that says to me is that maybe, the real abusive, manipulative, irresponsible, selfish and dangerous people were the ones coercing me into doing all these impossible and inappropriate tasks in the first place. And maybe that I was the only one who actually cared about and for their children. And that's why I still feel endlessly responsible for kids that only exist in my mind. Maybe I have an extra dose of integrity that makes me try to keep them safe from their own parents.
And at the bottom of it all, at the very root, is the one child I was never able to keep safe. And that little girl is me. It's just possible that the children in my dreams represent all the ages of younger me, who was in constant danger, through narcissistic parent neglect, abuse and abandonment. Maybe that's why walking away feels so frightening to me. It's me walking out on myself.
So the friend was right as far as it went. I don't have to do whatever someone else tells me to do, on their terms. I can choose to but also set my own terms. I DON'T OWE ANYONE ELSE ANYTHING AND I NEVER DID. But I do owe me. They owed me and never paid up. They just took and took, much more than I ever gave. And now how I'm going to set about making up to little Marilisa, for all that was taken from her, I have no idea.
But I do feel like I've gotten some traction from the realizations today, at least.
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