Vicious cycle of narcissistic parent abuse, childhood trauma and CPTSD nightmares

Hello my friends. Today in my journey to heal childhood trauma and CPTSD from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm really struggling. I'm exhausted all the time. And I guess it's no wonder. 61years of narcissistic abuse memories live in my trauma brain and haunt my dreams at night. It occurs to me that there is a vicious cycle of narcissistic abuse, childhood trauma and CPTSD nightmares. 

Why breaking the cycle is impossible

It's all well and fine to talk about simply breaking the cycle. But that's easier said than done as I "recycle" the trauma every night. Because childhood trauma is the gift that keeps on giving stress and taking peace of mind. And that stress originated with the chaotic dysfunction of narcissistic parent abuse. Narcissistic parent embed trauma responses in their children from infancy, maybe even from the womb. It doesn't stop in sleep. Trauma nightmares keep replaying the abuse. 

Trauma dreams repeat old and create new from it

My trauma brain has even "synthesized" new abusive situations to dream about. They replicate the old abuse patterns. They also generate version 2.0 trauma from these seemingly actual experiences. Say what you want about dreams not being real, they sure as hell feel that way. So I not only have trauma memories, I have trauma dream memories. And yep, it's all in my head, and I wish it weren't. 

Ignore platitudes from blind guides

This cycle-breaking of which we hear preached by social media influencers, life coaches, even therapists, is all kind of nonsensical to childhood trauma sufferers. These blind guides obviously haven't suffered from narcissistic abuse or they'd know that such platitudinal advice doesn't work.  I'd love to break free from of the memories and dreams, but they won't let ME GO! It would be easier to stop my cat meowing than to get them out of my head. 

So I'm preaching a new way. I'm learning to befriend my dreams and see them as wise teachers. I guess I'm using the Bloom's Taxonomy HOTS (higher order thinking skills) I write about so often on my education blog. I'm working to

• recognize the narcissistic abuse as memory not just dream
• see and hear what my nightmares are trying to show me
• analyze what I can learn from my dreams
• use the nightmare content to process what was done to me
• evaluate whether what I experienced was wrong based on what my dreams show
• apply the lessons to my life now

Example of my trauma nightmares

Here's an example of how I'm doing that from a dream I had the other night. I dreamed I was trying to shovel my grandparents driveway. But I kept  having to shovel other people's drive first. And then I had to rake their leaves because they were everywhere and I couldn't get to the ice below. Then I had to shovel the entire neighborhood, including streets. I had only a child-size rake and two small battered buckets to put all the leaves and snow in. When I finally got to grandparents' house, the street was walled in and ceilinged over with snow. Yet my grandparents' house was clear. I yelled in alarm for them to go inside where it was safe from all the snow. And when I looked around I saw that it was gone. 

They were in the garage with my parents who were the ones forcing me to clear all the snow. They were also making my very elderly grandmother care for their children. I took the baby from grandma because he was too heavy for her. And they had moved a lot of junk into the garage which was making it hard for everyone to get around. My dad snapped at me "what are you doing in here! Get back to work!" When I said there was no snow, he said I needed to help gram with the children and clean the garage.  There was a lot more going on (there always is in my dreams) but that's the gist. 

What my dream teaches me

What my dream was trying to help me visualize was that narcissistic parent demands were like an endless mountain of snow to move. The fact that it disappeared shows their gaslighting lies about all tasks being my responsibility that didn't even exist. The dream shows that buried deep in my mind is the feeling of having to rescue my grandparents, siblings, etc. And that they were victims too. The broken rake shows that they didn't even give me the proper tools for the job. 

All of this did happen. As a child, I had hours of housework, cooking and childcare heaped on me. I couldn't get my homework done on time or had to stay up late to do it. I was made to mop the floor on my hands and knees. And my narcissistic parents were always angry with me, and absolutely exploited my grandparents.