The Story of Josh Part Forty Six: I think I may have PTSD
When I woke up the next morning Joe’s mom took me aside and asked me if everything was OK. I asked her what she meant and he said that it sounded like I was having some really bad dreams the night before. I sigh and tell her that I am sorry. I have had bad dreams since I was a kid and that I didn’t mean to bother anyone.
She takes me aside and sets me down in the kitchen. After making coffee she asks me to tell her about them. When I seem reluctant she reminds me who her husband and son are and tells me that nightmares are nothing new to her.
I guess that it is time to explain the dreams.
As always this is a therapy session and it appears that yet another doctor is in again.
I have always had bad dreams. I have talked about them here before and I think that the creative nature of my personality it is probably a price that I would have to pay regardless for my art.
Christ that sounds pretentious as fuck.
But it is true, some of the best ideas that I have ever had have come from my dreams. More importantly the more graphic and frightening dreams, along with the more erotic, have always been a key that has opened new paths in my imagination. But there are subsets of dreams that have always served to keep me grounded in the horrors of my past.
You all know I was raped as a child and I am not going to rehash that story or give some people a reason to accuse me of trying to get sympathy. But I think people are really quick to discount how that has affected me. I am not sure if it is because I am a man, or if it is because I kept it inside for so long and managed to seem functional during that period. Or if it is because they think I am a fucking liar. In the end it doesn’t matter, it has in some ways damaged me to the point where some things will never be “Normal” in my life relative to others.
But that in no way means that I can’t be happy.
Ever since those days when I was a child I have had dreams. They have been the dreams that have wakened me in the dead of the night gasping and choking back tears and screams. Sometimes the dreams have been crystal clear and I can see him, sell him, and feel him. But other times they have been nebulous and ghostly. Either way they have tormented me for almost twenty years of my life.
That all changed this summer.
One of the reasons that started all of this was the dreams. Yes I have been delving into all of my issues in this series of essays and yes I have covered some things that have made people mad. But in the end it has all been worth it because I have been feeling the results. I have been happier, I have been calmer, I have been more productive, I have been freer with my feelings and opinions, and maybe most importantly I have been sleeping better.
Before June I was having the dream at least once a week. When I would have it I would keep it to myself, the last thing that I wanted to do was to push that nightmare onto my wife even peripherally. She had said repeatedly that she wants me to wake her but it’s just not something I can do, I have felt that I deserve to suffer for not being able to stop what happened to me.
I understand that that sounds ridiculous but in my mind this is all my fault I am a male and nobody should have been able to do that to me, I should have fought that mother fucker. I should have found something sharp and jammed it into his fucking throat. I should have waited till he was asleep and burned his house to the ground with him in it.
Instead I just took it and cried.
After I told the story, a story by the way that my family has known the broad strokes of since I was 17, I felt better. I felt, and most of the time I still feel, that a great burden had been lightened. But I knew that it would NEVER be gone. Since the night that I posted the essay about my assault my dreams of that experience have been tame.
Until last night.
Last night I woke at three in the morning gasping for breath with a scream in the back of my throat and sweat coating my body. Even with my eyes open and the air heaving in and out of my lungs I could still smell the beer on his breath … I could still feel the burning. I did not wake Karen, I did not make any noise, and instead I went into the bathroom and threw up in the toilet. A dream has not done that to me in years.
In some ways I think I got my hopes up that this was over. I need to accept that it never will be.
Joe’s mom gets up and hugs me.
“It was never your fault” she says.
I cry.
That’s all I want to say today, this session is over and the doctor is out.
She takes me aside and sets me down in the kitchen. After making coffee she asks me to tell her about them. When I seem reluctant she reminds me who her husband and son are and tells me that nightmares are nothing new to her.
I guess that it is time to explain the dreams.
As always this is a therapy session and it appears that yet another doctor is in again.
I have always had bad dreams. I have talked about them here before and I think that the creative nature of my personality it is probably a price that I would have to pay regardless for my art.
Christ that sounds pretentious as fuck.
But it is true, some of the best ideas that I have ever had have come from my dreams. More importantly the more graphic and frightening dreams, along with the more erotic, have always been a key that has opened new paths in my imagination. But there are subsets of dreams that have always served to keep me grounded in the horrors of my past.
You all know I was raped as a child and I am not going to rehash that story or give some people a reason to accuse me of trying to get sympathy. But I think people are really quick to discount how that has affected me. I am not sure if it is because I am a man, or if it is because I kept it inside for so long and managed to seem functional during that period. Or if it is because they think I am a fucking liar. In the end it doesn’t matter, it has in some ways damaged me to the point where some things will never be “Normal” in my life relative to others.
But that in no way means that I can’t be happy.
Ever since those days when I was a child I have had dreams. They have been the dreams that have wakened me in the dead of the night gasping and choking back tears and screams. Sometimes the dreams have been crystal clear and I can see him, sell him, and feel him. But other times they have been nebulous and ghostly. Either way they have tormented me for almost twenty years of my life.
That all changed this summer.
One of the reasons that started all of this was the dreams. Yes I have been delving into all of my issues in this series of essays and yes I have covered some things that have made people mad. But in the end it has all been worth it because I have been feeling the results. I have been happier, I have been calmer, I have been more productive, I have been freer with my feelings and opinions, and maybe most importantly I have been sleeping better.
Before June I was having the dream at least once a week. When I would have it I would keep it to myself, the last thing that I wanted to do was to push that nightmare onto my wife even peripherally. She had said repeatedly that she wants me to wake her but it’s just not something I can do, I have felt that I deserve to suffer for not being able to stop what happened to me.
I understand that that sounds ridiculous but in my mind this is all my fault I am a male and nobody should have been able to do that to me, I should have fought that mother fucker. I should have found something sharp and jammed it into his fucking throat. I should have waited till he was asleep and burned his house to the ground with him in it.
Instead I just took it and cried.
After I told the story, a story by the way that my family has known the broad strokes of since I was 17, I felt better. I felt, and most of the time I still feel, that a great burden had been lightened. But I knew that it would NEVER be gone. Since the night that I posted the essay about my assault my dreams of that experience have been tame.
Until last night.
Last night I woke at three in the morning gasping for breath with a scream in the back of my throat and sweat coating my body. Even with my eyes open and the air heaving in and out of my lungs I could still smell the beer on his breath … I could still feel the burning. I did not wake Karen, I did not make any noise, and instead I went into the bathroom and threw up in the toilet. A dream has not done that to me in years.
In some ways I think I got my hopes up that this was over. I need to accept that it never will be.
Joe’s mom gets up and hugs me.
“It was never your fault” she says.
I cry.
That’s all I want to say today, this session is over and the doctor is out.
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