I’ve started keeping a written journal as of a week ago. The main reasons for the journal are to experiment with my daily outlook and possibly get rid of the nightmares I’ve been having. At the end of the night, I’ll sit at my table with pen in hand and write about my day. Putting all my thoughts down, I save my favorite part of the day for last.
I’ve found, if I do this every night, I’m only thinking of positive things and I’ll have pleasant dreams. If I miss a night, like last night, my dreams wander. They turn sour and I wake up wanting to resist falling back into a deep sleep. I’ve woken myself up crying before, which is something I prefer not to have to go through if I can help it.
My worst dreams are mostly flashbacks of when I was in fifth grade and my mother’s boyfriend at the time had been doing not so kind things to me while everyone else was sleeping. I still go to therapy for this, though it’s more of a band-aid affect than anything else.
I’m not able to put into words the feelings of terror and helplessness that arise every time these flashbacks happen, but I can tell you how I’m trying to deal with the problem. My journal has been helping calm my racing mind. My therapist helps pull out everything I’m experiencing with an unbiased person, which she keeps completely confidential.
When I don’t happen to make it to a therapy session for a few weeks, my anxiety builds up and I start to trust people less. There was a point in my life when I couldn’t let anyone give me a hug, even my brother. I was afraid of someone trying to hurt me again, even though there were other people around and it would have been in plain view of said people.
As I got older, I realized most people weren’t going to hurt me like that for no reason and I started to trust others again. It was a slow process, but eventually I started to feel almost like my normal old self again. Then enters my now ex. He ruined a lot of things for me and I’ll not go into detail.
After him, my therapy sessions came at a more frequent rate. He wouldn’t allow me to go to therapy while I was with him and it changed me. My best friend came to visit me over one of the Christmas breaks a few years back and cried while telling me that I’m not the same person who I was. I’d became a shadow of who I was, and it was breaking her heart. She begged me to leave him, which I had been trying to do, I just didn’t have it in me at that time.
I felt like I couldn’t breathe all the time, having to look over my shoulder, behind doors, and in the shadows just to make sure no one was there. It was a relief to finally be rid of him, though my anxiety was through the roof. Then, I found my new therapist and things slowly got better again.
I’m at a point, now, where I can assess a situation and either fight or run, depending on different variables. I carry mace at all times, a pocket knife whenever it’s legal, and have become more vocal and assertive in order to protect myself. I’ve made the choice to enroll my daughter in self-defense classes as soon as she is old enough to participate.
I won’t be sending her to a daycare or a babysitter who isn’t a close and trusted personal-friend, because I can’t take the chance of her going through the same things that I did. It would kill me. I have a plan to keep her safe, which I’ve also written in my journal.
The small notebook helps me feel a little saner, holding my thoughts and allowing me to read through my entries and put pieces of a puzzle together later. I love life, but not some of the unfortunate things that happen in it. I’m going to keep on working toward my goals, hopefully getting to a point where I don’t need to see my therapist anymore.
