Fuck you, brain.

[digitaldiscipline]

Few non-traumatic things suck as much as not knowing what's real. 

In the darkness before my alarm went off at six this morning, I lay awake in bed, alternately chilled and sweating, thinking that my life, the one I have here with all of you, wasn't just a lie, but didn't even exist, and was merely the last fevered and febrile imaginings of my subconscious before I was going to wake up and spend the next six months in jail for some trivial car-related issue.

"What should I put on the return address card for them to send my personal effects?  My parents' address?  What if they move?  My address?  Why do I keep mis-spelling it?  It doesn't matter.... if I can't work for that long, the mortgage won't get paid, and it won't be my house anymore.  I need to move the car.  And roll up the windows."

Anxiety is one thing, but waking up in my bed was no respite - my brain was more than half convinced that this was an escapist fantasy from that awful reality, and even talking it through with K barely took the edge off.  I'm still a little creeped out by it.

But, man... going through life, convinced that it isn't real... I can see why some folks need to be institutionalized.  I like to think I'm rational and objective, but that was incredibly fucked up.

[also, an excuse to use a newly-stolen icon, which will replace the me-as-a-south-park-character]

Comments

[dark-angel-nic.livejournal.com]

Sounds awful!

[ladysoleil.livejournal.com]

meep. That is a particularly horrible one, I've had a variant or two on that one.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

K had one where I wanted to leave her; put her on edge for days. Blech.

[fenixinthedark.livejournal.com]

I know this variety of nightmare.

I once dreamt that someone had abducted my kid. I awoke to a heartrate that could have killed me if it had gone on too long, and the only thing that could calm me was going in, seeing her and then bringing her to sleep in my bed with me (for several nights).

Sometimes, the mind is every bit as vivid in its imaginings as reality. I just wish it would pick something like a trip to fecking Hawaii once in a blinking while!!

[kat1031.livejournal.com]

Blerg. I've been through those. I'm also lucky enough to have night terrors, although those have gotten blissfully less frequent as I've gotten older.

I've woken up with the sense that someone was in the house, trying to kill me. I had to open every closed thing in the house. Even cabinets and drawers that were way to small for anyone to hide in. And all the while, the rational part of my mind is saying "you've finally slipped, havne't you?" and the irrational part of my mind was saying "AHHHHHHHHHHHAAHAHAHITSGOINGTOGETMEGETMEGETMEGETMEAHHHHHHHH!!!" which really only made my rational mind more terrified that I was never going to stop.

[mighty-man.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I have nightmares almost every night. Not too much shit bothers me anymore.

But who's to say that we don't belong to someone else's nightmare and we're just doing the talking behind the scenes. It's pretty darn amazing what your brain can whip up on the fly, yet, you can't answer half the questions on your test.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Normal nightmares, like being chased and eaten by an alligator, I can deal with. Watching Kim nearly get eaten by sharks - sucky but dealable.

Waking up and thinking "this is only an artifical escape from something that well and truly sucks" was a new and unpleasant experience.

[mighty-man.livejournal.com]

At least you've got someone to hash it out with. I wake up, get some water and head back to bed.