NOTE TO READERS: ADULT CONTENT, TRIGGER WARNING (CHILDHOOD ABUSE)
I’m turning 70 this year, my stepfather/adopted father is long dead, and I don’t know why my subconscious is awakening this topic again. This sudden reappearance in a nightmare, seemingly out of nowhere, worries me. Am I a dormant volcano of repressed anger about to blow? I scared the crap out of my husband last night. I was screaming, and he couldn’t wake me. He finally even lightly slapped me, and next in desperation pulled me half up till I finally opened my eyes. Of course, I fought him, because he then became the assailant in my dream. He became my stepfather. I felt that reaction, and that scream, in my dream. It was not a scream of fear. It was a scream of shaking, erupting anger. In the dream I shook off his attempt to hold me to him, restrain me against my will, and I did so with a Hulk-ian reaction, my scream full of rage, my body with strength, my mind an inferno. Still, I’m crying instead of raging as I write this. It’s fucking irritating to me that I’m still bothered by childhood abuse. Still angry. I lived so many of my years growing up just trying to push it all down. Trying to find the bright side. Tamping down the anger. Hiding the truth from my mother. Wishing she’d care enough to notice. Gritting my teeth. Frustrated. Furious. Pretending. Laughing at them. Longing to be loved. Hating. Swallowing my loathing. Afraid. Brave. Ready to cry. Ready to scream. Ready to run. Wishing I was capable of violence. Glad that I wasn’t. But still wishing. I eventually confided in friends in high school. I told my first husband. Told my second husband. I’ve written about it, though only alluding to it, without any real details. I’ve written about it, in detail, in a memoir still in process. But it still seems to reside in me, hide in me, bide it’s time in me. It’s still a dark entity that can rise up like bile in my throat, slip like acrid smoke into my dreams and choke me. What do you do with all these feelings toward those who were supposed to love and take care of you? When everyone in your childhood let you down? Your mother, your father, your adoptive father/stepfather. Your grandfather died, your grandmother sighed. Every single one. Every single one either wasn’t there, didn’t care, or was the spider in our lair. My nightmare. #nightmare #abuse #childhoodabuse #baddream #memoir #metoo
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AuthorDonna J. Abear is the author of a children's play SPRUCEY, THE BLUE CHRISTMAS TREE, a memoir RELATIVELY CRIMINAL, and a humor book MOM…YOU’RE NOT NAKED, ARE YOU?. Married, mother of four, grandmother of two, and a “dog mom” too, she is living her dream in the Pacific Northwest among the trees and wildlife she loves. Archives
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