Something that I think is common to Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse is nightmares. Nightmares containing terrifying images that I have been told are indirectly linked to the abuse.
I’ve had these nightmares on and off for as long as I can remember. There is always a recurring theme – I am being chased by something or someone that I fear, but cannot see. It is unclear what the danger is, but I know that if it catches up with me, my life is over.
In these nightmares, sometimes I am flying, but not like a bird. I am actually swimming through the sky, but the air is thick and I have to fight with every stroke. I can see my home below me, with Alex’s house next door, but the only place that feels safe is the tree that stood on the boundary between the two houses. A great big flamboyant tree that I spent hours climbing as a child. Why this tree represents a safe haven, I have no idea, although I have thought about it often and tried out different scenarios in my head.
I’ve considered the fact that the feeling of safety that I attach to that tree is because Alex never climbed it. Or maybe it is because it is clearly visible from both houses. One day I might find out whether there is any significance to this, but for now it is just a mystery.
In this nightmare, I cannot land anywhere because the ground is absolutely heaving with snakes. Thousands of them, everywhere I look. All waiting for me to just get close enough for them to reach me. The writhing makes my skin crawl and probably explains my fear of snakes. It isn’t until very recently that I have managed to overcome my fear of snakes and my inability to even look at a picture of a snake in a book.
Other times in the nightmare I am running, but again I am fighting resistance from the air. Generally though, when I am running, I am not on my own – my parents and my brother are with me too, as much at risk as I am. But they don’t seem to know that we are in danger. I have never been able to figure out why they run with me, but am only thankful that they do. As the nightmare progresses, each of them are caught leaving me running on my own.
In the running nightmares though, I always end up at the edge of a cliff, with nothing below me and only danger behind me. I have nowhere to go. At this point, I always wake up.
As strange as it sounds, I prefer the running nightmare to the flying nightmare. At least with the running nightmare, once I wake up it is over. I am left terrified and shaking, but I know it is over.
This is the major difference with the flying nightmare. Because over the years I have learnt that when I wake up it is not over! I know that the second I close my eyes, even as I am just drifting back into the world of sleep, I will also re-enter the world of the nightmare. It just picks up right where it left off.
I go through periods when these nightmares are constant, every night, over and over again. So my solution? Don’t go to sleep.
Just as I have become very good at hiding how I feel, I have also learnt to stay awake. For days and even weeks at a time. I’ve taught myself to catnap during the day, even for ten minutes and this enables me to stay awake through the night. My most recent bout of nightmares lasted nearly eight weeks.
Unfortunately, there is a side effect to keeping myself awake for so long – when the fatigue reaches a point where I can no longer function properly during the day, my body will not allow me to sleep. Try as I might, all I do is toss and turn. It is a vicious circle.
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