May 01st, 2020

  
My dad is dead.  Let me get that fact out of the way immediately.  Dead. He’s been dead for eight years now. I attended his funeral, touched the plaid vest of the last suit he bought for the last time before the gun metal grey casket closed and visit his grave when i feel i want or need to talk to him.  Still though, there are times in my waking times that my brain forgets.   

Never before has my sleeping brain forgotten his death.  I had a rough time of sleeping and the dreams presenting themselves did not help ease my brain into the rest I need.  I have to get better at sleeping. I think I was good at it for a short time, but I’m back to an erratic schedule of thoughts and meds, not to diminish the effect of a haphazard physical schedule.       

I have annoying vivid dreams.  The dreams started from a concussion.  Total PTSD and trauma dreams. I’ve done everything from medication and meditation to calm the dreams.  Even when the traumatic elements relax and the dreamy situations are not violent, it’s disturbing. At the very least, it’s annoying to remember my dreams. 

As someone with anxiety, my brain never shuts down.  When someone outside my head says something to my face, my brain dissects the message behind the words.  It’s like being assigned a research paper with every sentence spoken to me by both intellectuals and dullards.  I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted from my waking day and when my sleeping moments don’t allow a quiet space, I wind up running on empty.  

I suppose I knew this literal nightmare was coming.  Yesterday, I was feeling the burn under the skin on my wrist.  When I tried to ignore it, I scratched and picked until I realized I was trying to open myself for relief.  My skin has been prickley. My skin has been crying for me to tear it away from my body. This is not a new sensation.  It’s present frequently and I don’t mean to shock or alarm anyone. It’s part of the make-up of my mind. I have oiled and moisturized.  It is not a medical issue with my skin although I once had a doctor tell me a survival instinct of one who is malnourished is to rub or scratch at the skin to stimulate blood flow and thus move oxygen & nutrients through the body physically.  That may be going on; but even if it is, it’s still pretty crazy and my mind needs to deal with it.  

So the dream started with me in the house I loved in the neighborhood I adored with my children who had some needs that I could not meet.  My daughter needed to ride a bike but couldn’t figure out how to, first get it out the house and on the street, and then she was too clumsy to figure how to hold the bike so the tires met the ground.   In her hands, she juggled energy drinks, water and vitamins with chatter about how she has figured out what works for her. She handed me broken toys and shoes that she found outside the door and when I asked what I was to do with these things, she cried and screamed that she didn’t know.  I vividly felt helpless. I startled awake and hated my brain.    

When I fell back to sleep, I found myself walking in a supermarket where there was open food everywhere and I was trying to find a sink at which I could wash my hands.  There were many people who knew me and I seemed to have known them, even if I didn’t address them by name. There were a great deal of distractions where I was pulled from one thing to another and never made it to a sink.  Knowing I couldn’t wash my hands, my mission was then to leave the store, but it was difficult finding the exit. When I did find the exit, I couldn’t find my dad who I knew was to be waiting for me. I was pulled into a room which led to a facility with walls the shade of pepto bismal pink.  One of my favorite people was with me. I do not know her role in the facility, but she was leading me through the rooms which triggered a whole bunch of anxiety and I knew I had to stay, but wanted nothing more than to go. I found words written on a wall and stopped to say the words, “I left this the last time I was here.”  I was then told I was never in that room before. Although I can recall this pink facility part of my dreams, I cannot share it. It was way too extreme for me to revisit. But after a few instances of waking in sweat, I finally slept again and was led to my dad lying on the floor of a beautiful room and was asked to clean up after him.  “He’s your responsibility,” I was told by a dismissive attendant. Again, I felt helpless. I didn’t know what I was to do. I went to work changing sheets on the bed and another attendant asked me what the odd smell was in the room. I blamed my dad. He smelled like dirty work clothes and stale cigarettes; but the smell that I vividly smelled in my dream was not like the aroma from my childhood.  It was awful. I don’t even know an odor to which I can liken it for comparison. At any rate, this second attendant, who demanded what the smell was, stripped off my clothes smelling my body, accusing me of the stink. I was speechless and silently crying. When I was completely exposed with a half folded sheet still in my hands, I whimpered, “it’s my dad.” My dad smells bad. She insisted I lied.  My dad was not in the room and the odd and intensifying smell had to be me, although she could not find exactly where from my body it was exuding. It was humiliating and intense. And then she yelled at me over and over again that I didn’t have a dad and he’s dead and I would never see him again. I woke up with the need to prove that he is alive still. I was disoriented and literally got my phone to call my mom and ask her if my dad was sick.  

I didn’t make that call.  I remembered his death. I remember touching his skin the last day in hospice.  I remember a nurse coming to find if I needed another cup of coffee while I sat crying with his body.  I remember that vest and the coffin and the plot that was topped with a marble and brass headstone sinking into the earth and the nickels I leave every time I sit in the grass and have just one more coffee with my dad.

So this morning, I am sitting and crying.  Not because I miss my dad, not because of all the trauma associated with the moving pictures in my sleepy head.  I’m crying because the level of exhaustion my mind feels is indescribable. I know I’m never going to be normal. I have become comfortable with admitting that I have mental illness, either by nurture or nature.  But it’s so much to be crazy. It took me a long time to understand that not everyone is. I honestly thought that some were just better at hiding the struggles they had with their brains. I’m struggling right now.  And as I said, I should have seen it coming.  

I don’t know what the dream means.  I don’t care. I mean, I wrote it all out and it’s not really as cryptic as some.  Nonetheless, I’m exhausted from dreaming hard. I’m exhausted from brain activity. I want it to shut off.  I want a break from my head. I’m tired.