Tonight I dreamt. I have not dreamt in the longest time. I have feared the night I would dream again every day for the last 7 months.
Rewind.
Today I write a new blog. I have not written a blog in the longest time. I have not felt the need to write a blog for a single day in the last 7 months.
Rewind.
Seven months ago my dad died. At the time I convinced myself it did not really hit me that hard. Now, seven months later, I can finally admit it hit me like a ton of bricks dropped from a plane.
Rewind.
There is a lot of really, really bad history between me and my dad. He was not an easy person by any stretch of the imagination. A manic depressant for as long as I have known him, it was never easy for him to keep his feelings under control. With a history of suicide attempts, emotional instabilty and a complete lack of understanding for his condition by those close to him, his life was never an easy one. In turn, it was never easy for us. Extreme fits of rage and violence were instantly followed up by tear-stricken, hug-filled and guilt-fueled excuses. It was hard on everybody in our little family.
Here, I now choose to share my history. I do not write this as a cry for compassion or support. I do not write it to share my experiences so they can help others. I just write it because I feel a strong need to write about this right NOW, at 5:07 in the morning. I do not ask for any understanding, sympathy or anything else. I just need to free my heart of all this stuff.
Rewind.
After years of therapy, domestic violence and emotional anarchy, my mom finally had enough when I was 12. She filed for divorce, took me and my brother, who was 8 at the time, and left. Although this turned out to lead to an even worse situation for us down the line (which may or may not be covered in a different blog at a different time), at the time she divorced him with the best of intentions as she, rightfully, considered the situation at home to be a very unhealthy one. Both for herself and her kids.
Rewind.
My dad proceeded to migrate to Germany, got his depressions somewhat in check and build a not-to-unhappy life for himself there in the next 5 years. By that time, the situation at my mom's had deteriorated to the point where me and my stepdad where locked in the domestic equivalent of the Great War. After a particulary heavy incident involving a ton of broken furniture, a knife and a lot of other bad stuff I got half kicked-out-of-the-house/half send-to-live-with-my-dad.
Rewind.
At this point, my dad had been living alone in his house for years. He was completely used to the solitude and calm. I can see now it probably helped him keep his condition somewhat in check.
At the time tho, I just got out of a very violent situation. Empathy or calm were hardly my strongsuits at that time in my life. Naturally this, coupled with our past history of violence and fights led to a lot of friction between my dad and I. Which led to a lot of very emotionally charged outbursts and fights. Which led to my dad's carefully constructed equilibrium being cruelly shattered. Which led to even more emotionally charged fights and violence.
In the end, I ended up often spending days or weeks at a time at a friends house after he kicked me out for the umpteenth time, both me and my dad often had to go to school or work carrying the marks and bruises from our fights for all to see and in the end, and I am most definately very ashamed to admit this now, he even ended up spending several days in the hospital because I ruptured one of his kidneys in a fight. Offcourse, all of this led to me once again searching for new accomodation.
Rewind.
I decided to move away from both my parents and rented a little studio-appartement. Located between a brothel and a sex-shop it was hardly the most inspiring place to live. You could even go as far as to label it depressive. This is where the nightmares started. I used to wake up four or five times a night, often screaming, while reliving entire sequences that had played out in the years prior. Being 19 at the time, with almost no friends, I turned to the one thing that had always been able to get me through the worst parts of life: marihuana.
(For those of you who are reading this and are thinking: "Well there it is, you turned to drugs and that is never a solution.", I invite any and all of you to come live in a home where everybody is fighting everybody, both physically and psychologically, every single day for years at a time, during the formative years of your puberty. I am not making any excuses and take full responsability for the choice I made. I will readily admit, it was not the best of choices, but under the circumstances at that time, it was not like there were many options available.)
In the Netherlands the stuff is almost-legally obtainable and I had found out a few years earlier it allowed me to emotionally distance myself a bit from all the things that happend at home at that time. I had also discovered one of the side-effects of smoking marihuana in larger quantities is that it will allow you to skip your REM-sleep. For those of you who are wondering, this is the part of your sleep cycle in which we dream.
Rewind.
Over the next few years, I moved a couple of times, got my life back on track a couple of times, saw it derail again a couple of times and somehow found a way to supress most of the traumatic memories I had made earlier in life. At times, my life seemed almost normal. I attempted to quit smoking pot a couple of times, and on several occasions I actually did. Pot is not a very addictive drug, even in fairly large quantities and I had managed to curb my addiction to the point where I did smoke a lot of it, but I never smoked it before or during work, school of sportstraining. I never managed to completely kick it for a prolonged period of time tho, because whenever I quit for longer than a week the night terrors would return in full force. As you can probably imagine waking up 3 or 4 or 5 times a night with a heartrate of over 140 bpm is not contributing to a good nights sleep at all. And since I had to work everyday to pay for my rent and food and whatnot, this led to me relapsing again and again.
Rewind.
In the fall of 2011 I lost my job and decided it was finally time to confront and defeat my remaining personal demons. I moved back in with my dad in Germany, kicked my addiction and faced the music, so to speak. I just took it on the chin and suffered through night after night of nightmares. I still have the little journals I used to pen them away in. During this time I also sought out therapy, got diagnosed with PTSS-disorder and finally got some tips and handles to help me make sense of the messy memories that had haunted me for so long.
And behold, all this actually seemed to work !! With every nightterror I commited to the blank pages of my dreamdiary my nights seemed to finally quiet down a bit and over the course of 18 months I went from waking screaming 4-5 times a night to having a pretty normal sleep pattern. I still have the occasional nightmare, just like everybody does, but they are hardly comparable to the stuff I used to dream night in and night out.
Rewind.
During this time I had also moved back in with my mom, who had also gotten her life back in order over the past few years and married an A+ class guy she still shares her life with today. My dads depressant moods and spells conflicted with my therapy and my terror-filled nights obviously did not help him either.
I saw him very irregularly in 2013, often going months between visits and weeks between phonecalls. I guess we were both focussing on getting our respective minds and lives back in order.
In november of 2013 I finally landed a new, steady job. I had been working some freelance contracting jobs for a couple of months again at that point. But in November I finally managed to land a new, full-time job with some longterm perspective. I would start this job november 4th.
Rewind.
The last time I saw and spoke to my dad, was a 10-minute visit to pick up some shoes I needed for work. We talked bout how happy he was I was finally doing okay again, I told him I was happy he played an instrumental role in getting me to that point and he told me he felt it was a shame we did not talk of visited each other more often. I told him it was difficult for me, having just wrapped up some of the major issues in my life and still doing the therapy sessions at that time. I promised we would rekindle our contact and grow a stronger bond when I finished up the therapy in a few months time and left. I didnt speak to him again.
A month later, on december 7, he was found dead, lying in bed in his house. The exact date of death could not be determined. He could be dead for 12 hours or for several days. Nobody knows for sure. Nobody came to check up on him.
Rewind.
At this point, we are in januari of 2014 by now, three things happend.
First, I quit therapy, as I could not handle recounting the bad memories about my dad so close after his death.
Second, soon after his death the night terrors returned. This led to the third thing, as I relapsed right back into my old addiction.
This time tho, I was much better prepared to handle all these things. I focused on my job and shifted my attention from combat sports (which I have been doing for about 5 years now and have helped me tremendously on my journey) to yoga. This combination of yoga, meditation and work allowed me to get out of the dark place in my head in a few months time and get back on track. I have not dreamt since. I am very afraid I will dream again.
Rewind.
Tonight I dreamt. I have not dreamt in the longest time. I have feared the night I would dream again every day for the last 7 months. I fear I will dream about my dad. I fear I will dream about the bad things hidden in my memory again.
Today I dreamt. I dreamt about my dad. I relived a very specific evening at my dads place in Germany. This evening stems from the first time I used to live there with him, over 10 years ago. I shocked back to wakefullness at 04:56 this morning. Where is my dreamdiary ?? I need the dreamdairy !!
Rewind.
In my dream the house is dark. Its about 10 o'clock at night, somewhere in the late fall or winter of 2003. The only light is coming from the computer screen and the little lamp on the desk. Downstairs I faintly hear a voice talking about football. My dad is watching TV. I don't like watching sports. I like Call of Duty. While walking through a german tank factory, I see an axis soldier appear from between the tank-chassis ahead of me. Dropping down, I shoot him in the head with my Lee-Enfield No.4.
Frag.
Stalking further into the factory, I suddenly hear footsteps echo through my earphones. I try to turn around, but only manage to half-turn so I can just see the face of the axis soldier who just shot me with the MP40 submachinegun he is carrying.
Death.
Watching the kill-cam on my computer screen, I reach for my cup of instant chocolate-milk. Tropengold cacoa powder forthewin !! Shit, empty. Seeing as how the rest of my team is still alive (probably because they didn't decide to charge up the middle of the map on their own), I decide to head downstairs and get a refill. As I walk into the kitchen the TV sounds grow louder. The living room is dark, but for the faint, bleak light coming of the TV-screen. I see my dad lying under a plaid on the couch, sleeping.
He half-wakes when I walk into the kitches and start mixing up a new cup of chocolate-milk.
"Son, will you remember to put out the lights when you go to bed ??"
"Yeah, old man. I will."
"Okay. I'm going to bed in a bit. You can keep playing your game on the computer if you want. I hope you're having fun up there with your friends."
"Sure thing, dad. See you in the morning."
"Goodnight, son. See you in the morning."
As I head back upstairs, I close the kitchen door behind me.
Rewind
It is 04:56 in the morning. The date is June 29th, 2014. I will never see my dad again in the morning.
This is one of two realisations I am having since I just woke up after closing an imaginary kitchen door behind me.
The second realisation I am having is the fact I dreamt again. And I did not wake up screaming. My heart rate is normal. I am not bathing in my own sweat. And I just relived one of the rare peacefull memories I have of me and my dad.
Rewind.
I just saw my dad in my dream and it wasn't about the bad things in my memory.
I dreamt again.
I just saw my dad in my dream.
I hope I dream again soon.
I hope I dream again soon.
I am no longer afraid.
Thank you, dad.
