You want to know the weirdest part of it all?
I don’t have nightmares about the actual abuse experience. I was in a full blown disassociative fugue for the worst of the actual experience.
The part that I have flashbacks over is this: the times when I have neglected my children because I was triggered into a dissociative state or was in the throes of my addiction du jour …
as a result of the abuse.
I return to myself and–with a shock that goes through me from chest to groin, like when you think you’ve lost your hold in mountain climbing*–i realize that I have forgotten someone at the store or bank or bus stop or preschool.
Oh how I hate that feeling.
That’s what I have nightmares about.
Just keepin it real here. I am not the only parent who has let themselves and their kids down because of mental illness or addictions…so if I can help one person, then I have added good to the world 🌎.
(That’s the 12th step from AA, baby!)
Isn’t that what it’s all about? 🌻🌻
*from a sentence I read in Perelandra by CS Lewis
