I guess this is not going to be the week for restful sleep! I am shaking after awakening from the following dream:
I had to paint a very detailed statue (think Nativity scene but not religious in any way), and I am doing it to replicate a complex statue that my mother painted when she was younger. (My mother and sister are both talented with painting, sketching, and drawing. I can barely draw a stick figure. As a child, my mother would have the three of us paint statues as childhood activities.) I can see my mother’s, and it is beautiful. Mine, not so much (which would be true if I actually tried to do this real life).
There were many facets to the statue, including several bananas. I was wearing very nice clothing and did not want to get paint on it, but I was sure I could do this messy job without getting messy myself. My mother was there, and I was painting in my church’s parking lot (the church that I attend today).
Some people from my church came to help unload our baggage. We had a lot – both my mother and me – but they were only taking my stuff into the church (which was where I was apparently staying for some reason). I needed to put the statue away before I could help, and I didn’t want anyone touching my “essential” baggage (very large navy blue suitcase on wheels) because it had everything I needed even if all of the other baggage was “lost.”
My mother’s baggage was being unloaded to go to a man’s house. In real life, she has apparently been having a chaste friendship with a man for a couple of years – he wants more but she doesn’t, and my sister thinks he is using his relationship with her as a cover (she has many theories – he is gay, a serial rapist, etc., and needs to appear to have a girlfriend as a “cover”). I haven’t met the man, so I have no idea. I can only tell you that my mother is mentally ill, poor, and claims to despise sex, so I question the motives of any man chasing her.
Back to the dream…All of these church people are taking her baggage over to go to this guy’s house where they are going to live together without getting married. I was really bothered by this. Different people that I knew from high school walked by without acknowledging me. I went up to my Sunday School teacher and asked him why the church was being supportive and helpful of my mother choosing to “live in sin” when a church (not my church) kicked out someone my age for “living in sin” with her boyfriend. He said it’s different for my mother.
Then, these judgmental people came to move the rest of the baggage and took my “essential bag.” I told them I could take it myself, but they threw it in a cart with some other things. I followed them because I wasn’t going to let the bag out of my sight. They said that I was the one holding my mother back – that she wanted to marry the man but wouldn’t as long as I was not in her life. They were supporting her in doing “wrong” because she could not do “right” due to my choice to keep her out of my life.
I felt guilty and thought about whether I should reconcile with her. Then, I got angry because all of these people were judging me, and I was not the cause of the problem. I thought about the things that my mother did to me throughout my childhood, and I became angrier as these people kept pulling the cart with my essential baggage in it. Then, I woke up shaking.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
You are processing 24/7. Where can you find some soothe?
Faith, in many churches and religions (even if not in yours in particular), there is this mandate that says you must forgive (and the implied and unspoken definition of such is usually harmful to survivors). Taken with the dreams from the last post, especially the part about the girlfriend who changed her phone number and the basic theme of betrayal, it makes me wonder. Did you hear something recently that would have triggered some harmful definition of forgiveness in your unconscious? If so, I urge you to remember that even Jesus got angry when he turned over the tables of the money changers operating in the temple on the sabbath. He even promised horrible ruin and torment for those who dared to harm children. To me, this does not mesh with a pacifistic and re-traumatizing definition of a concept like forgiveness. You owe her nothing, honey. Nothing. Don’t let the dysfunctional definitions of others run undetected through your heart.
I may be way off base here in my thinking about your dreams, but YOU are not off base. You are doing the best you can do and trying very hard to do the right thing for healing. You’re going to be okay, Faith. I believe in you and I know the answers are inside you. And I KNOW you owe your mother NOTHING. Don’t feel guilty, honey. She is the one who should feel that. If she is too selfish, defensive or unconscious to do that, that still doesn’t mean that you owe her anything. Your therapist was right about staying out of her head. She is obviously committed to continuing to bat for the other team (the pedos and their often willfully unconscious protectors). Be on the side of the child who lives inside you. You are her champion. Would you have pity for this woman if she had done to YOUR SON what she did to you? I highly doubt it from what I know of you. Care for yourself this way, too. Be on your side. You don’t have to be in your mother’s head. Be in yours and tell her to screw off.
Wow. I agree with aggiemonday, you have some serious processing going on right now. Everyone seems to be having holiday trouble as far as this time of year triggering people across the globe! I feel so bad for you and I agree that you should find something soothing to do to give yourself a break. Would taking a nap make a difference ie: would you dream like this while taking a short nap? Not getting a good nights sleep is not going to help the situation. I know how bad dreams can be especially when they are serving the purpose of telling you things that are going on inside, or things you weren’t aware of feeling or bringing up nasty situations. It’s terrible because people or situations you can avoid in real life, catch up to you in dreams and you can’t avoid them. I’m so sorry
Please find something restful or peaceful that you enjoy that can take your mind off of this for a while (if that feels right to you). If you’re going to dream about this stuff then maybe you can try to make yourslef happy during the day to get some balance 
I know that horrible feeling that can stay with you after you wake up froma disturbing dream and I hope it goes away quickly for you…
You do seem to be doing heavy duty processing. The good thing about that is that something will get worked through. You do need some rest time though.
I’m not going to get into heavy dream interpretation here, but a couple of thoughts stand out to me, and both are about the subject of ambivalence. You have previously expressed a sense of dissonance about knowing what your mom did to you and needing to not have her in your life, but also knowing your other is mentally ill and doesn’t even remember her abusiveness.
The word forgiveness also brings up lots of ambivalence. Since it is often interpreted as “letting the other person off the hook” or somehow saying it is OK. Of course that is not really what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is about self care, “letting yourself off the hook”- refusing to continue letting the abuser affect your life beyond what they already did by their direct actions at the time. As Gerald May talks about in “Addiction and Grace” that the flip side of addiction is aversion- both indicate a type of attachment and are not actually freedom. In regard to the relationship with your mom this would imply that feeling you owe her anything is addiction, but feeling aversive to her is obviously aversion. Freedom is being able to choose whether there is contact with her or not- not just because you are triggered one way or the other. “Triggers” are by nature attachment (addiction) or aversion because they involve a strong emotion with a subsequent impulse of some kind.
There is also the ambivalence (dissonance) in your feelings about your mom being supported by the church for living with a man, where other people have been punished by the church for such things.
As far as the woman in the dream telling you it was your fault that your mom couldn’t do right, that of course is absurd, it is not your fault, but I wonder if you have your own doubts (ambivalence) about how your stance in relationship to your mom affects her.
Dialectics would ask the question of what is overarching (transcendant) of the polarities. At what level can the polarities be part of the same picture. That usually helps in dealing with ambivalence (disonnance) because they are no longer seen as being in a tug of war with each other- they can coexist within the same framework and both be true.
i.e. yes my mother did horrific things to me and I want no connection to her because of that, and yes, my mother is mentally ill and is on her own journey. Both are true. They can sit within the same space and not have to fight with each other.
I go through these types of struggles; worrying about the way people are viewing what I am choosing to do, because I know that they do not really understand and from the outside looking in, I can see how sometimes my choices, such as choosing to distance myself from someone, may seem unjust or harsh to them. That’s when I have to put blinders on and do my best to ignore what other people may think.
I can also see your child-self, feeling the responsibility for your mothers happiness. That’s when you have to remind yourself that you can never make her happy. It never was your responsibility. She would be the way she is regardless of whether you were there or not. And you changing your position that you have taken, so that you can heal, will not make any difference in your mothers life. It will only weaken you.
I am not sure what essential baggage that you feel is being taken and controlled by others. But it is definitely something to journal about and search out.
I am praying for you!
Thank you all. Again, all of you have given me so much to think about!
I, too, am curious about what is in the “essential baggage” that is in the control of others. I only knew that it was really important and mine. It should not have been in anyone else’s hands.
Unfortunately, resting during the day is not an option. It is looking like inclement weather tomorrow (my usual “day off”), which means my kid will likely be home from school. Then, he only has a half-day on Friday and is off for the next two weeks. I can’t rest when my ADHD child is home. Alas! So, I am trying to knock out all that I can today before I am potentially on “mom duty” close to 24/7 through the end of the year.
Back to my mother/abuser — I did send her a Christmas card (my first contact with her since the Spring), and she sent me a Christmas card. She tried to get my sister to help her invite herself to my house for Christmas, but my sister said no before she ever told me about it, and I was yelling, “H@#$ no!!” before she even got the story out of her mouth. So, maybe that is part of why I am processing stuff about her right now.
- Faith
You have said before that your mom in mentally ill and possibly suicidal. Because of that you don’t feel right confronting her about how she treated you and your sister for fear she will melt down. I totally understand that… however, that still implies that she has some kind of influence in your life and you are not free to make the choices you may want to make and totally cut yourself loose from her. And that could be part of the internal conflict going on for you.
I remember when people used to say how wonderful my dad was, and in many ways he was, but he was also mentally ill and it was hard as hell to live with him. I always felt like I had to suck it up, especially around others and could not tell the truth. It could be that your mom and the people in her life conjure up old feelings of powerlessness.
All that combined with her pushiness and not respecting your boundaries, etc… I can see how that might give a person nightmares.
Wishing you peace and rest,
mia
I wonder if your essential baggage has to do with your right to set the boundaries you need to stay safe. In the dream, it’s guilt trips from the judgmental church people and your mother that steal your baggage away.