Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had a bunch of dreams moving from bizarre to disturbing.
Cam had a starring role in the first one. It was about a strange form of TPN Christmas party clearly held in the northern hemisphere as evidenced by all the snow and during the gift-giving part of the evening a serving plate (gift for Cam) turned into a gravy boat whilst I simultaneously discovered that I was naked. I then procured some clothing and we got chatting about moleskines and productivity… as you do!
The second was somewhat less strange and more disturbing. Basically there were two guys tasing me. I can’t remember much more than fear and pain.
The third had me waking in a cold sweat shaking. To explain why it was so disturbing for me I’ll have to give you a little history but I’ll get to that later. The dream was simple and I don’t remember any details but someone was standing over me with a sharp blade making long, shallow cuts in my skin.
Now for the history.
I used to cut. I don’t remember when self-harm started, I’d been doing it since I was a child but the first time I actually used a blade and made a long, shallow cut down my arm was a turning point for me. It was when I was around 13 and thats when it became an irresistible urge. Cutting is an addiction like any other. Like many alcoholics drowning their sorrows with whatever spirit is on hand I did it so I didn’t have to feel. When life got too painful to bear I would lock myself in my room and drag a blade across my skin until the blood carried my pain away.
I’ve stopped that now. When Colin met me he told me never to do that again. I stopped for a while, a good few months. Then one argument with a teacher at school pushed me over and I cut deeper than I ever had on my upper thigh. I probably should have had stitches there was no way I was going into hospital. Colin did what he could to treat the wounds and to calm me down and I finally felt safe and realised that I didn’t need to cut any more and I haven’t since. Thats not to say that I haven’t wanted to, but I’ve resisted it.
So to dream about someone cutting me is like a recovering heroin junkie dreaming about someone forcing them to take a hit. Shook me up a little.
Anyways enough of my self-indulgent rambling.
You may be curious as to why I group these three dreams together. They’re the only dreams I’ve had in the past month. So its strange that they should all be about vulnerability.
Tags: Cutting, Self+Harm, Nightmare, Dream, Taser, Self+Mutilation, Depression
Miriam Parkinson 
The cutting is interesting. I’ve only done that once. And it wasn’t with a blade. It was with a rubber band. One of those large red rubber bands. During a particularly tumultuous break-up I flicked myself in the fleshy part of the top of my hand between the thumb and forefinger with the rubber band under I bled profusely. The physical pain distracted me for a while from the emotional pain. But the emotional pain always comes back. What do you do now to deal with the emotional pain?
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To a certain extent I don’t. It’s not really healthy but its better than scarring myself up any further. Pain has been my release for as long as I can remember so its hard to move on from. Colin helps me a lot though.
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I respect the fact that you have talked about yourself so honestly.Personally, I have had my own torments as we all have and I deal with those as best I can. It gets easier as I get older and I learn that it matters less what others think. I worry a lot about what people think about me and being accepted. Basic human need I guess.Weird I hardly ever remember my dreams. I think it is because I don’t sleep much – about 4-6 hours a night if I am lucky.
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Nowadays I let emotional pain wash through me, with a little help from Pink Floyd – played loud! But really I don’t get so much pain these days, since after much counselling I discovered that feeling emotional pain was a choice I made, so I essentially choose not to feel it. Or at least not to get really wound up about it. You can’t avoid emotional pain if you’re human!However, the time I got myself into a real mess, I started off with alcohol (and music), then moved to alcohol and drugs (and music), and then went cold turkey on the alcohol (after spending 20 minutes in a bottle shop reading all the labels to find which had the highest alcohol content – oops!)This was good for, oh, 12 months, during which time I was mainly just miserable (and lost a lot of weight – woohoo!), but then it all came back with a vengeance, so I simply decided to top myself – but failed. Obviously.That was when I decided that being a tough bloke was insufficient, and I sought counselling. Best thing I ever did. Never looked back, and now I have the tools to cope in the future.Of course, having a good friend to lean on helps enormously, but often it is the sudden lack of this friend that is causing the pain, so then you’re on your own.
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