(no subject)
Jun. 8th, 2013 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shingaWay to be on the nose, dreams.
I've had nightmares that I wake from in a cold sweat about PTRP ever since I left. It's been years, you'd think I'd be over it - but apparently that's not how PTSD works. My therapist doesn't push me to talk about it because she can see how panicked I get the second memories start to actually surface.
So last night's dream was a whisper in my ear from the slowly waking warrior inside me that's been asleep since they tried to kill her.
I was in the Army in this dream, but... not. We were all kept separate in this torturous place (sound familiar?) but my brain put a fantasy spin on it. Soldiers (mostly women, much like PTRP) were made to battle these huge monsters every single day. We were battered, broken, trapped... I think we were on an island (possibly a floating-in-the-sky sort) so escape wasn't easy.
At one point though... I got sick of it. My friend there with me couldn't take much more so I took off my jacket (symbolic, breaking "uniform", I even went outside and refused to put on headgear) and did this badass covert ops thing where I snuck her onto one of the outgoing helicopters. I was caught but she got away.
They gave me even more monsters... but instead of this breaking me I fought even harder. I brought them all down and pretty soon I was even disguising myself as other soldiers so I could step in and fight their monsters when they were too broken to do it alone. I won every battle, even if it was a bit too close for comfort at times.
Eventually the monsters, who turned out to be sentient (and not all that happy about being there either) grew to respect me. I stopped outright killing them and instead we fought until one of us won and we pulled back, called it a draw. The people in charge didn't like this but there wasn't much they could do without causing outright war (something I think they knew I was getting close to doing anyway)
The dream ended around there, but even before I woke up I knew I'd started forming a plan with the other soldiers for us all to escape, and even to help the monsters get out as well.
There were other small details... like in the escape planning I had to sneak into the areas the folks in charge stayed in and they were very office-like but still kept clean and nice. There was coffee (something we weren't allowed). While we were kept in, essentially, one large disgusting dungeon. I was trying to be sneaky so I fought the temptation to just wreck the place, leaving mud everywhere.
Yeah.
So... I think this is, in its own weird way, a step towards recovery.
And after I woke up, this was the song screaming in my head... so now of course I'm drawing to it.
I've had nightmares that I wake from in a cold sweat about PTRP ever since I left. It's been years, you'd think I'd be over it - but apparently that's not how PTSD works. My therapist doesn't push me to talk about it because she can see how panicked I get the second memories start to actually surface.
So last night's dream was a whisper in my ear from the slowly waking warrior inside me that's been asleep since they tried to kill her.
I was in the Army in this dream, but... not. We were all kept separate in this torturous place (sound familiar?) but my brain put a fantasy spin on it. Soldiers (mostly women, much like PTRP) were made to battle these huge monsters every single day. We were battered, broken, trapped... I think we were on an island (possibly a floating-in-the-sky sort) so escape wasn't easy.
At one point though... I got sick of it. My friend there with me couldn't take much more so I took off my jacket (symbolic, breaking "uniform", I even went outside and refused to put on headgear) and did this badass covert ops thing where I snuck her onto one of the outgoing helicopters. I was caught but she got away.
They gave me even more monsters... but instead of this breaking me I fought even harder. I brought them all down and pretty soon I was even disguising myself as other soldiers so I could step in and fight their monsters when they were too broken to do it alone. I won every battle, even if it was a bit too close for comfort at times.
Eventually the monsters, who turned out to be sentient (and not all that happy about being there either) grew to respect me. I stopped outright killing them and instead we fought until one of us won and we pulled back, called it a draw. The people in charge didn't like this but there wasn't much they could do without causing outright war (something I think they knew I was getting close to doing anyway)
The dream ended around there, but even before I woke up I knew I'd started forming a plan with the other soldiers for us all to escape, and even to help the monsters get out as well.
There were other small details... like in the escape planning I had to sneak into the areas the folks in charge stayed in and they were very office-like but still kept clean and nice. There was coffee (something we weren't allowed). While we were kept in, essentially, one large disgusting dungeon. I was trying to be sneaky so I fought the temptation to just wreck the place, leaving mud everywhere.
Yeah.
So... I think this is, in its own weird way, a step towards recovery.
And after I woke up, this was the song screaming in my head... so now of course I'm drawing to it.