Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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I had a rare, major nightmare last night, a big doosie. It was a really big nightmare for me on a level I only have once a year. My dad was an untreated bipolar, a missionary who took my family to 4 mission field war zones, one after another. Eventually his mission board caught up with him about his mental unfitness to serve after 30 years and recalled him back to the US. My worst nightmares about his manic episodes are rare, but they involve our family's 1963 black VW Beetle. That's because my dad got manic and almost killed himself and the rest of us, his family, in that car several times. The one I dreamt about last night was when I was 9, the first trauma that really brought me here. Once during a battle in our city he got manic about the war. He ordered us to get in the car as a family to go for ice cream because he was head of the family and the man of the house. He got violent, so we did.
He drove us right where the battle was. We all begged him to turn around, but before he could a guy emerged from a building with a Molotov cocktail lit in his hand. He saw me, a kid in the back seat, looking into his eyes. He looked back, locking his eyes on mine, but he threw the lit bomb anyway. It exploded across the hood of the car and enveloped the whole car in blue gasoline flames. I don't remember how we escaped with our lives or anything else since I went into shock. The car was resilient, though, and got repaired. However, after nearly dying in that black 1963 VW Beetle 2 more times in the next 2 years, I dreaded getting into it when my father was behind the wheel. In a couple of years, I just started passing out from panic attacks. So that's when I ended up in the hospital for the first time for PTSD, which I've had from then now for life, ending up in the hospital for it 4 more times. My father kept maniacally driving that black 1963 VW Beetle with us all or just me in it into danger, though. Once into a flooded river that swept us away, another time into the path of a riot.
So that's how, funny enough, my scariest nightmares are those in which that black 1963 VW Beetle appears again. It's like my own bogeyman, my own Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street. I'm on Prazosin for nightmares, and I've done a lot of good therapy about that stupid car. But it still shows up once a year or so, like it did last night. When it does show up, it is to me what kryptonite is to Superman. I woke up badly shaken. I posted about it here and got through my work day, but it's still with me tonight. Does anybody else have a concentrated symbol of their fear that shows up in their PTSD nightmares like that?
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Hey all, i know its been quite awhile since i posted on here. Its been a summer all right. Its been something else........... You know how they say not to open the can of worms? Well a few months ago i decided to find out what my due date would have been for my first baby, the one conceived by r***. My baby would have been due on March 4th of 2006. They would be 20 years old. I was R**** on June...
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Welcome to the Perseid meteor showers, the "biggies" usually every year. (The Leonids beat 'em one year IMHO).AND today much of the northern hemisphere will see 5 to 99% solar eclipse. How cool is that? Your best bet is to be in the UK or norhtern Spain, where totality is excellent before sundown. Me, I'll get a super duper tiny itty bitty slice of it, so little that it won't be noticeable. New...
I get all kinds of different kinds of crazy nightmares, but as far as like a concentrated symbol like your saying idk if it's the same kind of thing but have some reoccurring houses where I am brought back to that are hard to shake.
Keeping you in my prayers mujica
((hugs))
Beyond that, I know that there are many, but my brain protects my memory.
***My kids loved Herbie. I understand, but it's rather strange to think of him as a trigger.***
Strange too, times in my life that were crisis, never bothered me that much. While nightmares of my mother threatening to kill my cat...yeah, those were hard.
Thing is, I could always understand my mother's side, my sister's side, my father's side, my cat's side...never my own. Brain blank. Cognitively I know...emotionally...no.
Any advantage my mother ever had over me in my life...she used. I don't think, heck, I'm sure, that my mother never knew it...but it's true. Little things/big things. From the time my daughter was 3, my daughter all but hated her. And my daughter gets along with everyone.
I still feel bad for my mother.
Plus you wake up with heart racing, sweating and you feel so spooked. It is also a surprise to as you went to bed and bang it happens. Sending you prayers that you dream of being at the comedy club :D
So Muji I fully understand your suffering and fear. I send you all the support I have and hugs too. You are a good man.
.TW. You know... for all the crazy things I lived through growing up I'm surprised I don't have a lot more repeating nightmares. Muji's story reminded me of the really bad wreck we got into when I was in grade school while we lived in S.E. Asia. Our hired driver was driving my brothers and I to school in rush hour traffic one morning in a big van, my older brother up front, me and my younger brother in the back seat eating breakfast on the go. I remember I had a couple of sunny side up eggs and toast on a plate I was forking and the yokes were runny. Next thing I know we smacked hard into something because my plate went flying onto the backside of the driver's seat and landed back on the floor eggs and yokes splattered but all still there. The cops showed up and threw 2 guys into our van, not wanting to wait for the ambulance and told us to floor it to the hospital which was about 10 mins away (cops rode with us). One guy who was on a "bechak" (a large tricycle he rides passengers around in and they pay him to take short distances) was unconscious and they laid him right in the middle of the van with blood shooting out of his head like a fountain. It sprayed with such force it hit the ceiling, then hit the windows, etc. The sprays were in-sync with his heart beat. I saw my eggs laying on the floor next to him, covered in red blood. The other guy was a motorcyclist and he was sitting up and talking in the seat next to us. After we got to the hospital and they unloaded everyone, the cops confiscated the van as evidence. The head injury guy we found out survived, but the motorcyclist died 2 days later. So they came to our house and threw our driver in jail for 2 months. 2 months later when they released him AND gave our van back to us, I stuck my head in it and it was caked in blood from top to bottom inside, all over the ceiling, windows and seats, stunk like a dead body in there. We tried to clean it all out, but the smell never went away so we sold it. More than the smell we were bothered more by the anxiety associated with the gruesome accident.
But to answer your question about what in our dreams we fear most. Mine is authoritative figures wearing military uniforms. In my dreams they usually tell me I have to serve my country again but 1st I have do absurd things and will ask me to perform sexual favors. And usually none of their request are optional. I can't say no to being recalled or no to the other stuff. They want to own my life and my body!!
Isn't it just weird how a symptom can just come back out of the blue? Last night was nightmare free, but then again I sat up late and only attempted a half night's sleep. Tonight I'm going for some real rest. Then tomorrow night the plan is to lighten up at a live comedy show.
I hope everybody else gets a chance for real rest this weekend. For me it makes all the difference between peace and PTSD jitters during the day. My gratitude to everyone for your comforting replies.