Another nightmare to talk out
This has been a bad week for nightmares. About the only good thing that has happened on this front is that I finally found something -- it ended up being on Youtube -- about how to help prevent and stop nightmares. One of the suggestions she gave was to describe what happens in the nightmare, and since this one really freaked me out last night -- it's always bad to wake up at 1:30am thanks to one of these things -- I'm going to do that and just leave this here.
This nightmare was triggered by a visit to my doctor the other day. He weighs me every time I go in for a physical or, more commonly, a check on my thyroid medication. The last time I went, I weighed in at 167 pounds. On this visit, I was down...way down, to 150.
I did have a stomach bug around a month ago, and there was that week of toilet episodes when I couldn't handle being around a group of eight at Thanksgiving last year, but that doesn't explain fully why I'd lose 17 pounds. Knowing how I've weighed in, I wouldn't be too concerned if I had gone five or six pounds one way or the other between visits...I've never been good at keeping my weight constant. So a swing of 17 pounds over a span of six months is, to me, downright frightening.
The PCP thought this was a sign that I was overmedicated on my thyroid medication; apparently, that can trigger weight loss, wanted or not. I still don't have the results on that yet, and I probably won't for another couple of days. I've had this adjusted a couple of times over the years, so it would not be a big surprise if it was adjusted again.
But in the nightmare, there was no explanation for why my weight would drop so much...and my appetite really hasn't been bad recently. I dreamed that over the course of weeks and months to come, my weight would continue to drop at roughly the pace that it apparently has been (2-3 pounds a month) until I basically wasted away to almost nothing, no matter how much I ate. And then, just to add insult to insult, the nightmare went further and gave me a vision of losing some 80 or so pounds overall before it stopped...and then never being able to gain it back.
The fact that I'm worried about a weight swing that was that big definitely helped feed this particular nightmare, I feel...but this is what happens. I have so much that has gone wrong, so many bad memories, so much that I want back, that a lot of it is reappearing as nightmares. And now that I think about it, some of these nightmares have probably been coming and going for years and I never really knew it until now. I'm scared.
This nightmare was triggered by a visit to my doctor the other day. He weighs me every time I go in for a physical or, more commonly, a check on my thyroid medication. The last time I went, I weighed in at 167 pounds. On this visit, I was down...way down, to 150.
I did have a stomach bug around a month ago, and there was that week of toilet episodes when I couldn't handle being around a group of eight at Thanksgiving last year, but that doesn't explain fully why I'd lose 17 pounds. Knowing how I've weighed in, I wouldn't be too concerned if I had gone five or six pounds one way or the other between visits...I've never been good at keeping my weight constant. So a swing of 17 pounds over a span of six months is, to me, downright frightening.
The PCP thought this was a sign that I was overmedicated on my thyroid medication; apparently, that can trigger weight loss, wanted or not. I still don't have the results on that yet, and I probably won't for another couple of days. I've had this adjusted a couple of times over the years, so it would not be a big surprise if it was adjusted again.
But in the nightmare, there was no explanation for why my weight would drop so much...and my appetite really hasn't been bad recently. I dreamed that over the course of weeks and months to come, my weight would continue to drop at roughly the pace that it apparently has been (2-3 pounds a month) until I basically wasted away to almost nothing, no matter how much I ate. And then, just to add insult to insult, the nightmare went further and gave me a vision of losing some 80 or so pounds overall before it stopped...and then never being able to gain it back.
The fact that I'm worried about a weight swing that was that big definitely helped feed this particular nightmare, I feel...but this is what happens. I have so much that has gone wrong, so many bad memories, so much that I want back, that a lot of it is reappearing as nightmares. And now that I think about it, some of these nightmares have probably been coming and going for years and I never really knew it until now. I'm scared.
Replies
HUGE hugs to you my friend...don\'t be scared. It was a dream...that\'s it. Thoughts just spinning about in your head, twisting themselves up. And the origin of this one is obvious, so, nothing to worry about :)
I want to apologize on not getting back to your last message yet...procrastinating...ugh.
But I will...very soon! :)
Oh...
...and I can think of a VERY likely reason your weight went down...anxiety. That little bitch can do pretty much anything, eh? But yeah, I\'ve read many times and different places that chronic anxiety can absolutely lead to weight loss. Part of it is a suppressed appetite, but you said yours has been good. However, they say that just being anxious burns so many more calories than being relaxed that even people who eat normally...but are anxious...can lose weight because of it.
Hope that helps to squash a bit of the fear...and I hope you get your thyroid medication-results back soon so you can figure out what happened.
Wishing you peace and lights as always :)