General Update Because I Havent For A While

Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you've been safe and content.
I've been absent for a short while. There isn't any particular reason for it apart from the fact I've been a little busy.
So, what have I been up to? Well, a good friend of my mum has been helping me build a cat run/"catio" for my boy Piccolo. He's become quite the little hughdini when it comes to getting through the fence. It's always been too tall for him to jump, but he'd figured out a couple of good digging spots that I've filled in. So to spare myself the onslaught of panic having him missing for half the day - then to find out he's found a nice little hiding spot inside of a drainpipe in the vacant lot next door - I asked my mum's friend for some help.
It looks great! I'll post a photo of it soon enough. We've constructed it so that it runs from one side of the house to the other, and he has access to the house through a cat door that has been installed in my window. There's a tall scratching post, and after New Years we'll build "shelves" for him to sit and chill out on.
It's been the biggest pain in the ass to erect, but it's definately been worth it. It's also been very humbling to know that this guy has been willing to appease my crazy catlady-ness and give me a hand with this. I'm really, very grateful.
I've been drawing a fair bit more too; things I've dreamt about. My nightmares aren't as bad as they were a few weeks ago but it's still therapudic to draw some of the creatures that have bothered me so much. I might post a couple of photos of those too.
I've become increasingly bothered by the dreams I am having though. Before I started taking Lexapro a couple of months back - and then weaned off them - my dreams were quite fantastical; think Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli imagination.
Ever since I was a little girl I'd dream of the same or very similar places; a marketplace with a great tape collection, a beautiful Japanese-style bridge, a tree house overlooking trees as tall as those that grow in Denmark, an old haunted house with a dumbwaiter that would take you to the top of a tower where a monster who I to this day cannot quite remember or describe what it looks like.
There is an amusement/water park I'd visit from time to time and I'm always with my brother, but he never ages. He is twenty, but in my dreams he's always about ten.
One of my favorites was of beautiful fields that stretched as far as you could see, with mountains and clear blue skies. In one of the fields is an entirely green centaur male I'd call Mau-Rami. He can't speak, but as I've grown up I'd like to sit with him as he tended to a garden or we'd walk together, and he'd smile if nothing much more than that.
It'd be the same places, and as I age so did the people/creature's that I'd regularly see. Around the same time I'd started taking Lexapro for my depression and anxiety, the dreams changed. I started having vivid nightmares that would wake me at night. I'd wake up shouting, crying, and there was one time recently where I pee'd the bed.
I won't go into detail about many of them, but there was one where I dreamt I was in a dark place, maybe a crypt or basement. It was filled with men who were skinning and sodomizing live dogs. Most recently I dreamt that someone was strangling me in bed. They feel real, and at times I'm not sure whether I am dreaming or not.
To me, they feel real. Like I need to remind myself it is a dream. My fantastical world has turned into this grisly string of nightmares. One of the dreams I had more recently had gotten my interest. I'd spent it in a store with black bed sheets hanging up instead of interior walls. There was a young guy working behind the counter; pale, short spikey black hair, tall, facial piercings and casual punk/goth attire. Good looking and friendly enough. Usually I can't remember exact conversations or names when I wake up but I specifically remember him introducing himself as Evan, and he said to me, "Welcome to Fish Bowl".
He may have meant his store was called Fish Bowl, but I've begun to call the whole world Fish Bowl. Because that's kinda how it is feeling. I do hope that I'll see him again.
But let's steer away from that now.
My anxiety hasn't been too terrible I suppose it's because I'd been so preoccupied with this cat run. But the depression and paranoia lingers. I'm looking over my shoulder more frequently, even when I know there isn't anyone there it feels like someone is standing right behind me. Occasionally I think I can see a person standing in a doorway, or small shadows and lights moving across a wal. Then there's that typical you look twice thing and there's nothing. This I don't really mind so much. I'm a believer in the supernatural, spirits and of energy so such matters were never a big deal. It still doesn't settle my paranoia though.
My haphephobia is no easier to deal with. This time of year is going to make my nerves spike with the holidays and all that. But I spent Christmas with people who know how I feel and how I react to to touch. I'd had the strangulation nightmare two nights ago, and had to check the tent zipper just to be sure it had been a dream. Later that day I accidentally broke my mums coffee mug which had been sitting in our friends caravan. As a joke, she pretended to choke me and so I panicked and spent a few good minutes in the tent hyperventilating before I could come back and sit again.
Apart from that it was a pretty nice little holiday. The caravan park itself was well hidden. As you drive in you wouldn't know it was there at all except for the undercover BBQ area overlooking the beach. I spent a little while up there on Boxing Day night staring up at the full moon and it's bright reflection on the waves, making the water sparkle. The sounds of the waves rolling in was an amazing sound to fall asleep to. My mum, sister, niece, our old neighbour who we were camping with, and his dog went for a long walk both days to a marina made out of granite. During certain seasons you can do a little whale watching. We didnn't see any but we did get to swim pretty close to some stingrays.
So considering everything going on in my head at the moment, things are actually going pretty good right now if I think about it. I hope you're all safe and remembering to smile; your teeth need sunshine too.