Nightmares Trigger Warning

It's been a whle since I wrote. I've not been sleeping well at all. Nightmares plague me whenever I close my eyes. Not just flashbacks to what happened with my stepfather, but new unimagined horrors for him to visit upon me and always in the background my mother saying "Oh it's just how we are."

Last night, it wasn't me that was a victim of his, rather an unknown young child. My mother had passed him the child, who could not have been more than a year old, and he disappeared with her. I desperately tried to make my mother understand that this was a bad thing. Eventually she listened and followed me to find them. I walked in on him with his hand between the infants legs, her crying and in pain. He told my mother he was just making her feel better as he had accidentally hurt her. I tried to punch him, hit him, hurt him, but it was as though I was underwater and I couldn't inflict any damage on him. I woke up sobbing and could not calm myself down.

I've started reading Courage to Heal, but I cannot read it for very long before I am rushing to the bathroom being sick. This kind of reaction is new to me. I don't know what I'm going to do when my counselling ends.