The star of this video is Peter Capaldi.
Sigh.... I was hoping this wouldn't happen again. I was hoping my visit at the cemetery would end it all.
Darn it....
Today I am thankful for ______________________.
I'm just here to document my latest nightmare with the men from my past.
Peter Capaldi may have been in the dream, too.
****
I was in a mental hospital.
It was dark and dank.
It actually looked like a mental hospital I worked at last year with four beds against a wall and one bed in the corner.
It wasn't clear whether or not I worked there or I was a patient.
My boss, though, she was the clinical director.
I was probably a patient given my behavior
(if not, or my dream self would have lost her ability to practice but then again, if were a patient, I'd have been throw out).
In this dream,
one of my old friends (the namesake of a Rush song) was sitting on a bed in the back of a room in the corner detoxing from something. His corner is dark. He is sweating and uncomfortable. There is one tiny window in the room illuminating him as he rocks back and forth.
My old friend Sampson was sitting on the bed next to him flirting with me.
We are all dressed in white.
I was probably a patient.
We and the other patients had a field trip to watch a play (enter Peter Capaldi on stage).
Sampson pulls me aside and seduces me
(bad therapist dream - that level of familiarity would cause me to lose my license but then, taking patients I've known in my personal life is a no-no, too)
We get caught by the actors
(only a pig interrupts a good play with noisy activity)
Upon having an audience...
I wake up.
I have no clue what this dream means.
*****
Today I am thankful for realizations.
Edit later the same day - I think I know what the dream means. I ought to find a boyfriend.
Where can I find a nice Libertarian pagan in Colorado?
The only ones I know are married (in open relationships) but married nonetheless.
I can't.
I just can't mess around with someone in a relationship.
Besides, I promised myself that I'd do a moral inventory of every relationship I'd been in to understand where I went wrong. I've done some work but I'm not sure I did enough.
Relationship #1 - I didn't fight for the relationship. He didn't know this but I was a foster kid. When people said they didn't want me, I learned that they meant it. I learned too late that people play this game to see who will fight to come back.
This person always warned me against dwelling on pain. I had lost three people in the a six month span (mom died two years prior but during the relationship, the aunt married to my uncle died, grandma died and step-dad shot himself while playing Russian Roulette with my baby sister). It was hard not to sit with the pain.
My friend was right, though, I should have been thankful to have found what we had so early in my lifetime.
I haven't been able to find anyone else that I could share that level of depth or comfort with in over thirty years.
***
Then - they say like attracts like. I was in pain after this relationship. Guess what I attracted?
It's embarrassingly sad (and it is the cause of many current health problems).
***
Relationshit #2 - I didn't set my boundaries with the guy and run off the first time he put me in the hospital. I left when he hunted down a guy I went on a date with five years earlier. This one date guy wanted me to sleep with him on the first date and I refused partly because he had a ring indentation on his left hand. They both beat me up. I was sexually assaulted. I lost consciousness. Fainting spared me most of the trauma (thank goodness).
.
The police were involved. The bruising was so bad that I had to have a female officer take the photographs**. This ex was arrested.
I realize this guy beat me up and put me in the hospital so he could spent time with his mistress. His mistress became his wife and she called me for years asking how to get him to stop hitting her. Eventually she fessed up to their affair.
Her phone calls broke my heart.
Relationship #3 - I'll never understand that one. It was chaotic. The stalking will never make sense to me. Again, I should have run off the first time a relative called me to recount my day to me. This was 1992, the days before everyone had a mobile phone. She said she sat in the parking lot watching me and described my hot Spanish tutor to me. I should have known they were following me then. I just never wanted to believe he had anything to do with it.
Enmeshment is common in alcoholic families. Alcoholism causes chaos and people will try to dictate what their relatives do and the roles they play to attempt to gain some sense of control over the situation.
My problem was that I married into a secretly alcoholic family and put up with the dysfunction for far too long (twenty-six years!!!).
All though a guy (or gal) may never hit you, if (s)he smacks the walls within inches of your face, it is domestic violence.
Relationshit #4 - When a guy tells you he wants to "fuck a twenty year old" and your twenty year old friend starts talking about a boyfriend with the same first name as yours, ask for the last name. I shouldn't have had to wait until she started talking about birthmarks and sharing intimate details that verified he's a cheater to get a sense of what was going on.
To be fair, people with Borderline Personality Disorder are so afraid of rejection that they'll try to replace you before they realize you've figured out their problem. I hope he got therapy. DBT works wonders.
He caused so much trouble for me with his triangulation and bullshit that I never want to see him again....ever.
After talking to the former young lady friend of mine, I got off lucky. She said he left her pregnant in Hawaii with no way to get home!!
Man, I hope that wasn't true.
****
I'm not sure that's enough introspection. Many women I meet do the same things; they put other people first, give up who they are to keep the peace and put their dreams on a shelf to make others happy.
Maybe I need a twelve step program. I haven't dated for over six years.
I'm a mess.
Things are getting better but I still feel like I'm a hot mess.
I'm painting my house. I can't take my donations anywhere due to Covid.
How can I invite a man into my life when my house is a mess?
Excuses.....excuses.....
I just need to find someone who looms large over my excuses.
May you be loved,
S.
** There is one thing that irks me as an activist.
Don't ever ask me what women are going to do if the police department loses funding and they are raped.
Police don't investigate rape. They don't process rape kits. They retraumatize victims.
Our best bet is a glock.
We alone are responsible for our personal safety.
