The Dream:
I noticed a small, plant-like growth coming from my left cheek. There were two places about a half inch apart where the growth was coming from. One place looked the way a plant does when it first emerges from the soil. The other was a little longer, and had a leaf on it. I looked closely at it, but couldn’t tell if the leaf was truly a plant or if it was skin. I went to my mom and asked her to look at it. She dismissed my concern and started talking about something that was on her mind. I kept going to the mirror to look at the weird growth, and every time I saw it I felt the same horror I experienced the first time I noticed it. I tried to pull it out, but it resisted, and I was afraid I was going to hurt myself if I kept pulling. Then I realized that I had to leave the house for some important reason - can’t remember what it was. I worried about how to hide the growth, and considered putting a band-aid over it until it occurred to me that I’d have to use at least two band-aids, and that that would invite as many questions as the growth itself. The thought of it being there consumed me, terrified me, made me feel sick to my stomach. I couldn’t think of anything else. Every time my mind moved to something else, the thought of the growth would soon yank it back.
When I awoke I still felt the terrified, sick to my stomach feeling I’d felt in the dream. I knew, of course, that I had been dreaming, but I couldn’t shake the fearful feeling - in fact, here I am an hour later, and still can’t shake the feeling. But what is the feeling exactly? It’s fear, like I said. But it’s more than that - it’s deeper, more primal. It really is terror. Terror of being out of control? Of not knowing - not being able to know - ultimate truth? Terror of growing old, of my body failing me? Terror of my existential aloneness? Terror of death? I don’t know. And then there’s the element of sadness. The feeling makes me want to cry, but I couldn’t cry even if I allowed myself to try. Thank you for that, Celexa and Wellbutrin.
The following are some of the thoughts/memories/associations that came to mind as I lay in my bed immediately after awakening from the dream:
My first menstrual period, and how I was alone and frightened when it happened, not only of the noticeable change that had just occurred, but of the things that were changing inside of me, and all around me. I remember having such a deep need for something - I don’t know, maybe it was just acknowledgment of the changes, or comfort, or the assurance that everything was exactly the way it should be - the way it has always been, and the way it always would be. I wanted my mother. I wanted my mother to take care of me. And I wanted life to move slower.
The way I had felt the day before during the movie we went to see with the kids. We were all sitting in a row, eating candy, and laughing at the movie, and a feeling of deep contentment, and an understanding of how very blessed I am came over me. But before I could relish the moment it was replaced by the thought that this would all soon be over - first the movie, then the day, and on to the kids’ childhood, and then, in the blink of an eye, my life would end. And I hoped then that I would die before my children. And I wondered how it would be to be a widow - alone in the bed each night with no one to hold me, no one to hold. And there was that powerless, trapped feeling - that damned slap in the face realization that there’s nothing I can do about any of it, and the always-in- the-back-of-my-mind question of how and why any of this piddley little life matters. We laugh, we love, we hope, we dream, we suffer, we wonder why, and then we die. What for? Is there a point? One thing I know for certain is that I’ll never know. And that pisses me off.
My thoughts soon moved to Dr.X., and how I don’t want to need her - how I want to dislike her, how it would be easy for me to dislike her if I tried. That “she doesn’t care about me - I’m just her job” feeling came over me. And then the worry that, as I lie there, vulnerable, on her stupid couch, babbling away, saying, or, perhaps, at times, just desperately wanting to say, things I wouldn’t dare divulge to anyone else, she could actually be sitting in her chair, where I can’t even see her, bored and yawning, or rolling her eyes, or thinking of how incredibly stupid I am, or - like the therapist in the book I read through the other night - stifling her disgust with my blubbery, fat body, or any other thing about me, for that matter. And I wouldn’t even know it. I could be putting my trust in someone who is disgusted by me. I don’t want to be somebody’s “job.” I don’t want manufactured, artificial empathy. I don’t want to need someone who couldn't care less about me once I get up from her couch. Unless something spectacular happens in analysis, I’m only setting myself up to be hurt and humiliated. The strange, maybe even sad, thing about that is, unless Dr. X. tells me not to come back, I won’t quit going to my sessions with her. I want the exact same thing that I don’t want. I want - yet I don’t want - to have someone to depend on. I want - yet I don’t want - intimacy. I want - yet I don’t want - to be known. It’s the story of my life, which I suppose is apparent to any halfway observant person - therapist or not. Here's the thing: I don’t much like having my reactions and tendencies, or what motivates them, examined so closely. I don’t like having my real live feelings lying exposed on the dissecting table - like they‘re nothing, like they‘re dead and no longer a part of who I am. Like they only matter if they can be fit somewhere in the picture puzzle of who I am - and even then, will be disposed of once their purpose is served. I am more than those naked parts lying, tagged and orderly, on the table, more than those bits under the microscope - however much they are magnified. I wonder if, after the examiner has seen the same things many times over, she is able to maintain a sense of the sacredness of what she observes. I wonder if one can become immune to holiness.
I have no idea how, or even IF, the above thoughts are related to the dream. All I know is that they were the things that came to mind while I lay there in that delicious state between sleep and wakefulness. There's no telling where my mind would have taken me if I could have stayed in bed a little longer. :)
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