Anxiety dreams are nothing new to me; during my Therapy Years a Harvard-trained shrink once had me draw a map of the Dream University where most of them played out. There was the fountain in which I frolicked nude with the family rabbi, the quadrangle where the piece of paper vital to my graduation kept blowing out of my hands, the soccer field where I was chased by wolves, the Student Commons Building where I showed every person my right nipple, one by one...my subconscious mind used to be a real one-trick pony.
About six years ago, my anxiety dreams began to alternate between Dream University mishaps and dental catastrophes. The ringing crack of a veneer breaking loose, the jarring blow that breaks a tooth, the feeling of sand on the tongue one gets from an incisor shattering.
Just recently, for the past...oh, three or so years?...a new type of anxiety dream reared its head. One in which I urgently need to communicate something to someone (a loved one's symptoms to paramedics, my antibiotic allergies to a surgeon standing over me, scalpel in-hand, the location of the bomb to co-workers after I hang up the phone from talking to the terrorists), but there's a problem with my throat, or maybe it's my breathing, or both. I have to exert maximum effort to make any sound at all, and can only get out one or two words per breath, and it's awful.
Today at my temp job minding an empty office I sat and thought about this. I was a career student for eight years, so it would make sense for my mind to torment me with higher education debacles. Dental catastrophe? Fairly self-explanatory. But I've never had extended troubles making myself heard. Occasional asthma flares, the odd winter laryngitis, sure, but the agonizing inability to speak, like THAT? No.
I'd gone so far as to think about my grandfather's death from esophageal cancer and muse that perhaps these were not anxiety dreams but some sort of premonition before it struck me: I stayed silent when Stalky really stepped up her efforts and told no one of the terror that at times nearly incapacitated me right around the time the dreams started. I'd blog around it, say something vague about depression, a bad day, and ignore it, fearing all along that the unchallenged lies might begin to be accepted as truth. It ate at me. And clearly my decision to end the silence brought some of this to the forefront.
Anxiety dreams are ALWAYS assholes, but sometimes you can learn from them, too.
Sent from The Precious
About six years ago, my anxiety dreams began to alternate between Dream University mishaps and dental catastrophes. The ringing crack of a veneer breaking loose, the jarring blow that breaks a tooth, the feeling of sand on the tongue one gets from an incisor shattering.
Just recently, for the past...oh, three or so years?...a new type of anxiety dream reared its head. One in which I urgently need to communicate something to someone (a loved one's symptoms to paramedics, my antibiotic allergies to a surgeon standing over me, scalpel in-hand, the location of the bomb to co-workers after I hang up the phone from talking to the terrorists), but there's a problem with my throat, or maybe it's my breathing, or both. I have to exert maximum effort to make any sound at all, and can only get out one or two words per breath, and it's awful.
Today at my temp job minding an empty office I sat and thought about this. I was a career student for eight years, so it would make sense for my mind to torment me with higher education debacles. Dental catastrophe? Fairly self-explanatory. But I've never had extended troubles making myself heard. Occasional asthma flares, the odd winter laryngitis, sure, but the agonizing inability to speak, like THAT? No.
I'd gone so far as to think about my grandfather's death from esophageal cancer and muse that perhaps these were not anxiety dreams but some sort of premonition before it struck me: I stayed silent when Stalky really stepped up her efforts and told no one of the terror that at times nearly incapacitated me right around the time the dreams started. I'd blog around it, say something vague about depression, a bad day, and ignore it, fearing all along that the unchallenged lies might begin to be accepted as truth. It ate at me. And clearly my decision to end the silence brought some of this to the forefront.
Anxiety dreams are ALWAYS assholes, but sometimes you can learn from them, too.
Sent from The Precious
Mine are all about how I never finished the requirements for my high school diploma so "they" are going to take my BSocSci and MA away. Not sure why that would matter today even if they did but apparently my subconscious thinks it would.
Posted by: Becca | August 20, 2012 at 09:59 PM