I haven't had enough neurofeedback lately and it's showing. I am being reminded, not-too-kindly, that my brain is still vulnerable to PTSD symptoms, and that talking to therapist or anyone else does little to help me in the intersections of triggers.
Two nights ago I had terrifying dreams. There were two tracks, both interchanging, and equally chilling. I only remember bits of one. I was in a house, standing in an dark entrance hallway. Outside it was black and creatures of various sorts came to the door. I would sense their presence and have to let them in. Each time a harmless animal would rush in and then straight out through the back. The "good" animals I was somehow helping, but often they would be followed nose to tail by other animals, mostly neutral, but some were dark, low-lying, shadowy things clicking and skittering along the edge of the hallway and detouring off the hallway to the upstairs and I could never get the door shut quick enough to block them getting in.
I couldn't let in the good without letting in the evil.
Later, I was standing in the living room in a panic because I knew there was a fox upstairs. A shy little fox, and yet I knew it wasn't a fox. It was something else, some evil disguised as the fox, meant to trick me and do me harm and I wasn't going to be able to protect myself from it or convince anyone else in the house of the danger as long as it was in the house in the form a fox. I stood there sweating, eyeballs rolling in my head, frantically searching for a way to protect myself.
In a flash of insight I knew what I had to do, and when the fox came downstairs I wasn't fooled by it's small frame or timidness. I grabbed the thing by its face and squeezed its skull between my hands as I forcefully repeated, "I know what you are, I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE". After several seconds the fox exploded and transformed into one of the dark shadowy skittering things, and then vaporized.
I forced myself up and out of the dream then, just barely able to pry my eyes open and will myself to keep them that way until the dream had passed.
Meanings seem evident.
It makes me question whether it is safe for me to stay on here with Roi until I am financially able to leave without disrupting Lexi's life. Resilient as I may be, living in a trauma field day in and day out where every interaction is like opening that front door to let in the "good" but not being able to shut it fast enough to keep out the evil - who can keep their head in that?
I used to think, "a better person than I", but I've taken to recognizing that my life force, my will to live unencumbered, is strong and it is this part of me working within wounded parts of me that keep me resisting and clarifying and pushing back instead of playing games that do not come natural to me, or throwing in the towel and pointing the nose of the car in the direction of "family" next time Lexi and I are in it, or just plain not fighting.
There's no perfect answer for how to be in this, how to breathe an air filled with toxins that change shape, odor, color, and opacity and only get the oxygen.
The neurofeedback - it's like an oxygen tank I get to carry around for a few days until it empties out. I need more of that to keep from losing consciousness. Less talk time in therapy, more physical time.
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