Dreamlog

I had the weirdest set of dreams this morning.  They were interwoven as usual but ranged on everything from Halloween to high school and marching band.

It started with my cousin D calling to let me know she was going to this Halloween carnival up in Scottsdale with the kids and asking if I wanted to come and bring Z.  I said I would, but didn't really want to, just knew that I needed to.

I was living in a house with my mom and dad, husband and daughter, and my brother.  The weirdness started when my mom and dad and I were in the kitchen and there was a Mexican man about 5'7" with long brown hair in a denim work shirt, jeans and work boots walking down the street with a blonde boy, maybe 6 or 7 years old, yelling that he was selling the child.  The kid looked scared.

The neighbors across the street, (one of those anonymous people you "know" but don't really know who they are) said he was going to call the cops and the guy abandoned the kid and ran.

The next day, we were in the kitchen again and mom and dad were talking about how dad had to go to the Halloween carnival to work.  I was trying to figure out why in the world he would be working at this party/carnival for his company when we saw the same guy come down the street again.  This time, he had the same boy, but the kid was in a costume.  It reminded me of the skeletons from the Dia de los Muertes celebrations.  The skeletons that are up on poles, but this was like the kid was on stilts covered in a sheet that said "Boo!"

Dad was taking pictures in the kitchen and the guy came up to our window and asked if could borrow the camera to take a picture of his son.  Dad said yes and handed him the camera.  The guy snapped a picture and then ran off with the camera.  Dad went outside and ran after him.  Meanwhile, I call the police.

The conversation with the police dispatcher was so odd.  She seemed totally disinterested that this man had stolen the camera or been seen with this boy twice and was trying to sell him.  I was frustrated trying to have this conversation while my brother, who was maybe 10 in this dream was having his friends over and they kept running through my room to get to his room.

Then the dream morphed into me wandering into the band room at FHS and the soppiest scene.  Half the band was there, the lights were low and they were holding hands crying.  I was trying to figure out what was going  on.  I could hear the Halloween party happening in the commons and see the strobe light flashes.  It turned out that the student council president/drum major was resigning in protest.  She was trying to push for a ban on seminary studies being allowed for the Mormon kids because it was off campus.  Everyone was upset and infuriated.  I ended up convincing her to drop it for the night because that was something that would need to be taken up at a district level, not a school council level.

I kept trying to go get into my band uniform, but every time I left the room, I'd end up back in my bedroom with the wrong things to put on.  I was so frustrated!  There were so many people in my dream that I haven't seen or thought of in years.  It was funny to see the band director so pissed off though.

Then there was this scene of a party on the ceiling with the characters from Big Bang Theory and the rest of the details are fading now.  I do know there was this one crazy dance between me and Spencer up on the ceiling.

I'm so ready for my mind to let me out of high school and out of the past.  Let me live in the now and be an adult already.  I have resolved those issues, but anytime I feel stress or I'm working through my stress and anxiety in my dreams, I'm thrown right back into high school and marching band.

Vampires and High School

I've managed to get myself hooked on "The Vampire Diaries" and I've been catching up on the first two seasons on Netflix.  It's still not Buffy or Angel, but it's good.  There are definitely parallels between the two universes/storylines/love triangles.

It's really interesting to me all the different takes on vampire lore.  Everything from the original "Dracula" legends to Jim Butcher's vampire courts in the Dresden Files series, to Anne Rice's "Lestat", Joss Whedon's "Buffyverse", and Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" series.  Now there is a "new" lore for Vampire Diaries.

They all fall back to one thing though, that a) vampires exist and b) there are still the original vampires out there somewhere.  I have to wonder how much time these writers spend researching the various myths, legends, and lore around the vampire, or if they just are doing a basic spin off of Dracula.  The idea that vampires are real is intriguing.  I know that there are people living that are into blood drinking.  Personally, I believe that psychic vampires are much more likely and present and not undead.  It's the whole walking dead thing I have trouble believing.

I can remember starting in second or third grade and voraciously reading anything I could get my hands on regarding ghosts.  Yes I was a weird child.   I don't know why I was drawn to them.  There is just something fun about scaring yourself I guess.  Why else do we tell scary stories around campfires?  I used to check the same book out from the school library about various ghosts just to look at the pictures.  Oddly enough I didn't discover Anne Rice until I was out of high school.

I want to get back into writing.  I think the journaling I'm doing for my therapist is helping urge that on.  I just have no idea what I'd be writing about right now.  I'd love to do more research on faerie lore and other occult topics.  I just don't know that I can come up with an idea that would original enough to be read by others.  I need to be looking for a job, not writing. 

And speaking of high school . . . So I finally got onto Facebook (yikes) and I feel awkward reaching out to the people I went to school with. I'm realizing I have a pattern that when I leave someplace, I completely cut that part of my life off.  I left school and didn't really have anyone I kept in touch with.  I was such a friggin' mess.  I was as usual wrapped up in my own shit and let's face it, but I didn't really give anyone a reason to stay in touch with me.  I was not a good person.  Not to myself and not to others.  I fell apart in high school.  D completely fucked up my life and I didn't do anything to take control of my life back until years later.

It makes me happy to see people that I cared about doing well for themselves.  I'm sad that I look back on who I was and how many people I hurt.  It's been 12 years since I graduated and no one has really reached out to me.  It's difficult for me not to take that as a sign to just let it go and come to the determination that people don't want me in their lives.  I just want a chance to make amends, to catch up, and maybe show them I am different than I was.

There is still the little evil me in the back of my head whispering that I haven't changed.  That I am the same person.  That I don't deserve friends or love, etc. etc.  That voice needs to be silenced.  The self doubts I have are only a hindrance.  I know that I am a different person.  A better person.

I would not have a husband and daughter if I hadn't changed.  They help make me a better person every day.  And every day I thank the Goddess that they are in my life and are the rocks that keeps me grounded and sane.

Up All Night . . . Again

I'm in turmoil right now.  I was relieved and actually pretty happy at being let go.  But it's sinking in that I may not have my severance until after Thanksgiving.  I can't figure out what I want to do. 


Ideally, I'd stay home, go back to school, get my Oracle certification and have Z. home with me at least part time.  I've found the courses I need to prep for my certification.  It would only take 2 semesters and less than $1000.  But if I'm going to to do this, I want to do it right.  There are a lot of good business courses out there and Technology Professionals classes I could definitely benefit from.  It would be nice to come out of this with an actual degree, not just prepared for a certification.


It's daunting to think about going back as a full time student at 35 though.  My little brother has been a good inspiration on me.  He knows what he wants and he's going for it.  He definitely does not lack the courage of his convictions and he's going to make an awesome lawyer.  He has always been a stronger person than me though.  I don't think he knows it, or how I look up to him.  Or how sorry I am and how much regret I have for our childhood.  


Everybody is wigging that I haven't started an intense job search.  My take on this?  My severance, even after taxes, is enough to cover our rent through June easily.  We can live off hubby's paycheck easily.  In the last two years, I've worked more nights and weekends and holidays.  I'm not motivated to go back to work right away.  


The problem is I have a complete lack of motivation for just about anything right now.  I was buzzed at the prospect of free time to unpack and to spend time with Z.  After the whirlwind of the week after getting laid off, I was literally knocked on my rear and spent a week in bed.  This week?  I've spent it in front of the computer.  Gaming, researching schools, gaming, and wiki-walking and not sleeping, or sleeping all day.   If I take anything to help me sleep, I sleep all day.  If I don't, I'm up all night.  Being as it's 2:30 in the morning looks like it's going to be another up all night.  I just realized that other than going into the backyard to watch Z on her trampoline, I haven't left the house since the 29th.


I need to get off the roller coaster.  My S.A.D. is here.  I feel angry or asleep on my feet.  The new meds are not working.  Or maybe they are and it's just me that's broken.  I need to find a new shrink.  I've needed to find a new shrink for a long time.  Again, I lack motivation.  Or more likely I just don't want to look that deep into myself right now.  It isn't pretty.  I look at myself physically and try to look into myself mentally and I'm disgusted either way.  I'm just feeling ugly and grotesque right now.  I don't know if I want to go through the motions of finding another doc to talk to, to trust, or what I expect to gain.


In all the years I saw Julie, we talked about everything and I trusted her, but she gave up on me.  She told me she couldn't help me anymore.  I don't see that as a failure on her part, but one on mine, because I didn't know what I wanted.  I still don't.  Maybe it is time to figure that out first.  


I just really need some support, someone I can trust, and gods above what I wouldn't give for a little guidance right now.  Everyone has an opinion, but no one really offers any guidance.  I feel childish wanting somebody to turn me in the right direction.  Not tell me what to do, but just point me in the right direction and help me a little along the way.  Give me a word of encouragement now and then.  


It's times like these when I can understand why Christians turn to God and faith to help them get through their trials, or why addicts have sponsors.  Is there a 12-step program to get people through depression?  Can I have a sponsor to talk to, someone to support me through the rough times without getting uncomfortable or wigging out?

Downsized and Dreams

This has been the weirdest year.  I'm just not sure what to make of anything anymore.  So my year to date . . . 

• Mother-in-law died
• Grandma died
• Met my sister-in-law
• We lost the house
• We moved into a rental packing 5 years up in about 3 weeks
• Went on vacation that was just fun, but just off.
• A friend I've had for going on 14 years, but haven't talked to in 4 contacted me out of the blue.
• Had at least 2 major management changes at work
• Worked an insane number of hours again throughout the year
• Went through crazy management changes, replacing the worst manager I've ever worked with with her mini-me
• Was laid off on 10/24/2011 due to an effort to decrease spending in my division.

I just don't know what to expect anymore.  I had a very very strong feeling that I was going to be laid off.  The pressure that was put on me to finish my knowledge transfer in the 2 weeks between moving and vacation and in the week since I've been back was just insane.  I put in 116 hours in the 2 weeks before going on vacation working on documentation and training.  

But the bottom line?  I'm relieved.  I'm relieved to be done with the stress of having so much on my plate.  I'm relieved that I don't have to feel like I'm being second guessed on what I'm doing.  I'm relieved that I might get my friendship back with T.  

Most of all, I'm excited at the idea of spending time with Zoe and being a mom and wife.  One of my highest priorities for the new job?  It has to give me time for a work/life balance and time to be a mom.  

The second priority?  I get to break stuff and find bugs.  I really want to continue with UAT/QA/Development.  If I had the money, I'd pay to go out to San Diego and do the Blaze training myself. I loved what I was learning in interpreting the FICO code.  I want to continue with that.  I want to continue working in PL/SQL and improving my skills until I can do complex database design and programming and be a developer.  I want to learn new SQL tools.  I want to learn new programs to help with designing and implementing test cases.

There is a part of me that is wondering about going back to school in the fall and being a full time student.  Could I get the aid and/or loans to do it?  Do I have the self discipline to finish this time?  Will I learn what I need to in order to be competitive?

I feel like most of this year I've been waiting for the "other shoe" to drop.  I think it finally has.  It's like this whole year has been building up to this.

There is also a little part of me that is just sitting back and chuckling wanting to hear how seriously screwed up things at work get.  In a perfect world the newbies would pick up and take off immediately and it would be seamless.  In reality, they just lost 3 years of knowledge and 1 of two people that had a clue about FICO the BRE outside the dev team and the only one on the team that had 95% of the business rules memorized.

I slept today for the first time in weeks.  My mistake was picking up a really good book on my Nook last night.  There is a part of me that misses kink so much I could just scream.  This book of course was about kink.  It's more about the psychology and thoughts behind it than the blatant sexuality like most bodice rippers.

Needless to say it led to some crazy dreams.  Nothing will get the picture of Andre Leon Talley dressed in a blue kimono and a crescent moon headpiece/hat/looks-like-it-should-be-in-cirque and light blue shimmery facepaint appearing in my door and hearing someone asking him "Andre are you truly ready to spread your butterfly wings for the first time?", out of my memory for a while.

How a crescent moon equates to a cocoon is dream logic to me. 

I think there really was a series of dreams that all kind of ran into each other.  One was about a metal foundry that was under our condo from vacation.  The floor was so hot, I dropped a hammer and it went right through the floor.  When the hammer hit the floor it set off a chain reaction that ended up with a major explosion, not at our condo, but at the foundry owner's mansion.  There was sulfur being used to color the glass being made using the heat from the molten metal.  It made the glass poisonous and if the glass shattered and hit the molten metal, it would cause poison gasses to expand, eventually leading to the floor of our condo melting.

We chased the suspect glass all the way back to the owner's mansion, but that was in smoking ruins by the time we got close.

So while we were trying to get close, I ended up walking through the street pushing Zoe in an umbrella stroller.  She was maybe 15-18 months old.  We were at some kind of street carnival and she was trick-or-treating from inside the stroller.  We went past one stand that had bins of candy, but they were all drug laced.  The stereotypical Latino drug pushers were mad because I avoided them and started to chase us.  It was a ruse though.  They were really trying to help me get to the metal owner's house.

There was a car chase in these Smart Car looking funky automobiles through Escherland, but we finally ended up in this area with all these mansions.  I don't know even know if I can describe it.  Picture a chessboard with alternating shades of light green and dark green grass as the squares.  On each square was an amazing property.  Castles and mansions and lakes.  All of them ha a grass walkway around the back side of the property and all of them had a pool.  Of course as I pushed the stroller by, synchronized swimmers dove off a multitude of diving boards into the water.

Until we got to this one house.  The had a slip-n-slid instead of a diving board.  The dad was sliding into the pool, but he kind of missed and ended up knocking Z and I onto the slip-n-slide instead, with his foot literally up my rear.

I went inside to clean up and ran into his son.  I was in my 20s again and so was the son, so all was well.  From there it was like watching an episode of "Revenge".  Son was interested in art, not going to work for his dad, i was helping to facilitate that interest.  The matriarch of the clan was a senator.  There was a teenage daughter and a young son about Z's age.  The mother was a socialite, very unhappy, and dominated by her Mother-in-Law the Senator.

At some point in the dream, my hubby and I started fighting.  That's where things started to get kinky.  Half this dream I was married and the other half I was not.  During the "not" part, the kid, I think he was going by Danny, and I was were madly in love, but it was forbidden love because the matriarch didn't approve.  Danny and I decided that we didn't give a damn and it was time to change things.

So we ended up at a condo his friend owned.  This was going to be a training party.  Danny and I had never had sex so we were going to at this party.  There was initially only one other couple.  It was one of those dream things where you "know" them but don't really have a clue who they are.  They were definitely into Dom/Sub role when we arrived.  I immediately went sub and followed the dom's command to disrobe.  Somehow this meant leaving a black nightie though.

Danny was naked though.  Things were about to get started when Andre showed up.  From there it got weird.  There was this incredible erotic energy to the dream, but no sex.  There was something about having to make a run to the grocery store for lube and having to hold thin slices of slimy cucumber in my mouth while on my hands and knees.  A nurse showed up to give everyone flu shots, but kept giving me shots incorrectly and whipped me with a belt because I was moving to much when she tried to give me a shot.

There was more to it, but it's fading out.  I do remember hubby leaving me stranded at our condo to finish packing while he took Z to Disneyland.  I was not happy about that.  Especially since it was November and snowing.

There was more to these dreams, but I woke up with one hell of a headache,  frustrated and unsatisfied.  

Yep I need to get back into therapy.

Regression . . .

Tonight I feel like I've been transported back 20 years. I'm 15 feeling like a freak and not able to understand why I feel so shitty. I want to hurt someone. I want to feel pain. Tonight I want a lighter and a razor blade. Tonight I want to bleed and wallow in self pity. I want to feel the pain and confusion inside burst out of me in a rush of crimson.

Tonight I want to be selfish. But I think of my toddler seeing that side of me and I'm crushed all over again. I'm scared to death I'll see her go through the anguish, pain and rage I feel right now. I don't want to ever see the hatred I feel against myself reflected in her eyes.

I know in an hour, a day, a week, soon I'll feel better and be thankful I didn't cut and that life really is better.

But right now I want to bleed.

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Dreamlog 03182011

I laid down for a while this afternoon and was listening to a book when I fell asleep. I had the most bizarre dreams, more so than usual anyway. I can't tell how much of it was dream and how much of it came from the book. I'll have to get further into the book to determine that. The dreams ran together and jumped around. They involved people I hadn't thought of in years.

I was once again living with an old college roommate that made my life miserable (CB). In the dream we were friends (this will not ever happen in real life). She was dating a friend of mine that I've known since preschool (ND), but haven't talked to since high school (has it really been 17 years?). I was helping track a serial killer (as is the lead in the book) but ended up at this asylum. Things shifted back and forth from first to third person rapidly during the dream. The serial killer was one disturbed man. He would take people and bind their hands and legs, then lock them up in a old broken down deep freeze for days. Then he would return and would use their bodies as twisted canvases, putting pins in them to make "art", singeing the skin with a handheld blow torch.

At the asylum was a girl named Annie. She was 19-23ish, tall, waifishly thin, red hair in a pixie cut, and wearing a dark green gingham dress that hung off her. It looked like the pictures you see in of girls during the depression, the baggy dresses just hanging off of them. She was not insane, but could touch things and see/feel everything that object had been used for. She found a pin used by the killer and tried to tell her partner about it. He had her committed because she would either go into a semi-catatonic state followed by losing consciousness, or just writhe on the ground screaming from the pain she experienced from all the other people that had been burned and then murdered.

At times I was seeing this 3rd party, other times I was Annie. I was begging for someone to please understand I was sane and I knew where the killer was. I knew that he had killed his father and thrown him in a pond on the family's property. I knew how many dozens of people he had tortured, but no one would listen. I knew he was living on his family's property. It used to be a farm or an orchard. There was a barn and the stereotypical white farmhouse with the porch that wraps all the way around. Both were falling into disrepair.

In the day room at the asylum, there was a large fireplace, with round river rocks creating a decent size hearth and surrounding the firebox. The firebox had a gas insert with the logs that don't really burn, but the gas flames blow around them. There was a bulletin board that was covered in a tightly woven green mesh underneath a 2 shelves set high on either side of the fireplace. I kept seeing the pins woven in and out of it, like the killer wove them in and out of his victims. I had to get the pins out and give them to the police. I tried climbing up to them, but every time I'd get close to the fireplace, someone would pull be back. Eventually I just floated up to the pins and pulled them from the bulletin board. The fear and pain from the victims and the blood lust, rage and sense of a child fearing for his life overwhelmed me until I laid on the floor just crying and screaming, holding the pins in my hands.

Then I was outside. I was climbing in this huge sycamore tree. Somehow it was grafted together with a banana tree. I do remember commenting on it to a friend saying how weird it was that bananas were growing in that particular climate. (I'm not sure what the "climate" was. Sometimes it seemed somewhere back east, sometimes it seemed we were in Flagstaff, sometimes it seemed like we were in Texas). The tree was overhanging the pond where the killer's father could be seen floating upright, chains crisscrossing his waist and arms. We had called the police and they were pulling the body out. Someone was finally taking Annie seriously.

I remember flashes of what the killer looked like. He reminded me a lot of Vincent D'Onofrio's character "Edgar" from MIB.

I don't remember much more than that. There was a conversation with my roommate and her boyfriend about how weird it was that we all lived together again and that the sexual situation was odd, but OK. I remember telling them about what I had experienced as "Annie" and ND asked me not to talk about it when CB was around because she was easily upset. I didn't realize that she was in the room when I had been talking. She came over and had these turtles that you put on your door to show you were supporting some cause, like the shamrocks you can buy for a dollar to support Muscular Dystrophy. I had one that everyone in my family had signed and she was telling me it was all wrong and that wasn't how it was supposed to look and I had managed to rip the head off of hers so she was upset.

That was about when I woke up.

It's always interesting to me who shows up in my dreams: my family, generally my parents who I'm either getting advice from or fighting with; people from my past that I have good memories of, but haven't thought of in years; people that I have some sort of traumatic association with and/or that made my life a living hell when I was in high school or college mostly. I also dream of friends I think of often but see rarely, perhaps in an effort to atone for my past mistakes. It's much easier to gain forgiveness from someone in my subconscious than in real life. Maybe it's my subconscious telling me to let it go.

Oddly enough I rarely dream of work or the issues I'm experiencing there.

Then there are the regular dream themes. I have a lot of anxiety dreams, mostly about being in marching band, where I don't know the music or where I'm supposed to go; dreams of my daughter getting lost or kidnapped or hurt; dreams of fighting with my husband; dreams/memories of being paralyzed again; nightmares of fighting off a faceless attacker; being bound and gagged and blindfolded (and not in a good way) and feeling helpless and lost.

There are also repetitive locations for my dreams. North Morton Dormitory, the Skydome for marching band competitions, the nameless asylum from any good horror movie is a frequent location, and my high school as it would look if it had been abandoned for a good 10-15 years: falling down ceiling tiles, blinking florescent tube lights, dripping water, green tiled bathroom with rust/blood and toilet paper strewn all over the place.

I seriously wish I could record my dreams for playback and show someone else how screwed up my head is sometimes. My husband is always amused by my dreams. They are so vivid and I remember so much detail usually. But they always lose something in the telling. To be able to show them visually to another person would rock. Maybe someday.

January Funk

I'm in a funk right now. I'm completely burnt out at work and there is something going on with my blood sugars/medications. Every afternoon around 4:30 I start getting really nauseated, cold sweats and dizzy. My blood sugars are in a normal range during this time, so I know I'm not crashing. I'm just not sure what to think. Maybe my body thinks I'm crashing since my BSL were running so high last month? New meds seem to finally be working, but I'm much more sensitive to carb intake than I was. I think it will be a good thing in the end. I don't like the highs and crashes. I almost think my previous meds were working too well and letting me ignore my carb intake because they were working to stabilize my sugars.

I should be totally stoked right now. I'm going to see "Wicked" in 2 days, something I've wanted to do for years. I just get a feeling that something is going to go awry. Doom and Gloom. Never a good thing.

My circadian rhythms are really hosed right now and I think that is also playing into why I'm feeling so funky. My work schedule has been so erratic the last few months, I can't seem to get to sleep before 3 am anymore. Then I get up at 8 and try to work, but get tired and end up taking a nap. It used to be that I could take a 20 minute nap and feel fine. Now unless I get a couple of hours sleep, I'm useless. I woke up early yesterday to get Z ready for school and had a doctor's appointment at 10:45. I went back to get ready for it at 9:15ish and fell asleep. I woke up at 4. I called J to have him pick up Z, then slept again until almost 10pm. WTF? That isn't normal.

I don't know. Maybe just everything from the last couple of months is catching up with me, plus post holidays blues. I've done really good to manage my stress and keep my depression at bay for the last year. I just need to get over this hump. Maybe this weekend will help.

I'm putting together things to keep me busy and give me something to look forward to intentionally so that I don't get into a post-activity slump, but I'm not sure it's working. I need a nice long vacation and some fun. A weekend away will help, but I want something bigger. I dream of Disneyland at least 3-4 times a week. It's been over a year since we've been. I want to take Z again. Until we get the house sold and/or move, I just don' think it's going to happen though. Maybe in the fall.