Sleep

Thanks to fluoxetine, sleeping comes pretty easily. Waking, however, doesn't. Nowadays, I'm not fully energised until I have at least twelve hours of sleep. Living with ongoing depression, of course, doesn't do you any favours. I've been having recurring themes in my dreams that have gone on for over a year now. I wake up screaming or thrashing. Lately, most of these dreams have been gratuitously violent. There was one dream I had last year when I was watching infants being put in a vat of boiling water and watching them burn, struggle, and drown, their precious skins bubbling. Another involved me having to kill a crazy old woman who was chasing me with a blunt axe. Eventually, I smashed her head against the pavement outside my house and carried her brain matter indoors.

My grandmother is the true inspiration for my liking for dream interpretations. She's not too big on the fortune-telling side of dreams (I'm not either) but she tends to focus on a recurring theme and how the dreamer was feeling at the time of this dream.

RECURRING THEME#1: Shark attacks. I've had this dream for a couple of years now. Probably since I watched Jaws? I don't know. I've had it for at least two years and I dream about it every so often. It's not awfully terrifying, but there's a lot of panic, scrambling, struggling and frenzy and it usually happens in a swimming pool. I never get a good look at the shark - I'm usually just told by someone at the side of the pool that it's in the water and I need to get out as quickly as possible. I personally have never found sharks that enchanting. I hate the look of their rows of teeth and big, cavernous mouths and the way their eyes do this leisurely roll when they bite their victim.

I saw on a David Attenborough programme a great white shark leaping full out of the water, jaws agape, to grab an unsuspecting seal. It was massive, huge. It spun in mid-flight and with perfect precision, caught its prey before becoming engulfed once again in the monstrous deep of the North Atlantic. In a way, it reminded me of how much I fear the sea. Paddling in the shallows at the beach is fine. I just don't allow myself to try and comprehend the gigantic ancient tempest that stretches out before me in a million azure wrinkles. How can children play so freely in the shallows of the very thing that has swallowed ships and even countries? Hello? Indonesia? Japan, anyone? To me, it's like playing at the feet of a titan. The sea is so big and so furious and people overlook its hidden dangers based on its grandness and its regal size. Why wouldn't I be afraid of it? What could be more terrifying than being completely isolated in a world of complete silence, no breath, no warmth and absolutely nothing in sight but giant green-blue emptiness?

But, hey, about 70% of the planet is covered in the bloody stuff, so I might as well get used to it.

Back to the recurring theme of my dreams. Shark attacks. Last night, I dreamed I was in a swimming pool (where the attacks usually occur) and suddenly, I was made aware that a dangerous shark had been released into the pool. As I was the only one in the pool, I was told to get out as quickly as possible. Panic filled me as I could sense the beast getting closer and more frenzied by my frantic movements and an overwhelming feeling of dread propelled me to the nearest exit. Like in all my other shark attack dreams, I only get out of the pool at the last second. In this particular dream, the shark managed to leap out of the water and onto the pool floor. I decided in the nick of time that the only way to escape was to jump onto the shark's head and to leap elsewhere. After accomplishing this, the shark somehow ended up back in the water. I was with a group of unidentified people who were talking among themselves in panicked voices "It's a great white! It's very dangerous!" But after closer inspection, I realised it wasn't a great white shark at all. It was a baby whale shark - the biggest fish in the world, and very harmless. So I said to them "No it isn't, it's a whale shark. It's not even white - it's blue! Look at the shape of its mouth and its length - it's not a great white. It's a baby whale shark." I was saying all this to very unbelieving faces.

I don't tend to go by dream interpretation websites (someone's interpretation of something may differ from someone else's) but the websites I did visit offered some interesting insights. While one website described shark attacks as the subconscious's way of signifying a fear of an upcoming event, another interpreted it as a personal fear of being hostile, aggressive and fierce - which leads generously on to my next recurring theme...

RECURRING THEME#2: Screaming at people. I've been having this dream for a shorter period of time than the others (about the last few months) but they're very regular and very emotive. In the dream, I come across a certain person who has offended or hurt me in a certain way and decide there and then that enough is enough - I'm going to give them a piece of my mind. And they just stand there and take it in their stride, almost mocking me and I'm left feeling empty, drained and humiliated. In these dreams, I feel overwhelming hostility, uncontrollable rage (not unalike to my previous childish fits of pure fury) and an overpowering desire to hurt the opposing person. It fills me up like a balloon about to burst. I scream, rant, shout, roar, even jump up and down in anger, flail my fists, completely let loose on this person or group of people who, in this moment, I hate, despise and loathe with all my life. Often I've woken up during these dreams because I'm thrashing about in bed too much.

My immediate response is to relate this to my daily disgust at certain people in my life - people who have force-fed me their shit and cover each others' arses. People I un-Christianly detest and spurn as I would spurn a rabid dog.

People these dreams have included:

Those bitches from the musical theatre company I used to associate myself with. In girl world, there are some who start out nice, and then stab you in the back. These were those girls. Nothing could stop the rage from the very core of my soul tearing through my lungs and lashing out at these skanks through truckloads of profanity and foaming-at-the-mouth-and-so-blinded-by-fury babble.

The random, makeup-clad hos from school who made fun of me. An obvious choice.

My youth leader. An absolute wanker. I know full well that I am not the easiest person to deal with, but if he's going to call himself a Christian youth leader, I think he should know full well more than anyone that people in the church with mental health issues are meant to be helped, not shunned. I told this man once again through floods of tears that my terrible, terrible fear of certain things on television has driven me to the brink of insanity. This is the same problem I have been dealing with for my whole life. I was helpless, angry with God and completely sick of "setting myself up for shit". He, having had me in this state a couple of times before (maybe not as intense, though), must've had some idea by now what I needed to hear. His response? A blank stare coupled with (and I quote exactly) "Simple. Just don't watch TV."

I must have looked like I had just been slapped. What the fucking hell was he trying to do?! "Pat, it's really not that simple," I said. Response? "Abi, it really is." I don't know to this day why I didn't smash his fucking face in. Probably because the fucking "house of God" forbids it. Instead, I took a deep, ragged breath and told him that this is exactly the reason why if I even get so much as a glimpse of something that triggers every alarm bell in my system, I'm in the middle of the street in the dead of night, bellowing, howling and trying to split my arm wide open with a sharp pebble while crying up to heaven, demanding some sort of Godly homicide upon myself. That shut him up for a few moments before he began rambling on pointlessly about how "God challenges us" and "God wants to heal me, but only if I let him."

A week later, this fucking prick makes us all watch a movie in a youth session for the billionth time in an attempt to help us all "learn".

I grip my seat in revolt. This is not the first time this has happened. As a matter of fact, this has happened repeatedly for the past year or so. Cinema seems to be Pat's favourite way of shutting us up and preaching, regardless of the risk of setting one person into a violent psychotic episode. Privately, as soon as I begin to feel to threatened to keep still, I slip out of the door and wait out my crippling anxiety in the building's kitchen, singing to myself to distract me from intrusive thoughts and vulgar sounds that just might echo from the hallway. I'm in there for a long, long time. Nobody even checks up on me to see if I'm okay. Perhaps they haven't even noticed I'm gone. But when I finally pluck up enough courage to step back into the room once I'm sure the film is over, the group have all moved on to several more activities, having invited me into none of them and then I'm told off for "not joining in with the group".

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKED-UP FUCK DOES THIS MOTHERFUCKER WANT FROM ME???!!!

*And breathe*

I returned once after that, and then never again. The one time I decide to return to the youth group for one last shot of getting along with their fucking cinema-preaching policies, I'm pulled aside by the youth leader and lectured once again for not being part of the group. I sit there with a plastic grin taped rigidly on my face while screaming inside "FUCKING HELL! You would have thought the way he keeps bollocking on about it I was sitting in a corner holding conversation with my GENITALS and refusing to talk to anyone else!!"

Maybe I take myself too seriously at times, but I won't lie, I'm actually not a bad youth group member. I always have something to say, I'm not presumptuous, I value other peoples' opinions, I always join in the stupid "team-building games" even if they're as fun as getting fucked in the ass by a train, I share personal stories that I feel are relevant to the subject matter and I contribute pretty well through offering prayer, reflection and insight. Furthermore, I'm one of the minor few who would rather talk about Jesus and Peter and John and how the Holy Spirit works than about fucking Justin Bieber's new single.

But no. I'm criticised for wearing black "the wrong way", wearing alleged "satanic jewelry" and though it is never declared, it is always implied that "we're not socialising with you because your suicide attempts and dyed hair means you've clearly been touched by the devil and we don't want to be contaminated."

And people wonder why I'm so cynical about the church.

Just WRITING this has gotten me absolutely FUMING. So it's no wonder why I dream about shrieking my guts out to these motherfucking posers. Just unprofessional shits of teachers, a ton of other bullies, ex-best friends, stalkers and perverts to go. Whoop-de-fucking-doo!

*...And breathe*

RECURRING THEME#3: Being forced to watch TV - or other stimuli that triggers a psychotic episode. I don't like having psychotic episodes. They're horrible, horrible, horrible and I have no control over my actions. My entire mind goes into a frenzy and before I even know it, I'm trying to throw myself into oncoming traffic or slicing my arm open with a razor (cue pink ribbon scars that never forget...((cue Smashing Pumpkins reference))). My biggest fear is having a psychotic episode. The aftermath fills me with a toxic hate for life and overwhelming shame of the horrendous things that I become in my dissociative, diabolical alter-ego. These usually end with me waking myself up (and sometimes other people in the house) by screaming. I believe today, I woke up at noon while crying out the word "Please".

MINOR THEME#1: An ultimate classic - a naked dream. Sometimes it humiliates me, other times, I'm walking down the street, proud of my nakedness, grinning at the shocked faces that go by. More often, however, is being naked and feeling vulnerable. I bear my nakedness with shame, knowing I can't do anything about it, being martyred by repulsive comments, mocking laughter and sometimes unwanted sexual advances. I hate those ones the most.

MINOR THEME#2: Out-of-body experiences. These only happen when I'm sleeping in the dream. My boyfriend thinks this is quite peculiar as he's never heard of anyone else whose dreams involve sleeping. Moreover, he's never had an out-of-body experiences in his own dreams, so he thought this was interesting.

All of these theme, save the last one, involve a high level of anxiety or fear. Now, because my moods have decided to be pretty cruel to me today, I have to get out of here before someone says "Hey, look, a gothy emo girl crying. How original."