A month or two back, I was plagued by stressful dreams about my father, and life in general. I chased them off by hanging up a dream catcher near my bed, and putting a special gris-gris near my sleeping area, with carefully selected items inside to - if the intent was correct - redirect any bad dreams so that if they didn’t hit the dream catcher, they still wouldn’t get to me.
For a while, this seemed to work. If one were to believe the idea that Dreams come from outside the body or mind, and were the result of spiritual or magical influence, these measures made sense. And as I’ve said before, if they can affect my subconscious and give me calm, then I don’t care whether or not they’re magic.
But what if the cause of the dreams is completely internal? Magic or not, if I’m setting up things to keep out bad influences and ignoring the cause of stress carried in my own subconscious, then I’m not going to be very effective.
I’m bringing this all up because, much to my annoyance and loss of rest, the stressful dreams have returned with a vengeance.
My daily life is peaceful, full of love and laughter, and mostly absent of stress. My belief is that these dreams may be on the rise again partially because after many years I'd gotten used to living with daily stress, so my mind may be manufacturing stressful situations in my sleep to compensate. There is another possible cause that I’m considering: the idea that the source of the ‘stress’ causing my dreams may be that I subconsciously feel like the situation with my father is unresolved. The situation, for those that wish to understand, is as follows (For everyone else, just skip down to the bottom).
I know that my father always wanted the best for me, and didn’t always believe I made the right choices for myself. My parents divorced when I was younger, and my mom got custody. Growing up, I didn’t see him as often as he or I really wanted, but I did my best to make him proud when I was around him. I liked letting him see me do well in school, excel at art, and interact well with friends… so when I struggled with a class, or when I got in trouble, or problems at home started to get to me, I hid it from him. I felt like a lot of the things that went wrong in my life were my fault, and I was afraid he’d feel the same, so I did everything I could to hide my troubles.
Things only got worse as I got older and went through high school, and despite my best efforts, it seemed all I could do was disappoint him and make what he felt were the wrong choices. I couldn’t find the courage to tell him the truth about the things I was going through - in fact, I wouldn’t tell the truth to my pastor, counselors, teachers, or any other authority figure for fear of disrupting the appearance of normality presented to my church and schoolmates. I was positive that letting the truth get out would mean the at best the dissolution of my life, and at worst being completely cut off from my family and friends by being forced to live with my father.
I confided in a few close friends, but they couldn’t give me the guidance I needed to save myself - and the more I tried to hide, the worse things got for me. My father could tell something was wrong, and reacted by trying to control any aspect of my life he thought might present a threat: who I dated, who I hung out with, what I did at home when he wasn’t around, when I went out, etc. - by which I mean I wasn’t supposed to date, I wasn’t supposed to have friends whose parents he wasn’t close friends with, and I wasn’t supposed to leave the house. My mom let me get away with a lot because she knew I’d go crazy otherwise, but she made sure to tell my father about any time I broke the rules if I made her angry.
Being your typical teen, I felt that most of his rules were unfair because he didn’t get to know my friends, and he didn’t know how much they were helping by just letting me be me around them. I wanted so much to explain things to him, but I knew that telling the truth about the depression I was going through, the problems I was having at home, would tear everything apart. And, to be completely honest, I didn’t think he would listen.
A year after I graduated from high school, I was urged by my ex - my then boyfriend - and a few very close friends to seek counseling to help me work through my emotional problems. No longer a minor, I didn’t have to worry about involving my parents… and having my father learn about my problems.
It helped. A LOT. Having someone who knew what they were talking about actually tell me that the things I’d been through weren’t my fault, that I deserved to be happy, and that my opinion of myself mattered the most (and many other things) did so much for me.
One of my many regrets about this time is that my long standing habits of hiding things to try and save myself hurt - by this point second nature - had led to me hiding my ex from my father.
I knew he wouldn’t approve of the fact that my then Significant Other was nine years older than me. When he found out (on face book, of all places), he decided he didn’t want to know any more about him than his age. Though I’d been debating telling him about the relationship, he beat me to the punch by confronting me about it, and I knew that I’d never be able to come back from his disappointment in me for hiding it from him. He refused to talk to or meet my ex, and told me a few weeks later, on my birthday, that I had to break up with him - or that he would hunt my ex down and kill him. He also set a new curfew, informed me that I was no longer going to hang out with the friends I’d made at the time, and that he’d be doing random checks to make sure I was at home at the right time. Everything he did, I knew he did as my father, and with my best interest at heart - but again, I felt like these new rules were unfair. He didn’t trust me to make my own choices, that much was evident - and it was burned even clearer in my mind that telling him the truth would just destroy everything by removing what freedom of choice I did have.
Over a year passed, and I had started dating my current boyfriend. I lived in constant fear that my father would do the same thing all over again - decide that my choice in men was no good, tell me to break it off, and threaten to shoot him. But things went tentatively okay - my father came over often to have dinner while my boyfriend was present, and they chatted and interacted peacefully. (I later found out that the only reason he hadn't outright rejected my boyfriend was because my mom had said nice things about him).
My boyfriend came over often, just to hang out, or work on papers, or watch movies with me. The visits would last longer and longer, and though he politely turned down my mom’s offers to spend the night on several occasions, one specially stormy night found road conditions a little less than safe, and he relented. Having discovered there was no harm in having him over at night, my mom invited him to spend the night whenever, and things were wonderful - he‘d come over for dinner, and we‘d watch movies or read together late into the night, and then in the morning he‘d drive me to class or on free days we‘d just do things together or see friends. We were all pretty happy with the situation. That is, except for my father.
He felt very strongly about me and boys, even at the age of 19, and when he found out my boyfriend was sleeping over, he was furious. I could definitely understand his concerns, but I didn’t realize he’d react the way he did when he discovered while driving past on the way to work early in the morning, that my boyfriend’s car was in the driveway. Thursday typically found us hanging out with my friends, and then my BF driving me home. That fateful Thursday night, my father was waiting for us in my mom’s driveway.
For what felt like hours - more probably only one or so - he sat on a seat pulled up to the kitchen island and explained while we stood opposite him all the things that were going to change, and how deeply disappointed he was with me. Disappointed for the choices I’d made with my current BF, and all past boyfriends as well. He outlined all the mistakes I’d made in school, every time I’d disrespected him or my mother - it seemed he’d carefully committed every one of the flaws I’d tried so hard to hide from him to memory, and each one stung terribly.
I started to cry - I couldn’t help it. I was as silent as I was able to, but I couldn’t stop the tears. Again, I knew he was just worried about me - but I felt insulted at the same time. He went on and on about pregnancy - didn’t he think that I had the same fears, and would hold back for the same reasons? Did he think that because I was dating someone that I had no self control? That maybe, despite all my evident - even intensely obvious, by the way he made me sound - imperfections, that I’d found someone who loved me, and enjoyed being with and around me for reasons other than my body? Every word he said told me that he knew that I was an idiot, that I would never make the right choices in life without his help, that I would never find a good man, and that I was like an animal that needed to be kept on a close leash to keep from running into a busy road - or at the very least having an unwanted litter.
He told me that there was no reason to cry, treating me as though I was just being petulant, and that I needed to start taking responsibility for my mistakes and actions. “I did!” I wanted to shout. “I owned up to every one of my stupid decisions! I found help, I found a counselor who helped me admit every stupid choice and mistake and helped me save myself!” My mouth stayed shut, and I wept with my hand desperately clutching that of my boyfriend - who knew the truth about everything - as my father explained how the rules already in place were about to get even tighter.
I wanted so much to articulate to my father how I felt - how I felt like I was trapped because none of my choices about my life felt like they were really mine, but his: how he might have seen me break down and cry twice, but that my friends (whom he thought weren’t worth anything) had been there for me countless times and held me while I broke down and didn't know where to turn: how just hearing the sound of his truck pulling up in the driveway whenever I was in my room made my insides freeze with anxiety: how his buying video games and scary movies and letting me eat junk food at his house just felt like payoffs for letting him treat me like I was still six years old: how I felt crippled because growing up trying to placate him had resulted in being conditioned to shut down completely around any authority figure - something I'm still struggling with.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t. All I could do, when I finally tried to raise my voice, was tell him that there was so much that I wanted to explain to him, so much that I wanted him to understand, that I wanted to tell him the truth... but that I couldn't. My guts turned to ice as soon as the words left my lips - this was it. I knew then that there was no turning back, whether or not I wanted to move forward. He refused to leave until I told him what I meant - he demanded I explain myself. My boyfriend tried to help me by agreeing that this was something that needed to wait (like I said, he knew the truth), but my father responded by yelling for him to stay out of it. So, stuttering, sobbing, I told him the truth.
Seeing a real ‘black rage’ in person is a rare and unpleasant event. The fury my father exuded was poisonous. My mother, knowing this could very possibly be the end of much she has worked to hide and live with (she’d found out the truth the year before, about a week after my birthday, and we’d since gotten over it as a household), did her best to try and calm him down - but he turned on her, demanding to know why she hadn’t said anything to him if she already knew.
When my stepfather got home, my father turned on him and confronted him. Within minutes, the confrontation had escalated to assault, and I was sure that I was going to see my father kill my stepfather - either with his fists, or with the gun in his truck. When he actually declared that he was going to get his gun out of his truck, my boyfriend pulled me into my room and called the police. My mom, realizing that the police were on their way, panicked and told both men to get out. Both got in their vehicles and fled. She departed later (I don't know if she just wanted out of the house, or if she went to talk to one of them), leaving my boyfriend and I alone together. My father’s last words to me before walking out the front door were something along the lines of:
“Get your shit together. You’re coming to live with me in the morning.”
I shut down emotionally. I stopped crying. I stopped feeling. I went to my room and started putting clothes in a bag. I knew this meant the end of my world - I wouldn’t be allowed to contact my friends, or really do any of the things I loved regarding art and expression. I knew that if I went to my father's house, I probably wouldn't ever see my boyfriend again. I was about to go from relative freedom to a daily routine of cooking and cleaning at my father’s house, cut off from my previous life. As it started to sink in, I broke down again - and then, in a moment of hope, called another ex whom I‘d stayed friends with, who lived out of state. He has a mind for law - more than the average person, I think - and he also knew the truth, as well as my current situation. After being filled in on the events of the night, he advised me to go to the police and let them know what was going on, and then get out of the state. He even offered a place to stay. This seemed like the best course of action at the time. My father was furious, and armed… not to mention he’d just told me earlier in the night that no matter how old I got, or where I went, he would be in control of my life, and that no matter where I ran, he’d hunt me down. I was feeling very threatened, and terrified for the safety of my boyfriend (who refused to leave my side).
After calling all our close friends to tell them goodbye and to let them know what was going on, we went to my boyfriend’s parents. He and I both thought that they deserved to know was what going on, and they took the whole thing very calmly. I was shocked and completely confused by their acceptance. They didn’t blame me for anything that had happened, and they offered to help us in every and any way they could. We dropped the plan to leave the state, and I kept my head low - and though they understood the possible danger, his parents (as well as all our friends) vowed that they would do anything they could to protect and help us.
My dad called twice over the next few days, telling me that I needed to quit playing games, and that I’d better call him ASAP. Both times he sounded hurt, disappointed and angry, and I was terrified just listening to his voice mails (I’d been too scared to pick up the phone and actually talk to him). But I held out. He told me that terrible Thursday night that if I didn’t want to talk to him, that I’d never have to see him again, and that he’d never talk to me for the rest of our lives (confusingly enough, this was just before the statement about hunting me down no matter where I went). Holding true to his word, he didn’t call a third time.
My boyfriend’s parents graciously invited me to move in with them - it’s a large house, and his brother had just moved out, so there was a vacant room. I started visiting home, and though my relationship with my stepfather remains non-existent since my 19th birthday, my relationship with my mom has never been better. At first, it was unusual for me to live in a house where everyone seemed to pretty much get along and interact well with one another: but we’ve all gotten used to the arrangement, cooking together, doing chores, seeing movies and generally acting like a family. I wonder a lot if this is how normal families behave - the joking, the interest in one another’s activities and life, the only absent factor being the attempt to control one another.
As stated above, my daily life is peaceful, full of love and laughter. I see my friends often, I’m doing well in school, I’m working on my art again, and I feel free to pursue my spirituality. I’ve long since learned that no one but me can make me happy - but everyone around me seem to multiply my joy, and I feel like I can really share it with them.
If the one downside of my life right now, relatively wonderful as it is, is having nightmares about my father, then I guess I can’t complain. But I really wish they’d stop.
Though I regret how I parted with him, I feel very strongly that I can’t communicate constructively with my father - so pursuing resolving my issues with him as a solution to ending my bad dreams is not a realistic option. As an effort to get in touch with my subconscious again (since the sachet and the Dream catcher seemed to work for a time), I wrote out a ritual for renewing myself and followed it. Though I felt very relaxed after, it know that I still have to dig deeper within myself if I’m really going to end these bad dreams.
Most earth religions, at least those with the concept of magic, stress that most results come from within the self. Magic isn’t just about doing a chant, a puff of smoke, and a super-powerful being descending from the stars to fix all your problems - magic is about tuning yourself into the forces around you, learning from them and living with them in such a way that you find enlightenment - whatever that means for you. It might mean strength, it might mean ultimate joy, or maybe it means redemption. For me, it means peace, and learning how to live without needing the approval of anyone but myself. It means living without fear of losing control, and truly understanding that no one but myself can determine what my life, my happiness, means.
For the time being, I may continue having nightmares about my father. For all I know, I’ll have them for the rest of my life. Even so, I’ve come to understand that some suffering is part of life, and if nothing else, and serve to magnify the sweetness of times without it. I hope that in time that the bad dreams stop, but know that no matter what, I will not let them stop me from enjoying how wonderful my waking life has become.
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