So apparently I have some forgiving to do. Let me start at the beginning:
I have never, not one time in my life, ever forgiven a person. If you wrong me, I might slap a smile on my face and pretend that shit didn’t go down, but really I’m still holding a grudge. Really, every time I look at you from here on out, I’ll be thinking You son of a bitch YOU, I will never EVER forget what you did to me.
Apparently this is not healthy. Where was I when they had Forgiveness Day at school?
Early on in January, my doctor finally got my meds on the straight and narrow such that I am able to mostly function throughout the day and sleep more than 3 hours a night. (WOO HOO! SLAM DUNK, BITCHES!) But I started noticing a weird side effect, not which hadn’t happened to me before, but which was happening with more frequency than usual: I was beating the shit out of people in my dreams.
Of course I’m not going to name names here people, I’m not that much of a monster, but I will say that I did some damage. And if I didn’t slap/kick/punch hard enough, I would do it again and again juuuuust to make sure I got the job done.
(Are you disturbed by me yet? It’s okay. You’re not alone.)
I would wake up from these dreams and still be pissed until lunchtime. My phone might ring, the beaten person would be at the other end, and I’d be all Whaaaat? Didn’t you learn your lesson last night? Yeah, that’s not okay.
So I went to my therapist a couple of weeks ago and asked her about these dreams and she said that a) it could just be an unfortunate side effect of one of my medicines or b) I have some really stuck-up-in-there anger that needs to be sucked out. After that I went to my doctor, and she said that bizarro dreams such as mine are actually very symbolic (and she showed me the brain and the section and the whatever to the such and such to explain all this) and that I needed to work closely with my therapist to discover where my issues lie (lay? lie? I never got the hang of that).
I told her to give me more Ambien.
Back to the therapist, who has encouraged me to write letters to the people at whom I’m apparently angry. The whole twist on this scenario is that I didn’t know I was angry! I mean, really. I was not aware that, walking around with this big old smile on my face, I was actually seething underneath it all. I’m totally not lying, y’all.
So my appointment is Friday, and these letters I’m supposedly writing are supposed to be read to my therapist as if I were reading them to the person they’re intended for. And I can scream and yell and cry and whatever at HER, and then it will be out of my system.
Supposedly.
But my question to you is this: how am I supposed to write these letters and get over my anger if I can’t tell the people I hate that I hate them? I’m no therapist obviously, but how does that shit work, exactly?
By the way, don’t sweat it if you get a letter in the mail from me. It’s probably a birthday card.
i have to say, i’m with your therapist on this one. i had SO much anger and resentment towards the camp director who fired me that i had dreams for YEARS–like at least once a week for almost 6 or 7 years. all stress dreams about camp.
SO…at some point, i think after james was born–maybe pregnant with david? yeah, but before i knew he was a boy, i sat down and wrote this 5 page letter to the camp directors. totally vented–about how they wronged me, how much i loved that place, how i wanted my (maybe) daughter (oh well, not so much) to be able to go to camp there, yadda yadda yadda.
never mailed it, but would you believe that i have NEVER had another stress dream about it since i signed that letter?
just sayin….
love you girl. and your ass better not be writing me a letter. i’ll kick your ass back
I’m not writing YOU a letter silly, I’m writing your letter to my therapist. Just kidding…Thanks for telling me about your experience, and we’ll see if I can be as brave.
I’ve had dreams like that. I swear—just writing stuff down, getting it out of your system, saying what you want to say but probably never will in real life—feels so much better. It’s like an uninterrupted conversation.
You’ll have to tell us afterwards how it felt.
Good luck!
I had another dream like that last night – I woke up out of breath and screaming. What is UP with me?! I will let you all know how it goes…IF it goes.
i think that sometimes the simple act of expressing your anger (even though it isn’t expressed directly to the person you feel it towards) can be quite helpful. i’ve written an angry letter or two which i would never send, but it helped me feel a great release. i say have at it!