Nightmares

[Guest guest]

I was watching Dr Phil the other day when he featured that girl whose dad (who was a judge) beat her with a leather strap up a few years ago, and she taped it and recently posted the video on Yahoo. When I saw the video, it reminded me very much of the experience I had of the leather-strap beatings from my foster dad. When I was a teenager - same age as her - he pulled up my dress to get closer to my skin with the strap, and I was having my period and there were blood stains on my panties, and that embarrassed me so much. The pain of the leather strap was horrible, and it left welts and bruises and blood, but the embarrassment was unbearable.

After one such incident, my foster mother made me promise to tell her when I had my period so she could keep him away from me then. Keep me away from him THEN? No, she couldn't do it the rest of the time.

The video was so similar that I cradled myself in the fetal position and rocked when I first saw it - and this is nearly 50 years later. I tried to post a link to it here, but it requires an "adult" sign-in, so you can look it up for yourself on U-tube if you have the guts to see it.

When I was watching it, I was kinda OK. Sure, the memories came back, but they didn't seem harmful or even awful. I seemed detached. But that night (and this was just a couple nights ago), the experience came back in nightmare form. In my nightmare, I was not the one abused but I was the one watching the abuse and I was powerless to help that child. I was powerless to help myself. The dream seemed to last for hours. Finally, I woke up gasping for air.

My question is - or my observation is - that perhaps we can never rid ourselves of memories that reside in our subconscious. That they may rear their ugly heads at the most surprising or not-so-surprising times. That maybe that's OK; maybe we can deal with that. Now. In this moment.

This time, the morning after the nightmare, I was able to cope with the indelible memory that accosted me in my dreams by using ACT tools. First of all, I realized that my dream was something emanating from my mind, that it was not real. In the past, it took me days to come

to that realization (after a nightmare). Next, I was able to see that I am no longer an abused person. Although that child is a part of who shaped me, I am no longer helpless. I can move forward.

Helena