Everyone Has A Story

I hope everyone that is kind enough to be reading my blog, knows that I am not trying to say my story is worse than yours, or minimize your story in any way. I have learned that, and I think we all need to know that we ALL have a story. Every single one of us. But its easy to think that no one else has any idea what you’re going through. Most people probably do not. Some of you have lost a child, or are watching a spouse pass. Some of you may have had a limb removed, or been homeless at one point. These things I cannot imagine going through, and my heart always aches for anyone going through a trauma. I never think, “This trauma that they are going through is so much less than mine” 

Each and everyone one of us handles trauma differently. So I implore you all to keep that in mind.

I just recently stopped having my consistent nightmares. I was taking Ambien, because I could not sleep. The best side effect of that, aside from the sleep, was that I did not dream. It put me in such a deep state that I either did not dream, or when I woke up I did not remember. When I would forget the Ambien, or was away from home and couldn’t take it the dreams that I had were gruesome. Skin being pulled off of someone, eyeballs being ripped out, things that were straight out of a horror movie. I asked my counselor at the time why I would be dreaming something like that. She told me that I am not allowing myself to heal and work through my trauma. I’m just bottling it all up. So when my brain and subconscious become in charge it starts to put me in a trauma that my brain thinks is an equal representation. So my brain literally thought that people getting shot in the head, and then ripping their eyes out compared to what happened. That’s insane to me. 

There were a lot of reasons that I got off Ambien. I was scared, because sleep is big to me. But I hated relying on it, and it also made me a psycho. I sleep a lot better now, but I still have the occasional nightmare. They are always very vivid, but I can usually pick them apart and understand why I’m dreaming that. I have less anxiety when it comes to sleep now, and I know that my dreams aren’t always going to be horrid, but I’ve started to allow my brain to process things. 

As a parent, I look at my kids, and hope they will never go through a trauma. Ever! I’m sure we all wish that for our kids. I want to protect them from having those sorts of things. But realistically, we can never do that. I know that if my mom could have stopped mine she would have in a heartbeat. I would have stopped/prevented/saved Ryan if I knew and could. (This is where my guilt always comes to play) the beauty of being a parent right? Being human. Those of you that have had a signifigant trauma, or are going through one now, do you find yourself having nightmares also? Do you go through the weird phases that every single counselor and doctor say that you will? I know that in one way or another we all go through those phases of hurt, anger, blah blah, but I don’t know if I really have. 

I am going to be going on a slight blog hiatus, I have a few people asking for some art commissions, and I have to kind of gauge my time. I am going to use this blog as a way to showcase my art also- because I refuse to allow this blog to be only my sob story. I’m going to have as much positive as I can muster. (Which is saying a lot coming from this dark souled girl) :) Thank you all that are reading these. And the kind words. It has helped me start to heal in a way that I did not realize I could. The encouragement has been so wonderful. I love you all!