Yesterday, when I got back from my evening rounds, I saw a video still on my amazing human’s PC screen. It was a paused youtube video, perfectly innocuous. It was of two men.
One of them looked like It.
My stomach clenched and my mind went numb. I avoided my gaze. But it was like a trainwreck, my eyes were drawn back to It over and over again – the image was so horrifically like It that I went into full shut down (which looks like nothing more than I’m a bit more dazed than usual). My mind blanked it.
I distracted myself and eventually fell asleep on the couch. Later on, when my amazing human was ready to go to bed, he woke me and we went. All was well. We tucked in and fell asleep.
Then the nightmares started. It was there, in them, in my old home. I was dealing with Its old cars. The exacts of the dream are hazy now, I just remember keeping my amazing human hidden from It, It must never know, never meet my amazing human. Play nice, play polite, simper, do all the things I used to do. Scrape and bow, scrape and bow, do everything he asks, do everything he says, everything is okay, hide it all, hide my new life, don’t let him know…
It’s a mixture of reliving the abuse he visited on me and the fear of him … not ‘coming back’ but being near me, encroaching on my life that I have struggled and worked so fucking hard to build, and the positive and deep relationships I’ve built with my friends and family, and my amazing human being.
I’ve been feeling … not quite right all day. The nightmare has been on my mind a lot. I’ve been running it around my head, trying to make sense of it all, but all it seems to be doing is making me more out of sorts. I’m hoping this is enough to get it out, and I can now rest, relax, and sleep a bit better tonight. Ideally without It and the nightmares.
Walk to Wellness 