Sometimes I am surprised about how suddenly a decision comes to me. For example, this morning, I woke up deciding I would delete certain apps/social media accounts. It feels like I need to and I have already posted on one of the social media apps – Strava – that I will be deleting my account. The next will be Instagram and Twitter. These apps tend to take up too much of my time and do not do anything for me, really. I look at my phone more because of them (well not Twitter) which takes me away from the goings on around me such a my kids, family and work.

I will likely keep FB, I am not very active on FB anyway but I may remove the app from my phone, though, in order to keep the distractions to a minimum.

So, very soon, I will be close to social media silence compared to what I was. I’m not sure what I will do with my freed up time. As it is, I am struggling with the last hours of the evening (6-9pm). It seems the evening hours never end. I am horribly bored! I use to have this issue before I met my current husband. I would get home from work, eat dinner and prep for the next day and then have nothing to do for the remainder of the evening. I remember my nightly routine consisted of taking a muscle relaxer and smoking pot to numb myself from the stark reality that was my then-life. No close friends, no hobbies, no interests other than my evening run or an occasional swim. This routine lasted a good six months until I decided I had to stop avoiding life and confront it. My first lesson was awful insomnia caused by a reliance on pot and muscle relaxers to get to sleep. Yuck!

Maybe I will just have to get back to reading books and doing more yoga to fill my time. I have no interest in being social. I’ve never been too good at it and people tend to exhaust me. Even when I use to be more social (waaaay back in 2003-2005) I often had to force myself to go to social gatherings and usually ended up sitting there thinking, “When can I go home?”

I find myself back to wondering, “Is this it?” when it comes to my life. I don’t have a bad life, either, I’m just bored as hell. Why do I get bored so easily? I am tired of seeing the same surroundings, doing the same things, eating the same foods (all foods really), thinking the same thoughts and so on and so forth. Yet when I think of what to do to change things up I lose interest in trying. I feel like I’ve done it all already.

Purging

With all the above purging going on on the outside, some inner work and purging is going on on the inside. Though I don’t remember most of my dreams these days, I have been waking up in tears again, though nothing like in the past. Here is an example from a week ago:

January 27, 2019

I had lots of dreams but only recall a couple.

In the first I was braiding my hair. It was pulled back in a ponytail and I braided a long braid but then had to redo it because one strand of hair was left out. The second time I braided it, though, my hair looked like braided yarn, like a Cabbage Patch doll or something.

Then I was waiting for the school bus. The bus was late and when it arrived the driver informed everyone that the route was going to change so the stops and times would be different. I remember being on the bus and talking to others on it, all high school aged boys and talking about my time as a teacher of kids in the alternative education system and how it prepared me for difficult people and situations.

Then I was with a woman in the back yard of a house. There were two young children, a boy and a girl. As I watched them their story was relayed to me as if background information to what I was seeing. Their family was very poor and the children often did not eat all day. The parents both worked very hard and all day so the kids were left unsupervised until after dark. The father was an alcoholic so much of the money he made went to his drink. The mother was very angry and resentful of her situation and life in general and was not very loving at all to her kids. In fact, she treated them as if they were a burden to her.

I watched as the two children picked apples from a tree. The little girl looked very sad and I tried talking to her to cheer her up but she seemed not to hear me. The woman with me said that the apples were all they had to eat all day and that they had to pick them or else be beaten and go hungry. Some apples were hard to reach and so I offered to climb the ladder to get them. When I picked them the backside of the green apple was rotten. There were two more, both seeming to have partially grown into the tin roof of the house. When I pulled them off one was rotten and the other was not. There were some other apples I could not get to and had to leave on the tree.

Then the woman and I decided to buy the family pizza to help them out. We went inside and sat down. The woman ordered the pizza and when it arrived set it in the middle of the living room table. I remember looking into my wallet and seeing a $50 bill. I was surprised and suggested we give it to the family so their children could have food but then I knew if I gave it to the parents they would not buy food but more alcohol.

We waited for the parents to arrive, which they did much later. The mom came in first, dressed in her work clothes and in a rush. Her energy was very off and I tried to look inconspicuous to avoid the onslaught of her frazzled energy. The woman with me said, “Look we got you pizza.” The woman took a slice and ate it talking about something else and completely ignoring the gift but acting like it was owed to them.

She went outside and I overheard her talking to her husband as he arrived about the pizza gift. She was very controlling and insisted he treat the gesture as a kind of gathering or event. Then they both came in and I mentioned the pizza and she said something about all of us having cheese cake. I looked and saw the father had a huge cake. They ignored the pizza and us and focused on the cake which upset me because I knew the wife had told her husband to buy the cake so they would not look to be in need. He had spent all their money on a cake which would not be nourishing to the kids just so they looked like they didn’t need our help.

The mother went up to my friend and thanked her for the pizza but completely ignored me. This angered me and I said something about how I was the one who bought the pizza and that she should be grateful that we cared enough to help. I said, “I won’t be doing this again.” My anger turned into compassion and then grief as I said to her, “I know you’re a good person.” I then walked over to the husband who was sitting at the table completely out of it and drunk. I put my hand on his shoulder, tears pouring out of my eyes, and said to him, “Especially you. I know you are good.” When I said this he turned to look at me, completely unaware of his surroundings and so drunk that he had no idea who I was or what was going on. I was overcome with emotion at the situation and began to sob uncontrollably.

Interpretation

When I woke up my pillow was completely soaked. The grief I felt was for the children. It felt so unfair that they should have to endure that life, a life without love. And then I grieved for the parents, too, who were selfish and “asleep”. Then I grieved for the world and all humanity because I knew that was a reality for so many. I remember thinking to my guide, “Why??”

When I remembered the dreams before the last one I knew the braiding of my hair was preparation for what was to come. Braids = courage. The school bus is a lesson and another preparation. I was saying I was prepared because of my time working with certain populations of kids. Then the lesson is about the suffering of the world. The green apples are about love or love that has yet to blossom. The rotten apples indicate neglect and carelessness. The parents then chose selfish indulgences (cake) over wholeness and abundance (pizza).

These kinds of dreams always leave me feeling depleted inside. My heart cannot contain my grief at the state of humanity. I try to convince myself in the dream that they are “good” people and do not intend harm but their lack of awareness is painful to watch, especially how it affects their children.

Then last night I was crying in my dreams again.

I was in a classroom (lessons). I went in to visit my mother (aspect of self) and took over her class for a while acting as a substitute. The elementary aged children began to come into the class and were milling about. I walked among them and noticed they were all sitting on the floor drawing pictures on the white tiles. I asked them to wipe away their drawings and mentioned that it was good they did not use permanent (something with long-lasting affect) markers. The kids didn’t know what those were so I described what they were in a kind of mini-lesson.

Then a physically challenged man came into the room with an assistant and sat down in a desk that had walls around three sides (feeling caged in). I spoke with him and he explained that he could have had surgery to fix his ailments (can’t recall what is was now) but he chose not to because he wanted to remain whole and himself. He seemed quite grumpy to me, though, and as I spoke to him more something caused me to tear up and I began to cry.

Later in the dream, I was speaking to my “mother” about her teaching and how she loved her students. I recognized I had the same love for mine and began to sob uncontrollably. It woke me up but I fell back to sleep soon after.

Then I was in a car (life path). It was dark (can’t or unwilling to see) and my husband was driving. He stopped at a pharmacy (healing) and I lingered in the car, tired and sick, with my children. I remember knowing I was late because I overslept. I waited as my husband talked with the pharmacist to get an old prescription I had for congestion filled. Eventually, I went inside with the kids to check on things because it was taking a long time. The pharmacist, who looked like my OB-GYN from when I had my babies, handed me pinkish colored pills (love) in packaging. I could see there were about 10 pills. I thanked her, saying, “I knew I had an old prescription still.” She told me to take two and to see my doctor if I still felt bad.

Throughout these dreams I was talking with someone behind the scenes. I only recall bit and pieces of the conversation and certain energetic sensations. There was a message about having “work done”, like a procedure, and I remember seeing someone getting heart surgery. I watched as they used a staple gun to suture up flesh and bone around the chest cavity. The man was awake while they did this, too. It was really weird!

When I woke up my throat was full of congestion and I have been coughing a bit this morning.

Depression, Anxiety and Containment

Lately I have been feeling a type of depression that really worries me. It is really dark and hopeless. It is not the decimated feeling that I had in 2016. It feels more like actual depression but it is different than the depression I have managed all of my life. There is this inner panic or anxiety that really concerns me. It feels like there is someone inside me clawing to get out, panicking to free themselves from the cage that is me, or at least the me I project outwardly to others. I restrain her but when I do it makes me feel energetically unwell, like I am going to break into a million pieces if I do not let her out. Similar to the decimated feeling, there is a sense that I am going to literally cease to be if this part of me is let out. I believe this depression stems form the feeling I was having back in December where I was feeling energetically sick to the point that I felt at any moment I would lose my mind and do something really out of character to the point of insanity.

I don’t like feeling this way. It is the sense of losing control that does not sit well with me. I believe the mild anxiety and panic attacks I’ve been having go along with this feeling of losing control. Every time I get in the car now I have to fight off anxiety arising from thoughts that somehow what I am experiencing isn’t real but a dream and I will leave my body at any moment or lose consciousness in the middle of rush hour traffic. The thoughts always precede the panic and I know how to control them, and I do but it is exhausting.

The thoughts I tend to have are, “This intersection looks like that intersection (the one I use to always have panic attacks at)” followed by, “What if I have a panic attack? What if I pass out?”. Then I have flashes of these things happening and the panic sets in and all I want to do is turn the car around or find a place to park or jump out of the car and run away.

When I go for runs it is similar. The other day I ran a different route with my dog, thinking it would be nice but feeling uneasy regardless. I had to stop mid-way because I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe and began to get light headed. Again, the thoughts preceded the panic. I think things like, “OMG, I am having trouble breathing. My heart rate is high. What if I pass out and no one knows how to contact my kids? How will they know I’m okay? Who will tell them?” I end up having to walk it out to calm down and the farther I run from my home, the more likely I will have a panic attack. I have started to take my phone with me when I run, just in case I do pass out and they need to contact a family member.

I have never passed out on a run. I have never passed out in the car. In fact, I’ve never passed out in my entire life. Ha!

The only thing I can figure from all the above is that I am at a point where I cannot ignore certain things. The more I ignore or deny them, the more depression and anxiety will result. My best bet at this time is to seek help with identifying and confronting the underlying issues, whatever they may be. In the past, I have done this by going into session, but I don’t know if this will be feasible.

I worry (yes ugh) that I will end up being unable to contain the me that is inside clawing to get out. She scares me for some reason. I don’t know why. She can’t be that bad. She is me, after all. Yet, the sense is that if she gets out my life will fall apart at the seams. The problem is that I don’t know what she wants. The not-knowing is what is scary. I don’t think I can know until she is let out. So it comes down to two options: 1. Keep her contained and continued to struggle with the above conditions escalating. or 2. Let her out and see what all the fuss is about.