THE COLOUR OF MADNESS
A Blog About Living with Mental Illness
Day Dreamers Sleeping
I don’t know how to tell the difference between what has actually happened and what was simply dreamt of anymore. Memories of my reality are exactly like those of my dreams and it takes detective work to sift through their feasibility before one can make a determination either way. Even then sometimes it seems impossible to tell.
For example, I may or may not have gotten a speeding fine recently. I have a memory of speeding and seeing a mobile speed van and thinking about how Hubby was going to laugh at me because I’d just been picking on him about one he himself got a few days earlier. I remember thinking that we really couldn’t afford one let alone two fines right now.
But, when I mentioned it to hubby and he asked which road it happened on I realised I don’t remember what road I was on, where I was headed at the time or even which state I was driving in. It feels like it may have just been a dream, yet dissociation leaves most of my proven memories feeling this way too, so now I simply cannot tell anymore, we just have to wait for the fine to turn up or not I guess.
It’s happening a lot and it’s disconcerting to say the least. Vivid dreams of mundane day to day life or even more sinister dreams of my complicity in various untoward activities evoke the same emotional reactions as I imagine they would if they were actually happening. Full body emotions that I am unable to let go for days, weeks, long after the memories have dissolved.
Then again, things I assumed were dreams have later sometimes been revealed as actual events and honestly if someone knocked on my door falsely accusing me of something terrible, I myself wouldn’t even be able to be 100% certain that I hadn’t done it. My own mind is gaslighting me and it’s frightening as hell.
I start getting paranoid just thinking about it, even writing this makes me feel like I’m setting myself up to be implicated in something but I’m forcing myself to write it anyway, to try and prove that my fears aren’t going to come true. Maybe another part of me thinks that I’d deserve it if they did. I hear a helicopter or see flashing lights and I know they’re on to me, ready to lock me up and throw away the key for something I can’t remember doing.
Yet somehow despite all of this mental chaos parts of my compartmentalised brain are keeping up appearances. They function at work, they take care of the kids and somehow I can successfully pretend to be a normal functioning adult even though on the inside I feel like my mind is melting. I just don’t know how much longer I can keep it up.
2 Comments on “Day Dreamers Sleeping”
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THE COLOUR OF MADNESS 
This is awful. I fear sth like this, too. I wish you a better feeling of reality. I’m no expert to offer you a solution. I can only feel with you and send you my best wishes. Hang in there.
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Thank you ❤
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