When you live with depression & anxiety what you dream can turn an otherwise ordinary day into a real dud!
For as long as I can remember the thoughts and feelings that floated through my nighttime rest never quite seemed to go away in the morning. The fear and sadness that wrapped it’s way around the images and activities of nighttime’s rejuvenation would invade my daytime and provide a pervasive undercurrent of sadness.
I’m surprised to learn, that not everyone experiences dreaming in this way. Mr Wonderful tells me that to him, it’s completely foreign. So I’m interested in finding out whether it’s a symptom of depression and/or anxiety or whether it’s simply the way many people (me being one of them) are built.
In my current thinking, I have a tendency to believe it’s a symptom because I cannot recall a time where a happy dream led to a day of pervasive happiness. In fact, I can’t recall even one happy dream, where I’d quite easily regale you with a seemingly endless list of dreams where fear and loss were the stand out features.
Today is one of those days. A night of seemingly endless dreams that included people from lost relationships has left me tearful and almost immobile. The inevitable emotional knocks that happen throughout a normal day, rather than being easily deflected, inflict painful wounds. And my response, is to melt into tearfulness.
So as I tap away on my keyboard in my favourite café, I am overly conscious of the welling tears and the desire to return to bed in order to shut out the world. And, having designated Monday as my day for writing, I’m committed to my need to broaden the world’s view of what it’s like to live with depression and anxiety. Of course I lamented to Mr Wonderful that I had no idea what I was going to write. I had wasted most of the day and of course the familiar refrain, I have nothing that anyone would be interested in.
Of course Mr Wonderful was smug in his reply, suggesting that perhaps I needed to write out of where I was rather than looking for a diverting topic with which to be clever.
So here I am, uncontrolled and emotionally naked. Afraid of saying the wrong thing, feeling the nausea, observing the world through yet more tears and wondering what the future holds for someone as broken as me! And, mostly it’s been generated by the fact that I dreamt about events over which I had no control. In my dreaming I’d created fragmented and impossible scenarios of restoration that once I awoke were left without resolution and with only amplified feelings of loss & grief.
And the question remains. Is this a symptom of depression and anxiety or is it simply a normal response to the process of dreaming? Are the dreams a reflection of my feelings or are they the flint that ignite an emotional response that once started cannot be controlled?
From Philosopher Descartes: I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.
If you need to talk to someone NOW call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Deb Shugg is an awarded businesswoman, wife & mother, author and a sufferer of depression and anxiety. To contact Deb click here.
Read more of Deb’s BLOGs about living with depression and anxiety click here.
If you need help to deal with your symptoms see your doctor.
(Abuse of another person is NEVER okay. If you are being abused or, if you are an abuser please seek help.)
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