Dreaming, Doldrums, Disgust
I woke up this morning from a very violent and traumatic dream. In the dream, I was back in the little town where I went to elementary school. I was at the town’s relatively new middle school. I was inside the auditorium with a bunch of other people, attending a school event for my children. The kids were off playing in another section of the building.
I went outside for some air and immediately noticed something was going on out there. There was a bar across the way, and gang members were pouring out of its doors carrying military-style weapons. I looked down the street and saw that another group had set up a line of cars, sandbags, and construction blockades.
They all started shooting, and I turned to run. Someone else in the parking lot saw me and threw me in his car to drive closer to the school. As we neared the school, a man holding an uzi stepped into our path and started shooting. The driver turned into a parking space, and I immediately jumped out of the car and started crawling beneath other cars, trying to get back to the building. The gunman killed the driver and started to come after me, but I made it into the building.
Inside, people were screaming and running in circles, like a stampede. The only thing I could think of was that I had to find my children and save them somehow. I went all over the place looking for them, I could only find the youngest one (though he was a few years older in the dream) – someone was taking him outside. I ran over and snatched him from the adult, and found my older two kids. I found a discarded machine gun on the ground and grabbed it. I took the kids with me into a small closet.
At this point, I realized I had a small pistol with me. I made sure there were three bullets ready – one for each kid, if it came to it. I didn’t really care what happened to me, as long as they wouldn’t have to suffer. We huddled in the closet and listened to the sounds of people dying.
Mercifully, I woke up.
I can’t really explain how I felt, but “queasy” is part of it. I felt upset and sad – heartsick, I think. I then felt a surge of gratitude that I don’t live in a place where this type of thing is a normal and expected occurrence. I felt so glad about this, and I realized that I have a lot more to be thankful for than I usually can see.
I got ready for the day, and stopped for a second to check facebook. The first thing I saw when I logged in was a picture of a small Syrian child with her hands above her head in surrender. She thought the camera taking her photograph was a gun. At age four, that was her life – surrendering at gunpoint. I started crying.
I don’t understand this world.
I had an extremely bad night last night. The day started out weird, with my mom telling me she’d “pray for deliverance” for my depression. I was irritated at this statement because, by her usual logic, it was “God” who gave me these thoughts and feelings in the first place. According to her religion, every experience we have is either a gift, trial, or punishment “from God”.
In her mind, it’s God’s Will that I should feel like the world would be better if I didn’t exist. It’s God who makes me fall in a heap on my bed (or in my work bathroom, in my car, out in the forest, etc.) weeping uncontrollably and resisting the urge to swallow a bottle of pills so I can rest once and for all.
I used to try to figure out what I’d done to warrant this kind of life. I realize, now, that I didn’t do anything. This is just how it is. This is the life I have to live, because it’s the only life I can live in this universe.
Anyway. I had an okay day, overall, until about 7 pm. I had a choice about what I’d do the rest of the evening. I wanted to stay home and snuggle up to relax, but I also thought I “should” go to an open mic night I frequent. When I say “should”, I mean that I have read a lot of psychological shit that states that people in depressive states “should” try to connect with other people. I don’t have any friends I can talk to, and I’m a nuisance to everyone, so I thought just being around other humans might help. I ignored my intuition and went out.
I knew as soon as I got there that I’d made a mistake. Seeing groups of laughing people just makes me feel worse because I feel acutely alone. For some reason, though, I thought I “should” stick it out. I stayed as long as I could bear. I realized I needed to leave when a girl got up and started singing a song to praise Jesus. The words were something like, “He died so we can have life, so we can be happy, so we can be free.” Fuck that shit. I got up and left. I went home and cried brutally until I took three benadryl to knock myself out.
I’ve come to the realization that “God” and “Jesus” only care about people who live lives of comfort, people who live in bubbles of self-righteousness, and people who never take risks. Everyone else is screwed, even if they’re chubby faced four year old kids. Fuck that. This is all such bullshit.