Showing posts with label dreams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dreams. Show all posts

Saturday, June 13, 2020

the ugly face of a mother's love


My relationship with my first-born daughter Lee has been giving me nightmares.

I hate it when my fear whispers into my dreams, wrapping its fingers around my neck, pulling me out into entirely too early morning hours to remind me, as I awake with a gasp, that sh** is out of balance.

Last night, I dreamed that I had yet another argument with Lee, who is now 18 years old. She can vote, she could start her own, independent life, but she is far from it. She is, at heart and in essence, still a child. I don't know what we argued about, but I remember that, once again, I walked away exasperated, recognizing that the only solution to the problem would be for me to care less.

"You know what's the best part about life?" she asked as I walked away.
"What?" I asked with a tone.
"Death,"  she said, effectively taking a hammer to my heart.

I imagine, this dialogue sprang from my fears over thoughts of hopelessness Lee shared when she was deep in depression a few months earlier.

I am not sure whether caring less would be a viable solution.
Aren't we always afraid for the lives of our children?
How can the average mother ever discard the care for her child? Kids become adults, but mothers remain mothers. The problem is that mothers don't usually express their concerns for the well-being of their children with picture book examples of "care taking". Their true love and worry for their kid is often manifested via compulsive micromanagement and an ongoing guilt-trip commentary. I know it from my own mother, who surely loves me more than anything. So why does a mother's care assume this ugly form of condescension and continuous critique?

Even though I know my disapproval of pretty much every one of my teenager's actions isn't helping, the words still leave my mouth, sometimes creating havoc, sometimes disdain, but definitely always - discontent and, probably, a dented self-confidence as I have yet again established that I am superior in my ways of thinking. Forget that my ways may actually be better sometimes (e.g. "yes -- you do, in fact, need to eat real food and can't just have a toddler sized meal once a day and assume that will do in terms of nutrition.") -- it's not the point.

I don't know how to let go. The only way to disengage from this un-motherly behavior would be not to care at all.
The fact that my daughter seems to have issues with food (one can count the things she eats on two hands) is a permanently lodged thorn of concern. She also doesn't regulate her sleep, her electronics use, her insane work load from school, or the general need for physical activity and sun-light. As a result of the mismanagement of all these variables, she often dips back into anxiety and depression.

Maybe she just has to go through all of this to understand the importance of self-care. Maybe she has to hit rock-bottom and pull herself out on her own to learn how to live a good life. But it is hard to simply bare silent witness to this learning process - and if we are lucky, it will be a learning process. The fear in my head not allowing me to STFU is based on all the scary stories out there, how depression can lead to suicide, skipping (or discarding, rather) the whole part of learning and process.

In my dream last night, I didn't respond with care or compassion. I, as in real life, expressed my worry in the form of anger and what I said came out as a dismissive and furious guilt-trip.
Well, if you're going to kill yourself, then I hope you're aware that you are going to be taking not only a sister from your sibling, but also a mother. So you'd be taking at least three lives, not one.

Maybe my nightmare was only a portent of what was to come.
My daughter had been feeling so much better after almost a year and a half of an ever growing anxiety and depression. Finally she seemed to have come out and back into the light. She wasn't scratching her face anymore, she reconnected with her friends, she made us laugh with her bubbly personality every day, and she regained her appetite. But when she returned from her father's house later that day, I realized my dream had been a premonition, or perhaps just an intuitive connection to my child's well-being. She had changed during the few days she spent at her Dad's. She was exhausted and not feeling well. Not feeling well in the way she does when she is dipping deeper into a dark mood. Four days of sitting inside the house doing nothing but stare at a screen did immediate damage to her fragile and only recently recovered well-being.

Now it is up to me to make sure she eats a few nutritious and balanced meals, gets enough sleep, and goes out for social contact and some sun. But, it can't always be me. I have to figure out how to let go and she has to figure out how to take over.


Sunday, February 12, 2017

you should do this


If someone were to ask you to describe the perfect day in a most perfect future, would you be able to do it? I've heard about this exercise and its seemingly magical power a few times now, but who finally convinced me to sit down and do, it was a guest on the Tim Ferriss show (if you're not listening to Tim's podcast, you're missing out on some truly deep and enlightening conversations).

Debbie Millman talked about not only her own success with this exercise, but also reports how many of her students, whom she has assigned said exercise to, reconnect years later to, incredulously, share how their perfect dream lives have become reality.

I already know how certain visualizations can manifest themselves, however, I've never gone to this specific extreme. I have to say, even though I was convinced I needed to do this exercise, I found myself at a loss of what my perfect day 5 years from now would look like. I suppose, it may have been due to fear of wishing for the wrong thing (like when I desperately wished to meet my soulmate, forgetting that I was already married. Not only did the manifestation of this dream ruin my marriage, it also "trapped" me in a deeply dependent love with someone who was highly dysfunctional and ultimately lost the battle with his demons, leaving me devastated and in grief for years.)
I also had just passed a paragraph in Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love, introducing a character who, for several years prayed for nothing but an open heart and then received his wish ... in the form of open heart surgery. So, I was a tiny bit apprehensive.

But, the other day, I finally decided I'm just going to sit down and let it flow out of me, with care and consideration, but without fear. I ended up writing for almost three hours. I couldn't believe it when I looked up at the clock. Furthermore, I had immersed myself so deeply into the writing of my dream day of the future, that I actually felt the moments of the day. I experienced love and excitement, an increase in my heart rate, a warmth in my chest, a shot of adrenaline and dopamine. I was so deep in, that I found myself disoriented when "my day" came to an end and I put the pen down.

Even if nothing becomes true, it was an amazing feeling to write this perfect day of 2022. Even just for that, it was worth doing it.

Now - I wait and see, I guess. Wait and see and keep moving.


Wednesday, November 29, 2006

heavy dreams...

my dreams are very vivid lately.

I had one dream yesterday in which I found myself in yet another very narrow underground labyrinth but this time I had entered these canalization-like tunnels navigating two ships. Don't ask me how I navigated two ships, ask me which ships.
I dreamt I was trying to get through (to the free beautiful ocean?) with the two main ships of the Austrian side of the lake of Constance (very nearby). Their names are "Vorarlberg" and "Austria". Talk about symbolism. ;)

Anyway, I got stuck. Hopelessly stuck. There was no way for me to get through. So I had to return to the dark city that lay behind me. Dark because night had fallen (can u say that in English?), and dark because no matter where I turned, I saw people doing wrong or having wrong being done to them. I wasn't afraid just worried about everyone. Worried about their paths, their situation, everything.
Somebody got shot next to me, I ran to their help annoyed with this senseless violence. I called the police. And from then on it was just me walking through this devastated place trying to rescue people.

hmmmm.....



My dream of today was a litte more self-involved. I dreamt I was back in NYC...somewhere by the Flatiron building. I wasn't too excited to be back,...all I noticed was how little nature there was and how much it was missing.
Then I looked down and I had a notebook in my hand. I mean a minilaptop of some sort and it started playing a movie. It was like a student-movie, really cool, and I realized that I had made this thing a long time ago. I watched the whole thing and thought,...wow this is good. I made a movie and it doesn't suck...I could actually submit this to a film-school and maybe get in!

I cannot tell you the disappointment when I woke up shortly after only to find out I had not made any such movie and that all my creative endeavors where still just loose matter in my head somewhere, and saddest of all, ..no ..I won't be back in the film-business. ;)

Sunday, October 08, 2006

dreams, symbolisms, heartaches...

i had a lot of dreams last night. i finally got the chance to catch up on some much-needed sleep and it was full of many unconnected moments that I want to jot down here (mostly for myself):

- I am in a room (here in Austria). People have been cooking. Good, fresh, home-cookin'. However, I seem to be not able to wait, ...or maybe I want to make sure I have something I know I like to eat, so I have Dario hand me in a bag of packed food (the same thing - dumplings and sauerkraut, or something like that). When nobody is looking I dump the food out of the ziplock into a bowl on the table. I think the head of the table notices and frowns. I have no explanation.

> interpretation: the symbol most powerful here is probably the packed food, symbolizing my life in the U.S. which I am trying to sneak in, even though I could have something of much higher quality here, however, which requires my patience and my fitting into a community which seems judgmental.

- I am at work (here at my current job, the one I've been having so many troubles at). we are all sitting on tables, the sun shines outside but it looks dark, for the windows are tinted. The door opens. A pregnant woman comes in. She is wearing very summerly clothes (hotpants, which almost reveal her crotch). She seems uncomfortable, for everyone has turned to her. "Wow, it's cold in here," she says and then walks to back of the office to say hello to someone.
Our new editor-in-chief, a girl that seems to fit into my job as much as I do (i.e. not at all. too open, too outgoing, too sarcastic, etc.) calls over to me and asks if I am still planning to leave. I answer with a "yes, of course," not sure if she is glad I am leaving or not. Then she comes over and tries to tell me something. I notice, she is drunk. I call her on it and she smiles before she wobbles (torkel) away. As I watch her walking away I notice that this usually tall woman (who I might slightly identify with) is now small like a child.

> I don't really know how to interpret this one. Maybe just that my job is cold and depressing at times and that I worry about this girl who just took the job as our new editor-in-chief.

- I am in a car and I am trying to back up through a very narrow passage with cars parked left and right of me. A group of people is standing in front of the car watching me with a look in their eyes that only says: "you'll never make it."
I make it. Without a scratch.

> no need to interpret that one. another obvious one, referring to my situation and the fact that I seem to care a lot about what other people think. ... why, I wonder, whyyy?

- There is a puddle of mud, a small arena of mud rather, for there are people standing all around it watching this "game" whatever it is. It seems to involve dancing and trying to avoid to fall down into the mud. I'm next but I don't even get the chance to walk carefully into the middle to begin. Instead I lose my balance right at that moment and fall off the surrounding board. I catch myself and land on both feet in the mud. The guy who instructs me on what kind of dance I am supposed to do now, tells me to pay attention, for those first steps will be something I've never seen before and possibly more complicated than I've ever seen a dance-step. I pay attention and I feel confident but nervous at the same time.

> same interpretation as to the last dream.

and this one is an older dream, i've been meaning to write down (from 2 months ago or so):
- I am in NY. I am in a tall building and the damn thing won't stop shaking. The wind is so strong...

> interpretation to this one: deep-seated fears of living in NYC (trauma ignited on September 11, 2001).