A Prayer for Nightmares

I don't want to see a therapist because he would only help me work through things I used to work through on my own and I don't want to admit that I can't anymore.

But I have these dreams. They're so vivid, I see color and texture. I feel and taste and smell. And everything is bright and lovely. Everything tastes good and I don't feel like gagging when I eat. The problems are the problems of my childhood: minute. Everything worrying me during the day simply no longer exists. It's hell.

Because when I wake up, it's dark. I lay still as I can, trying to soak up the last bit of warmth from my dreams but I have to move eventually, usually a sprint to the toilet to throw up the bile that was unsettled from not being fed the night before.

I return to my bed, trying to find the bright side, but it's fully retreated to my subconscious. For all that I still have the memories of the times I cannot have, a vivid contrast to the little I am left with.

I have much to be grateful for, I am sure. But usually I can only think of about two things, or two people. And even then the thoughts regarding them swell in currents of guilt. So much I want to be able to do for them, so much that I did in my dreams; but instead I can only lay still, wishing for the strength to even shower so I can stand my own scent.

That is maybe why I cannot work through things anymore. My thoughts are tirelessly drawn to my dreams. I cannot get a handle on what is in front of me because I cannot let go of what is not.

Each day I try to remind myself I am trying my best, that there is nothing more I should be doing. Each night I am reminded how painfully untrue that is.

There are hundreds of allegories that raise the philosophical question of whether it is better to know of a good that you cannot have or be kept in a dark, but blissful ignorance. I have always felt that knowledge is power, but I now know it is not worth bliss.