extreme nightmares

almost every night, I have a similar dream. They are mashups of real memories and fake ones that have been created from the depths of hell inside my brain.

while the dreams vary, two things remain true every time:

• my dad is the main antagonist
• I’m being tortured, raped, or abused to an extreme degree for a minimum of hours at a time

I used to take prazosin which worked really well as a dream suppressor but I’m not on it right now. Until I’m able to start it again, I’m looking to know that I’m not alone and for any post-dream remedies that might help.

Sometimes I wake up throwing up. I always wake up crying. Sometimes I have bad ideations the day after the dream. I always feel like digging them out of my skin.

I have a lovely therapist who has been helping me work through the underlying issues, but in the meantime, bundling up under blankets while hugging myself doesn’t do much to help anymore. The dreams are hard but it’s usually how I feel when I wake up that gets to me. That and the fact that my dreams play on loop inside my head all fucking day.

When I have ice available, putting my face in ice water helps, but my freezer doesn’t have an ice maker and because of ny chronic illnesses, I struggle keeping my plastic ice cube maker full.

I should say I’m 27, live alone, and don’t have much of a social circle besides my cats.