Had a dream about an ex from 20 years ago

I dated a girl for 2.5 years. We have not spoken in almost 20 years.

The story is that I was in Iraq and got injured by an IED—severely enough that I was medically retired from the military at 22.

We met while I was on mid-deployment leave during my second deployment to Iraq. Some buddies I went to high school with were in college in the same city I’m from. I took my first block of leave at three months, and I met her at a sorority party because a friend of mine was dating one of her friends. We spent two weeks together and talked on the phone whenever I got the chance.

I was infantry, living at an outpost in a pretty shitty area of Iraq, so the opportunity to talk was rare. This deployment was much worse than my previous one—much more sectarian violence, more IEDs, more firefights, and more KIAs in my company.

Five months later, boom—we hit an IED that shredded my dominant arm. One of the guys in my vehicle, who was also a very good friend, was killed, and another lost both his legs. It was pretty awful, and I definitely suppressed a lot of this stuff for as long as I could.

I ended up having multiple surgeries, but we spoke every day, and she became friends with my buddies. I eventually got back home on medical leave to recover and was later medically retired. We officially started dating once I began school at the same college.

We dated for 2.5 years. We ended up breaking up for a combination of reasons. I won’t lie—I had a full-blown case of PTSD along with TBI symptoms. I was able to hide it for about two years, which only built up until I started having severe panic attacks I tried to hide, along with severe nightmares. I was incredibly suicidal at this point in my life.

I had told everyone that being in Iraq for two deployments and getting severely injured did not affect me. That was a huge lie, but what was I supposed to say? Yeah, I killed people and had guys I knew get killed and maimed by IEDs? It was more of a slow buildup of depression. I was so excited to be home and in college with all my buddies that it slowly crept back up on me.

I went to a very academic school, and my grades started plummeting. I went from a 4.0, then a 3.7, 3.6, 3.3, to barely passing. My life started to spiral out of control, but at that point, I still had everything semi-working.

Our relationship was great. She was my best friend and helped me through a lot. We did everything together. We really only had three issues. Her parents were incredibly rude to me (very liberal), and this was at the peak of the anti–Iraq War movement. She had two friends who were always rude to me. One night, one of them got drunk and smacked me across the face, thinking it was funny. I didn’t find it funny and was done with it.

The next afternoon, I went out with some friends, thought about it, and decided to dump her. I called her and told her it was over, but that she could call me in the morning and we could talk—I just needed some space. I then went to bed.

The next morning, I woke up and thought my life was ending based on the texts I received from friends. Her friends told everyone I was abusive. Her mom came into town, which caused a whole other set of issues. I called her and asked her what the hell was going on. We eventually sat down, and a lot of hurtful things were said.

We decided to take a break over the summer after her parents told her they would not pay for her senior year of college if she continued dating me. We tried to secretly talk, but her parents found out, started checking her phone records, and I had enough. I started dating other people that summer.

I quickly realized—though I already kind of knew—that she was the rock and the glue that kept me stable. After we officially broke up for good that summer, my whole life went to shit very quickly. I was very straight and narrow while we were dating, and once we were done, I went completely off the rails. I’m talking a full-blown case of PTSD.

I was barely passing my classes, mostly out of pity from professors, and I was generally a dickhead—doing debaucherous stuff and a lot of things I’m not proud of looking back.

She came back to school in the fall, and we never said a word to each other. She had a new boyfriend she met over the summer, who I later found out cheated on her the whole time. Because we had a lot of overlapping friends, I said I would have liked to remain friends so we could at least be at the same bar without it being awkward. I even told some of her friends that we were cool and that she could say hi if she saw me.

She graduated and moved back home, then went to grad school. Her new boyfriend dumped her pretty quickly, and it turned out he had a long-term girlfriend the whole time. After she left, she was out of sight, out of mind. I really didn’t think about her much unless someone brought her up. Occasionally, even long after we graduated, people still associated me with her.

I had another year of undergrad left. I still had a full-blown case of PTSD, but I met my wife during this time. She’s awesome and went to college with us. My wife is incredibly smart and motivated. She encouraged me to seek help for PTSD and TBI, and if I hadn’t, I 100% would have killed myself. My anxiety and depression were too much to live with long-term.

Life went on. Believe it or not, I graduated with a double major and didn’t completely tank my GPA. I got a great job out of college—more than I deserved. I started working and eventually went to a great grad school a few years later.

I’m incredibly fortunate to say that my career has been beyond successful—far beyond what I could have imagined 20 years ago. I’ve achieved a level of success I never thought possible and gotten to do things I couldn’t have dreamed of back then. Everything I ever wanted has come true and then some. I have great kids, a great wife, and a great life that I’m incredibly blessed to have lived.

We’ve had zero contact in 20 years. I only know a handful of people who still loosely keep up with her, and even they don’t really anymore since she lives across the country. Very recently, I’ve had multiple dreams about her. I eventually Googled her and looked her up on Facebook and realized I’d still had her blocked for 20 years. It turns out her mom just died, and she’s married with kids.

Had we worked out, I don’t know if I could have achieved as much as I have—even with the year or two where I went off the rails. I was fortunate enough to get back on track. My wife really knows how to get the best out of me.

So why am I having dreams about this woman? I haven’t really thought about her in 20 years.