I wish a bear was chasing me.

“It all begins and ends in your mind. What you give power to, has power over you, if you allow it.”

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A couple weeks ago I had a bad dream. I nightmare actually. I woke up shaking and afraid. It has taken me awhile to figure out how to write about it and more time to figure out if I should publish it. But then I realized that there are people out there who live this dream, this nightmare. And so I chose to share it.

In this dream, there was no murder. No bad guy breaking into my house. No bear chasing me. It wasn’t that kind of dream.

This was a dream that involved people from my past. The man that I was once married to. I dreamt that he was trying to get me to go back to him. He was bullying me. He was persistent. Insistent. He was relentless. And I was trapped. I was being coerced to return to a life that I wanted nothing to do with. A life that I didn’t realize until this dream how toxic it really was. How terrifying. This is my real nightmare. Was my real nightmare. I don’t know if I have ever woken from a dream so afraid and so shaken.

I was suffocated. I lost my voice. I lost movement of my body. I was paralized. I lost control of my own thoughts. I lost my ability to fight. I lost my power. My strength and my courage. I lost everything that I worked so hard to gain over the past 5 years. I lost myself.

This was my nightmare. But it is over. And it is not real. Not anymore.

This is the power that verbal and emotional abuse can have over someone. When I think back on how I felt being in the thick of it, I didn’t know it was that bad. Because it was my everyday. My normal. And then one night I was suddenly and explosively back into the thick of it. And it was terrifying. It was crippling. And it was awful. I can look back now and I see exactly how bad it was. I woke up shaking and afraid. And I should have been. This is not a way anyone should live.

It was a time when I was a victim. Was. I am not anymore. I have put it behind me. I have grown from it and I have healed from it. I do not hold on to it and I do not dwell on it. I embrace the bright and beautiful life that I live now. And I hope with all my heart that others living this nightmare can get to where I am now. I hope with all my heart.

Not to be dramatic… but next time I hope I can have a nice pleasant dream about a bear chasing me 😛

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