Nightmares after a relationship with some issues

[day.walker]

So context: I have nightmares pretty much every night, it's the result of childhood trauma. It sucks but it's pretty much just normal for me. Anyway, ever since I was in a relationship with this allo guy and we had a few encounters that I found pretty violating, I have this especially shitty type of nightmare. Basically, in the dream I'll be a character who is engaged in nonsexual intimacy with a fictional partner, like cuddling or kissing or just laying around together. And then they'll suddenly take it further than I want, or sometimes we're in a pool and they literally push me under the water so I can't breathe, or occasionally the person will physically flip me onto my back or something. It's always quite scary because in the dream they don't listen to me or let me up...or occasionally they DO listen to my protests, but then act very coldly towards me and do not want to touch at all anymore. It just sucks because these dreams are hard to shake and I don't want them to impact my future physical relationships too much because I do really like sensual, but not sexual, touch with someone I care for.

 

I think these nightmares are the result of feeling pressured and occasionally violated (to be clear I was never like fully assaulted in this relationship, just several small things done without my consent) in my most recent relationship. I don't have bad blood with this guy and I think back somewhat positively on much of our relationship together. It's just that one aspect that keeps showing up in my nightmares...can anyone relate? If so, is this something that went away after a time?

[chrząszcz]

I can relate.

 

I used to have lots of nightmares and bad daydreams. It was normal for me. I don't remember when they started. My guess is it was between five and 25 years ago.

 

They were generally about realistic situations where people were being bad to me. I think they would usually related to current events and specific people but that they also had abstract people. And I think they mostly weren't sexual, but perhaps that's just because I wasn't in relationships very often. They were situations where I was feeling pressured and violated (because I was, though usually not sexually). For example, if someone I knew tended to be bad to me, or if I expected someone I knew was going to do a specific bad thing to me, I might have a dream the thing happening.

 

Two years ago I moved to a place where I knew few people and that has a reputation of being happier from the place where I was before. Since moving, I have found people are much nicer to me than the people would see before. The only exceptions are people whom I knew from before moving.

 

About three months after moving I noticed that the nightmares only concerned activities from before I moved or current events involving people I met before moving.

 

About nine months after moving I the nightmares had either stopped or reduced, I can't remember exactly.

 

A year after moving, I couldn't remember when I last had a nightmare, and I couldn't remember the topics of the nightmares. I also couldn't remember what it was like in everyday life before I moved, so sometimes I would wonder if my memory was bad. But then when I would talk to someone from before, or with someone who reminded me of the people I knew before, I could tell that there really was a difference.

 

It is now two years since I moved, and not much has changed about the nightmares in the past year. Perhaps a difference is that it is less scary now to talk with people from before, and I think reasons for that are that it is easier to avoid them (even if I choose to talk to them one time) and that I know I can talk to other people who will be nice to me.

 

Already a after moving (a year ago), I had completely forgotten about the nightmares. I was able to prepare this account only because I had taken written notes about the nightmares over that first year. Had I not written it down, I might today not realize I ever had had nightmares.

[Eutierria]

4 hours ago, day.walker said:

ever since I was in a relationship with this allo guy and we had a few encounters that I found pretty violating, I have this especially shitty type of nightmare. Basically, in the dream I'll be a character who is engaged in nonsexual intimacy with a fictional partner, like cuddling or kissing or just laying around together. And then they'll suddenly take it further than I want, or sometimes we're in a pool and they literally push me under the water so I can't breathe

 

4 hours ago, day.walker said:

is this something that went away after a time?

 

I wonder if it's the perception and/or lived experience/ feeling of lack of control. My first relationship was with an allo & when I left, I remember having a feeling of never wanting to be in a relationship ever again. This was until I realised other aces existed. 

 

If you can get help (maybe someone who works in cognitive behavioural therapy?) that might shorten the time you work through it alone. 

 

Nightmares similar to yours disturbed me & I was always curious what I hadn't worked through with myself that they seemed to repeat. 

 

Eventually, one day I changed. It wasn't overnight but little changes added up in my real life & when a similar nightmare came up - I told the version of him in my nightmare to f off & not to come anywhere near me ever again. I remember feeling powerful whereas nightmares before that I'd felt in pieces. On that day, I remember waking up feeling something important had finally resolved itself in my brain. 

 

It'll take time to work through trauma & when you think it's done, something else might resurface & make you realise there is more work to do. It can get better. Hold hope that it will.

 

Hope you meet the version of yourself you want to be ✨