keeps shaking my reality

So, UGH, another dream!  What is up with me having these dreams that affect me so much in the morning?  It's like a constant these days, that I need a little adjustment time in the morning to re realize what's real and what was dreamt.  I have NO idea what that means psychologically or anything.

So LAST night, I had a streaming dream (it kept coming back when I would go back to sleep) that I lost my car in a downtown parking lot, or that I lost my son in a residential neighborhood.  The losing my son ended up being more earth shattering (I've had dreams before where I lost my car, it wasn't where I parked it, or I forgot where I parked it). 

The police would only help me if there was a body to identify.  I kept "forgetting" that my son was missing whilst getting into my day to day activities.  I had NO idea how to look for a missing child without help, like a search crew.  I walked around yelling "GABRIEL".  I woke up numerous times having to remind myself that in this reality there was no missing child that I was forgetting about, that he was with family in our neighbor state, safe.

On the last episode of the dream, there was a man at the intersection where I last saw my son, and he had three tracking dogs, and was magically there to help me.  One of the dogs grabbed his scent and almost immediately directed us to the holes in the street, to under the street, the sewer I guess.  We somehow pried up a manhole, and I yelled "gabriel" into it, and LO, there he was!  He was all oily, but in very good spirits for having been underground and alone without food or water for three days.  So... *sigh*.... I woke up so severely confused and heart-shaken.

I did note that all THREE cats were snuggled in with me when I awoke.  Did they know?  I twas quite comforting.  NOw of course I want nothing more than to stay home all day and nurture myself, for I feel that I have suffered a very real near loss.

things that make you say....

... TWO movies have made me cry in the last 12 hours.

They both have everything to do with finding ones own happiness, believing in self, and not running away from what scares you.

Something must seriously be wrong with me I think.

identifying issues

I have reunited with an old, old behavior of mine.  I see a pattern.  Within the last year I have had four times where I turned to physical validation to escape my insecurities.  Each time alcohol was involved.  Each time, in the moment, it felt so completely okay, and ended either with me feeling even more insecure and out of place, or one time even ruined a friendship (but it was a destructive friendship so I am probably better for it).

This identity of mine, this need for people to accept me and desire me, is old old old.  When I was younger, it worked for me for a very long time though.  When I was growing up I learned that basically the only way I was going to get any acceptance was to be the Marilyn Monroe of my social circles.  Modernized, of course; embracing sexual freedom and not being dependent on any one person to "complete" me.

Years of self abuse, physical and emotional, have occurred. In a non self pitying way I can see that I am both more damaged and in other ways more healed than I was previously in my life.  My identity being wrapped up in getting that validation though, is still a tangled, gnarly mess.

My living situation is odd.  I live with a very depressed person.  He still looks at me as someone who can be HIS validation.  He doesn't yet want to grow out of his own feelings that he needs someone else to complete him.  His feelings that he puts towards me are weighty, and bring me down when I don't fight them.  Sometimes it is like I am battling my own issues and someone else's at the same time.  I wish living alone was a simple, clean solution, but it is not, I can't afford it, and I don't like the idea of moving now just to move again a year from now when hopefully the man I do love plans on moving to California.  I need to deal with the situation at hand, not run away.

So... what is my solution?  First... I need to learn how to not act on impulses.  I need to learn to implement my schedule of self care and stick to it.  I need to look to the end of a choice, and try to see all the possible consequences.  Very important, I need to acknowledge that how I am feeling when Im drinking is not necessarily how I feel when I am sober, and to stay with people I know I feel comfortable being myself around.   Mostly though, and here is the one that sounds sooo hokey; I need to self parent, cuz what I am wishing I had was a nurturing, compassionate, loving adult in my life to guide me and support me, but since I am a GROWN UP, I am supposed to be that for myself.  Gah, just writing that makes me cry!  This grown up stuff sucks man!

So... off now into a shower, and pushing myself to clean up this hell hole of an apartment.