Nightmares

Every night for the past week, I have had terrible nightmares.  Every single one of those nights, I have had multiple terrible nightmares.  They are the same dreams that I had right after Max died and then sporadically throughout last year.  In the dreams, I lose Max.  I misplace him, or he runs away, or his carseat goes missing with him in it.....or one million other scenarios.  Throughout the dream, I am panicked that I can't find my little boy.  Most of the time, I end up finding him - about to be killed or cooked or hung or something out of this world terrible.  Then I save him and hug him and kiss and him and cry.  Then I wake up and remember that I've actually lost Max - that I didn't save him and that there is no hope of saving him.  That he is gone forever and I will never see him again in this life. I am not sure how the brain processes information exactly but I can hardly take much more of it.  I spend much of my mornings, and the periods where I am awake nursing Mo, reliving the painful dreams and then trying to make sense of the fact that my reality is actually worse.  It's all a complete nightmare.

2 comments

SadMama said...

I'm so sorry that sleep offers no respite. It's terrible enough to wake each day and realize that your child is gone forever. Treasure Mo (I know you do) and when he's older you can share stories about Max with him. He'll also come to love Max and carry on his memory.


A future project (when Mo is a preschooler) could be for the three of you to write a book about Max, with Mo providing some of the illustrations (and you can also use photos) on a site like http://www.storyjumper.com/.

heather said...

abby i have no words. i recently heard a neuroscientist talking about pstd—that when someone undergoes an extreme trauma, nightmares can retraumatize a person as vividly as when the tragedy originally occurred. you don't deserve this. sending you, ted and mo much love and thinking of your beautiful maxie. hope to see you soon.