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Feb. 4th, 2006 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elizabethSo, I know yesterday's dream was an anxiety one (because it takes an Ivy League education to figure that out), but for the life of me, I'm not sure how to classify last night's slightly more one, wherein my sister was kidnapped, I think by her, my, our, whatever, biological father. And for some reason, they were in the house next to/behind ours (geography was a little fluid), and my stepfather and I had to go rescue her.
Which we apparently did with a pink light sabre for me, and a broomstick, for him. It was kind of a big production, with people moving our supplies (including big silky scarves to cover our faces; mine was a gorgeous pale shell-pink one) around so we couldn't find them, and emptying our pockets of anything heavy that could slow us down when we were running away, as we seemed sure we'd have to do. But we had to strike a balance, because if we got rid of everything, it would take too long – real element of panic running through this part, I remember, a real sense of time running out -- and my sister wouldn't feel safe coming back with us. Yeah, go figure. Stockholm Syndrome, maybe?
There were people there, and while I knew who they were in the dream, I don't now (not grandparents, I'm pretty sure, and my mother was kind of drifting around in the background, worrying, but she couldn't do anything and was moving our things around), although I'm pretty sure that one of my sister's friends (a generic friend, not anyone I know) showed up at some point.
Most of the dream was the preparation for getting her back; the actual fight with my father lasted only a few dream-seconds, and I got left behind for most of it; had to break into the house before smashing him on the back of the head with my light sabre. I wish I could remember the quip I made beforehand, but it probably wasn't as good as I'm pretending to remember it being.
After that, I started waking up, so it's all pretty blurry; just the image of my sister and I sitting on the porch steps at sunset, not talking, not needing to, lasts.
I have no idea what any of that means, if anything (I'm less than impressed by conventional dream analysis, just so you know). The last time I dreamed about my father, I was in England, and I'd sent an email of his to my mother (I can't read his emails, they're manipulative and upsetting and I cannot do it) and she hadn't gotten back to me, and I had one of the worst nightmares of my life, that he was sick with cancer, and that was what the email was about. (It wasn't. It was his usual screed, and for once, thank god for that. Cancer would be cheating. You can't hate someone who's dying.)
I have worried, over the last year or so, that he's starting to 'get to her' as he did to me; a little later, yes, but before my parents divorced, I was a real daddy's girl, and then he just – disappeared. He and I are very, very similar in a lot of ways, most of which I find disturbing, and I've always been more sensitive to his moods and reactions than she. I probably felt rejected when I was six, and I started rejecting him after that – for most of my childhood, once I could say 'no', I avoided physical contact with him, for example, and when I was fifteen, I left, and haven't really seen or spoken to him since.
I feel like I'm breaking a confidence when I say this – hell, I am breaking a confidence, but fuck it. It's not my secret, and when I was told it, I was being told as an act of broken confidence. (Side note: I am so sick of people asking me to keep secrets for them. I don't gossip and I do keep confidences, but I am really beginning to resent the people in my life who tell me things that will impact other people more than I, and then ask me not to tell them. It's never harmful stuff, per se – I’d have no compunction about breaking faith for that – but I don't like being in the position I've been put in, several times. I don't like having to watch my words around my family. And I'm dreading the question, 'he told you? When?', because there is no way this can be concealed forever, the very nature of it prohibits it, and what am I going to say to that? 'Last year, he asked me not to say anything'?) Apparently, someone read some writing my sister had left lying around, and in it was a letter to my father that was very critical of him – "you think you’re a good father, but you’re not," she said, was a direct quote. Starting with, I've always trusted my family not to read the papers I have, and now I'm not sure if I can, but beyond that, I don't know what to think.
I wouldn't want my sister to go through what I have for the last four years; hell, the reason it took until I was fifteen to walk out was that I was trying to protect her. But my father destroys relationships. It's a tendency I have as well, which is how I recognize it; it's really the main reason I'm in therapy. I will not be like that. I will not.
He destroys them, and it’s never clean or pretty. My parents' divorce was acrimonious in every way imaginable, and has dragged on for years (the tuition thing from the last six months or so? Yeah. That's an offshoot.). He rarely speaks to his brother, and they never seem comfortable with each other. His parents died when he was in his teens, and while I believe that's a major reason he's been unable to parent teenagers himself, that's neither here nor there for the moment, and they hadn't been getting on for a while. He's not in contact with most of his relatives (it was a complete shock to me when I was twelve, to discover that I had cousins at all; I'd never heard of them, but apparently I have a lot, mostly second or third, but they're there, and it's distinctly possible that they don't even know I and my sister exist). He doesn't have many friends, he dislikes most of his colleagues, his students find him condescending and unfair, and his relationship with his last girlfriend is apparently over (according to secondhand family gossip; I knew her, but that happened after I left).
He destroys relationships. And while I don't think being in a relationship with my father is the way for anyone to be happy, I also don't think that my sister can leave him behind the way I did. I think the reason I can get out of this relationship with him is because I have that tendency myself; I can walk away. She can't. She's not like me, and that's probably a good thing.
The whole damn stupid dream probably had something to do with that; half the time I don't feel like I know my sister. At all. But she's my sister; I do know her, I know things about her no one else does, I keep her secrets and I trust her. I want her back. I want the sister who could read my mind, whose mind I could read, who could send me off into giggles without even trying. I want her back, and I want her back from my father, who is going to hurt her even without her realizing it.
Okay, maybe just talking and writing it out is not always a bad idea.
Which we apparently did with a pink light sabre for me, and a broomstick, for him. It was kind of a big production, with people moving our supplies (including big silky scarves to cover our faces; mine was a gorgeous pale shell-pink one) around so we couldn't find them, and emptying our pockets of anything heavy that could slow us down when we were running away, as we seemed sure we'd have to do. But we had to strike a balance, because if we got rid of everything, it would take too long – real element of panic running through this part, I remember, a real sense of time running out -- and my sister wouldn't feel safe coming back with us. Yeah, go figure. Stockholm Syndrome, maybe?
There were people there, and while I knew who they were in the dream, I don't now (not grandparents, I'm pretty sure, and my mother was kind of drifting around in the background, worrying, but she couldn't do anything and was moving our things around), although I'm pretty sure that one of my sister's friends (a generic friend, not anyone I know) showed up at some point.
Most of the dream was the preparation for getting her back; the actual fight with my father lasted only a few dream-seconds, and I got left behind for most of it; had to break into the house before smashing him on the back of the head with my light sabre. I wish I could remember the quip I made beforehand, but it probably wasn't as good as I'm pretending to remember it being.
After that, I started waking up, so it's all pretty blurry; just the image of my sister and I sitting on the porch steps at sunset, not talking, not needing to, lasts.
I have no idea what any of that means, if anything (I'm less than impressed by conventional dream analysis, just so you know). The last time I dreamed about my father, I was in England, and I'd sent an email of his to my mother (I can't read his emails, they're manipulative and upsetting and I cannot do it) and she hadn't gotten back to me, and I had one of the worst nightmares of my life, that he was sick with cancer, and that was what the email was about. (It wasn't. It was his usual screed, and for once, thank god for that. Cancer would be cheating. You can't hate someone who's dying.)
I have worried, over the last year or so, that he's starting to 'get to her' as he did to me; a little later, yes, but before my parents divorced, I was a real daddy's girl, and then he just – disappeared. He and I are very, very similar in a lot of ways, most of which I find disturbing, and I've always been more sensitive to his moods and reactions than she. I probably felt rejected when I was six, and I started rejecting him after that – for most of my childhood, once I could say 'no', I avoided physical contact with him, for example, and when I was fifteen, I left, and haven't really seen or spoken to him since.
I feel like I'm breaking a confidence when I say this – hell, I am breaking a confidence, but fuck it. It's not my secret, and when I was told it, I was being told as an act of broken confidence. (Side note: I am so sick of people asking me to keep secrets for them. I don't gossip and I do keep confidences, but I am really beginning to resent the people in my life who tell me things that will impact other people more than I, and then ask me not to tell them. It's never harmful stuff, per se – I’d have no compunction about breaking faith for that – but I don't like being in the position I've been put in, several times. I don't like having to watch my words around my family. And I'm dreading the question, 'he told you? When?', because there is no way this can be concealed forever, the very nature of it prohibits it, and what am I going to say to that? 'Last year, he asked me not to say anything'?) Apparently, someone read some writing my sister had left lying around, and in it was a letter to my father that was very critical of him – "you think you’re a good father, but you’re not," she said, was a direct quote. Starting with, I've always trusted my family not to read the papers I have, and now I'm not sure if I can, but beyond that, I don't know what to think.
I wouldn't want my sister to go through what I have for the last four years; hell, the reason it took until I was fifteen to walk out was that I was trying to protect her. But my father destroys relationships. It's a tendency I have as well, which is how I recognize it; it's really the main reason I'm in therapy. I will not be like that. I will not.
He destroys them, and it’s never clean or pretty. My parents' divorce was acrimonious in every way imaginable, and has dragged on for years (the tuition thing from the last six months or so? Yeah. That's an offshoot.). He rarely speaks to his brother, and they never seem comfortable with each other. His parents died when he was in his teens, and while I believe that's a major reason he's been unable to parent teenagers himself, that's neither here nor there for the moment, and they hadn't been getting on for a while. He's not in contact with most of his relatives (it was a complete shock to me when I was twelve, to discover that I had cousins at all; I'd never heard of them, but apparently I have a lot, mostly second or third, but they're there, and it's distinctly possible that they don't even know I and my sister exist). He doesn't have many friends, he dislikes most of his colleagues, his students find him condescending and unfair, and his relationship with his last girlfriend is apparently over (according to secondhand family gossip; I knew her, but that happened after I left).
He destroys relationships. And while I don't think being in a relationship with my father is the way for anyone to be happy, I also don't think that my sister can leave him behind the way I did. I think the reason I can get out of this relationship with him is because I have that tendency myself; I can walk away. She can't. She's not like me, and that's probably a good thing.
The whole damn stupid dream probably had something to do with that; half the time I don't feel like I know my sister. At all. But she's my sister; I do know her, I know things about her no one else does, I keep her secrets and I trust her. I want her back. I want the sister who could read my mind, whose mind I could read, who could send me off into giggles without even trying. I want her back, and I want her back from my father, who is going to hurt her even without her realizing it.
Okay, maybe just talking and writing it out is not always a bad idea.
Reposted from LJ, 20 March 2009
