I don't know why it started, but I know when it began. I've tried reasoning with my inner self to find the reason this dream keeps popping up out of nowhere. Prior to 2009, the only time I had ever been in a hospital was for two reasons; the day I was born and the day I gave birth to my daughter. I've never had so much as a broken bone. Then when I hit my late thirties, things began to change. My menstrual cycle went haywire. Constant bleeding, pain in my back, cramps, wearing two pads at the same time, etc. I was in and out of the doctor's office for some kind of relief. Finally, my insurance approved a hysterectomy.
To say I was scared of having surgery would be putting it mildly. I was so anemic, I had to go into the hospital the day before surgery and receive three pints of blood. My iron was almost non-existent. I was so pale, I looked like a zombie. My energy level was zapped. Friends and coworkers urged me to go home from work and rest.
Then the morning of surgery came and I remember the nurse asking me to count backwards and then I drifted off to sleep. When I woke, I never felt so good. My energy level soared. There was no pain for the doctor performed the hysterectomy vaginally. So the healing process was much quicker. I even remember asking him if he was sure he even did the surgery. After I healed, I went home. Then the nightmare started.
I remember feeling paralyzed. I couldn't make a sound. I tried to call out for help but had no voice. I was trying to get my right arm to move. I struggled to get someone's attention that something was happening to me. But no one came. I finally mustered enough strength to move my arm and claw at the side of the wall. I still felt paralyzed. When I finally woke from the dream, I was wondering if in fact it was a dream. I thought something was actually happening to me. Was I trying to have a stroke, cause that's for sure what it felt like! I felt woozy, drugged. But I hadn't taken anything. Slowly, I awoke fully. Sure, it was only a bad dream I told myself.
Several months went by before I had the dream again. This time I felt hands on me. But I couldn't see the hands. I could only feel them. Like a ghost. I knew they were there but I just couldn't see them. And I was paralyzed once again without a voice to scream with. I finally got the strength to tug at the hands that were on me. Was I dreaming about my surgery? Did something happen to me on the operating table? No one mentioned anything or any complications to surgery. It had to be something that has caused me to have this awful nightmare. I want it to go away. So I decide to talk to my doctor about it. No obvious answers there.
So I began to notice more and more about my dream. The feeling of being paralyzed finally subsided. But the feeling of hands increased, still unable to see them though. And I began to yell out in my sleep causing me to disturb my family. They began to wake me up from the nightmares. I had finally found my voice! I could wake myself up!
"Mom, mom" I hear as I'm waking up. I look up to see my daughter standing over me. "You were having your dream again" Liz states. This time I felt the hands. But this time something was different. I was calling out my boyfriend's name in my dream, but in all actuality, I was moaning. The moaning was so loud it got my daughter's attention. She could hear me over the headphones while she listened to music.
A month has gone by and no nightmare. I don't dwell on when it comes. I just continue to try and figure out what caused this nightmare and how to live some semblance of a normal life. I make mental note of what happens and try and find some answer for it. No one knows what caused it or why. Will it ever go away? Who knows. I write this in hopes that the reader who experiences the same thing will find comfort knowing he or she isn't alone.
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