I keep having really bad dreams and I don’t know why

     Hi whores, I’ve been MIA for a lil bit but im back for a bit. I like to use this platform as a personal diary, so please don’t be too harsh on me about the things I talk about here. I’ve done this before and always deleted my entries out of shame, but Im deciding this time to keep them up. Simply to teach myself it’s okay to be open, and it’s okay to let out feelings. 

     Recently I (23F) have been having a re-occurring nightmare every single night for the past 2 weeks. I have generalized anxiety disorder and have been having muscle spasms almost daily (about 4-5 days out of the week). I have had this nightmare before when I was in high school (2018-2021) and at the time I had experienced some traumas I hadn’t allowed myself to process, and at the time I chalked it up to that. Throughout my time in the United States, from the beginning of middle school till the end of high school I’ve experienced all different levels of sexual assault, from stranger groping, thigh touching + stalking, an adult touching me without my consent, basically everything but grape. I never took these experiences too seriously because at the time, my family life was not very healthy and my coping mechanism (which worked fine till it didn’t) was to simply dissociate or hyper-fantasize. I don’t remember a lot of my childhood or high school for that matter, but whatever its important to what I think the problem is.

     The nightmare, while under different circumstances each time, are always in this format: 

- my partner is staring in disappointment from a distance

- I feel intense guilt.

- I am always being graped by a person I can’t see.

     Im concerned at these dreams. I feel guilty like Im cheating on my partner, in my dreams that is what Im thinking and what Im feeling and I don’t really know what it means. I wake up confused and just pondering what it could mean or what Im supposed to do about it. The dreams are always very detailed too, the sensations like heavy breathing and sweat and all the gross things are very prominent in my dreams. I don’t enjoy these dreams either im genuinely so disgusted when I wake up, but in a way that feels very empty? I don’t know maybe im getting used to the dreams? When I would have these dreams in highschool it was the same. My ex partner walked by like a fence, i was in some weird area with those white plastic tables and suddenly im thrown by someone I can’t see and very violently fiddled with. Same story. 

     I don’t think my partner is doing anything to trigger these dreams either, my ex and my current partner were both very respectful with sex and all that stuff i broke up with my ex because he became one of those Andrew Tate guys and was posting weird things about fake allegations right after his cousin was like actually, yk. Disrespectful, gave me the ick, but i was having these dreams before any of that was happening with him. 

     I feel like im chronically stressed, i recently started losing hair and now have a fat ass bald spot on my head. I’ve always been stressed I don’t think i can exist without being stressed anymore. I just want to understand. What have i not addressed in my mental health that keeps making this happen? What am i missing to make it go away? 

     If anyone has had a similar situation, or knows what the culprit could be please reply and tell me your experience.