Dissecting Recurring Nightmares from My Childhood I: High School Graduation and Friends

The following post will be sectioned into five parts: preface, backstory (what my life was like at the time), nightmare, analyzing, and conclusion. 

Preface:

I'm writing this as a way to deal with my trauma and to dissect parts of my youth. I am twenty-five now, and I've made my peace with everything that has happened to me. Unfortunately, that doesn't always mean that those feelings of the past go away. They're just hidden. Waiting for the perfect opportunity to come out of the dark and make my life hell once more. Recently, I've felt the need to write my experiences out and publish them online in the hopes of putting this all behind me and possibly gaining deeper insights about these occurrences. This post will probably be long, so feel free to click away or use the sections to get to the juicy bits. If you do decide to stay and read everything, thank you. I'm a sucker for symbolism, themes, the occult, and other religions. If you pick up on any of those throughout my story, please let me know since I would love to discuss the correlation between those and my story. (:

Backstory: (slight TW)

I was eighteen and in my final year of high school. All of my friends had graduated, and I was alone, yet again. I wouldn't say that I didn't have any friends in my grade, but more so that I just felt like I didn't fit in. I would always go to the library during lunch and keep to myself. In hindsight, I wasn't a very welcoming person, preferred to stay to myself, and was a total shitass, but still. It would have been nice to have at least one friend during my senior year. I was taking a dual enrollment course, which meant I was going to the community college in the morning to take college level classes, then going back to the school for the rest of the day. Somehow, I stumbled across some students in the Gaming Club while they were playing a tabletop game, and we all instantly became friends. I was close with pretty much everyone in the club, and it was great. I finally got a taste of what I had been craving: attention and underage drinking. 

I was going through an emotional abusive relationship with my boyfriend of the past two years. I hadn't been feeling it for a while, and whenever I would mention a break to him, he would fake hyperventilate and threaten to kill himself if I left him. The only way to cease this disgusting act of "love" would be if I told him I didn't mean it, and that I loved him and plan on marrying him someday. At the time, I wasn't aware that he was manipulating me. This would happen at least once or twice a month and I was exhausted from acting. I knew he genuinely loved me, but I just grew out of love with him. I couldn't take it anymore and decided that the only way to end things with him would be if I cheated. Not the best course of action but hear my seventeen-year-old thought process. If I had told him that I had simply fallen out of love with him, the only person he would blame would have been himself, which would have increased the probability of him ending his life. But, if I told him that I had cheated on him, he would blame me and the person I cheated on him with. Thus, lessening the probability of him ending his life if he had someone else to blame. Still not the best idea, but it was the only thing I could think of to do. Almost ten years have gone by, and I still don't know how to end a relationship with someone who is threatening to kill themselves. There are no good options.

I cheated on him and told him, but he still wanted to be with me for whatever reason. He would still spam call and text me about how he was going to end his life. "I'm driving right now and thinking about going in the ditch. This is really nice tree I could plow my truck into." "I'm in my grandparent's basement and Papa has a gun. I'm going to use it if you don't take me back." This would continue for a solid two months after the breakup. Finally, he got over it and told everyone I was no-good cheater. Word finally got to school (he had graduated two years ago), and I was even more alienated due to the stigma of being a cheater. It was fine though, since I still had my friends at the college, and was dating the person I cheated on my ex-boyfriend with. 

Things were going well between us, until I wanted to see a movie with a guy friend of mine. He was taking me home and I was texting my friend and smiled at one of the messages he sent. This made new-boyfriend go off the fucking rails. He snatched my phone and went through my messages with my friend. Found a message about a hypothetical threesome between me, my friend, and my friend's on-and-off situationship girlfriend from the college. New-boyfriend went absolutely ballistic, called me every name in the book, and told the situationship girlfriend from college about how I was going on a date with her man and how much of a whore I was. She was the one I was closest with at the college. I had every intention of asking her if it was cool, but I hadn't found the right time to ask her yet. New-boyfriend told her before me and I woke up to a very nasty message from her, "I can't believe you would do this. I trusted you. How could you do this to me? You really are a whore. You're dead to me. et cetera." This really hurt me since I confided in her the most. What hurt even more was finding out that she was talking shit about me publicly online and everyone else that agreed with her. My new-boyfriend would play sides and constantly tell me that everyone at the college hated me and would tell them that I hated them as well. Unfortunately, I would stay in that relationship because I thought that it was instant karma for cheating on my previous boyfriend. And who am I to mess with Karma?

I had lost my friends and ended up in a new toxic relationship with someone that would damage me in even more ways than the previous one. I was alone. It was me against the world and I was reminded of that every, single day. 

Nightmare: (TW)

It's the day of graduation. My name is called, and I walk on stage to receive my diploma. After I have my diploma and have shaken hands with faculty, I remain on stage. I look into the crowd and realize that I have no family members or friends there to congratulate me on my achievement. Everyone else has their loved ones present in the gymnasium, but not me. I reach under my gown and grab a gun. I put it to my temple, look into the crowd, and pull the trigger. My peers rush to my lifeless body and start feasting on my flesh, pulling me apart, tearing me limb from limb, desecrating my body, all while their loved ones look at the stage and laugh. My body is lifeless, but I am still conscious. I succumb to the darkness. I open my eyes within the dream and find myself standing in the middle of the club room at the college. All my former friends at the college are there and are doing what they normally do. I still have the gun from graduation in my hand and I kill myself once more. No one in the room reacts. They didn't notice. Paramedics arrive and take my body, working around my former friends who are still doing their daily tasks unbothered. I wake up from the dream, upset that I'm still alive. This recurring nightmare would last for about three months. Always the same with no new information being found within the dream, at least not that I could remember.  

Analyzing:

(to be continued... tired of typing lol)

Conclusion: