So my mom’s boyfriend got admitted to the hospital two days ago and I’m only now going through the emotions of it all.
PTW under the cut (hospital/death/divorce)
So he got into cardiac arrest and people around him saved his life. Everything looks sorta stable now and it looks like he’ll mostly recover.
But it was such an intense experience. My mom was hysterical. I immediately went to practical mode. Just thinking of what we had to do to get to the hospital. (We weren’t with him when it happened. The police contacted us.) The whole first night i was just on autopilot. Trying to stay calm for my mom and stepbrother. Making sure everyone was eating/drinking/peeing/venting/etc. While trying to text people involved. (My stepbrother contacted many people as well tough.)
Seeing him in the hospital was just hard. In the beginning he was unconscious and it wasn’t really sure if he’d wake up and if he’d have any brain damage. But he woke up and was just really confused and out of it. He kept asking where he was and what had happened on repeat.
In the end my mom could stay in the hospital with him. Me and my stepbrother went home and my brother came home too.
Yesterday things were looking up a bit more. I went to the hospital to bring clothes and stuff and to visit.
And today it’s just starting to hit me. Like, that fucker died for a few minutes. If he hadn’t been around people he’d be gone…
It took me years before i started to like him. But in the past few years i’ve really come to accept and love him, i guess. It feels weird to say that because he is not my dad. But i see him more often than i see my dad. And it is def not the same feeling I have for my stepdad than for my actual dad. But he’s close to me as well and i care about him.
I just feel sorta guilty towards my real dad… As if I’m cheating on him by loving this guy as well. I feel bad about being sad and scared.
On the other hand i’m just struggling with my mom. I try my best to be there for her but it’s just hard to see her in pain. I keep thinking of the moment she ran into our house after the police had told her what had happened. Keep hearing her panicked screaming. (It was bad - the neighbors came over to check up on us after they’d heard her.)
I want to be strong for her. And she really appreciates that I help her out with things so that’s good. But idk how to deal with myself in moments. I’m so stressed and exhausted.
Ok lol I think I'm gonna post more shit on here bcs I need a void to shout into and my instagram is being followed by some friends and I don't want them to read everything I post. (I talk to them when I see them and I don't want them to read everything on insta lol.)
But I had the worst dream about M in a long long time. (M used to be my therapist when I was like 16 and we did not end on good terms and everything that happened between us was fucking traumatising)
Sometimes I can hardly believe that even after all this time I'm still having dreams about her that are so vivid, so real, that it makes me feel sick as soon as I wake up. It's completely different to like the other trauma dreams, those are vague and based on feelings and sensations, while the dreams of M are filled with dialogue and easy to recall even hours after I've woken.
I was out for drinks with classmates yesterday and we're all studying to become art-therapists, so therapy is an easy topic. And at one point someone told a story of seeing their therapist in public, after which I told the story of meeting my ex-therapist during a festival. I quickly made a joke to try to switch the subject but one of the girls was like. "Was that the therapist who traumatised you?"
I've been vaguely open about my experience with M in my class because I think it holds great lessons for those learning to become a therapist. - And there's reels on my instagram of an interview in which I talk about M.
So the topic of M was brought up and a few of the girl were like. "What?"
I quickly explained the story of M and how it hurt me. All the girls were super supportive and kind and told me I should not blame myself. (Because I was sort of blaming myself a little in my story.) But they recognised the gaslighting I told them about and all the other bad boundary breaking shit M did. Which was really really nice. Because a lot of other times people really just don't get it.
And honestly I was fine. I didn't think about it for the rest of the night, the conversations moved on and we talked about lots of other shit. But last night was bad bad bad. I woke up at 2 am just terrified and unable to calm down. Took me 45 minutes to find the courage to go to the bathroom and I did fall asleep after that.
But in this new dream I went back to the place where M works. And we were in a little office that I remembered from real life and there we were supposed to do some sort of trauma therapy. But I didn't trust her, ofcourse. And she kept trying to get me to work with her without recognising any of the damage she did to me. Only after a really long time she tried to talk to me about what was triggering me so bad. Because dream-me was completely disassociated and couldn't fucking think straight. Only when I told her everything that triggered me she became sort of nicer. But it was all so confusing because I didn't want to be there, but dream-me had no choice. (idk why that wasn't explained.) And M kept trying to convince me that I had to do this therapy thing with her, which I didn't want to do. And she tried to get me to keep telling me things I didn't want to tell her. And being there was so triggering, so terrifying. And seeing her was also horrible. She seemed so human. My love/hate/fear for her goes so deep that it literally hurts. And I can't really explain it cause she didn't really do any damage in the dream ofcourse. She wasn't too bad. But just the confusion. That might have been the worst thing she ever did to me. The manipulative way she spoke to me and the confusion that it brought onto me. That triggered me the most.
Idk I feel like this doesn't explain anything really but I just feel vague and tired and sad and hurt and a part of me just wants to see her again and a part of me never wants to see her again. and i'm just so angry that all of this ever happened. and i'm angry that i'm still dreaming about her. and i'm sad and scared and just really sad maybe.
