So happy things are falling into place, and I’m finally trying again!! I’m thrilled!! Just to have this opportunity to at least try.
Shortly before the initial virus outbreak, I began the process of anonymous kidney donation to whoever is next on the waiting list here in Philadelphia or surrounding areas. I never received a follow up phone call or anything then the virus broke out, and everything changed. My financial/work circumstances in the last few years were no longer ideal for having kidney donation surgery if I’m found to be healthy enough. Now three years later, I’m trying again!! Back then I contacted a kidney transplant center directly. Now I’m going through the National Kidney Registry hoping to have better communication than with the last place. And I already do! I now have a mentor who is a living kidney donor herself who will be helping me throughout the process up to the surgery! She has already been SO helpful! I was in the middle of trying to figure out what lab tests I need done soon and was confused and out of nowhere, she texted me introducing herself as my living kidney donor mentor. I never even knew I have one! 😆 And I asked what tests I need done now, and she responded instantly! I just had an interview with her, and it went so well! My basic application for health history was accepted so I can move onto the next step!
I want to share my gift of health with someone in need. I’m going to be getting the initial medical test soon to be sure I’m basically healthy enough (heart, kidneys, thyroid, glucose, no infections…), then a more thorough battery of medical and psychiatric exams if my basic lab results come back perfect.
💚
If my lab tests are all clear, I’ll be choosing a hospital here in Philadelphia to have extensive medical testing on my whole body in and out and psychiatric testing to make sure I’m emotionally stable enough to handle the gruelling process of extensive medical testing, the possibility of finding out I could have serious health issues myself, and the potential of serious complications during and just after surgery, including death, and where I’ll be having kidney donation surgery if all goes well!! yay!!! They also want to make sure people wanting to donate a kidney are for the right reason (simply to help someone) and not feeling forced or anything associated with mental illness (because only a cray cray person can want our body cut open and a piece of it removed to help a total stranger, right?? 🤣).
The whole process beginning now will probably take around six months. So hopefully all goes well, and one of my kidneys will have a new home in six months giving someone else the gift of health and life that I am so lucky to have. It will not only prolong their life expectancy (possibly moving it to average or near average) but will significantly enhance the quality of their life, making it normal/near normal, enough energy, ability to work and travel, get off dialysis or prevent it, which is hell for people on it but if not, they die soon, they’ll get to do just about everything a healthy person can do with something as small and simple as my kidney!! Since I’m alive, my kidney would be expected to last in their body up to twenty years. If the person is already an older person, the kidney can carry them to their full lifespan. This is what I’m especially hoping for but really don’t mind how old the person is, it’s just good to think my kidney can last the rest of someone’s life instead of eventually having to be thrown in a biohazard can somewhere and being replaced by a new one. But that’s ok, it will help someone for however long it does! Even a few years is good! And even if it doesn’t work at all for some reason, at least I tried! That’s all that matters!
Kidney disease is so common, there are countless people out there on the wait list waiting for someone to die or care and donate while alive. Helping one of them is a true gift and feels like my “calling.”
Three (actually more like five I have been actively planning it and many more that I eventually knew I would try it) years later and still on my mind. So yeah, I think it’s something I must go through with! ❤️
The gift of health is better when shared with another! ♥️
I’m already very physically active and fit and full of energy myself, I have a mostly healthy diet especially recently when I cut out almost all sugar and sweets (even my beloved iced caramel lattes with extra liquid sugar and extra caramel syrup, that’s not easy! 😆), have fruits and veggies everyday, no alcohol, smoking or other drugs, not on medication for anything physical or psychiatric, no serious life problems, live at home with family who will help me after the surgery…I do have a couple things that aren’t the best like no health insurance myself. The health insurance of my potential recipient will pay for all my medical/psychiatric exams and my surgery because that’s all considered their treatment. But their insurance won’t pay for anything I need myself like if any complications arise during/after my own surgery. I also had emergency kidney surgery many years ago, but the kidney and me made a full recovery. This probably doesn’t look the best to the kidney donation team. But we’ll see!
This has been my dream for many years since I was young and read a true heartwarming story about a man who donated his kidney to a random stranger shortly after altruistic (or non directed) kidney donation became legal. It felt like home to me, my first feeling was “Oh, of course,” and I just knew it would be me one day giving my kidney to a stranger.
This is an image I created using AI 🖤 I made it to represent my elevator fear and dreams
Content warning ⚠️: claustrophobia, brief mention of s*icidal ideation and self injury, but the self injury isn’t in a “depressed kind of way,” but a result of panic
This post was meant for yesterday!
These dreams go on when I close my eyes Every second of the night I live another life 🖤
I’m going to share my nightmare while I was asleepbut first will give it context by explaining my claustrophobia.
I shared here before about my lifelong struggle with debilitating Claustrophobia, actual diagnosed Claustrophobia, particularly fear of elevators. I have struggled with it since I was a little girl for an unknown reason. I used to run up 20 floors just to avoid getting into elevators, but in some buildings stairs going up are blocked off. Just walking by an elevator or having to go into a building knowing they’re in there, would be enough to experience intense fear. Sometimes being in an elevator I would go into such a panic, I would claw myself up with my fingernails until my skin bled, just out of a sense of not knowing what to do.
When I was young, I mostly could avoid elevators so it wasn’t as much a problem except on school trips and visiting people in hospitals. That was challenging. Also as a college girl, sometimes I had to get into elevators to get to class. I was embarrassed and insecure about my claustrophobia as a young girl. I did not know it’s a disorder or a defined thing. I thought it meant I’m wimpy. I was impressed when other kids could get into elevators and not be scared. I thought they were braver than me. I now know this isn’t true. Claustrophobia is an anxiety disorder and doesn’t mean someone is weak or not brave. As a girl, I used to daydream that I got into elevators with no fear, and I longed to be this brave for real.
I am one of the phobia sufferers who would often face my fear and get into an elevator anyway and just suffer. I wouldn’t have a positive mindset about it. Many phobia sufferers cannot face the fear and will always avoid the source at all costs. It’s a cruel irony, as I have said before, to have to come face to face with the very thing we fear most, to get over it.
I “cured” it myself after trying out professional exposure therapy and seeing it just wasn’t needed for me; I could handle it on my own. I did use the exposure technique but on my own without the help of a therapist any longer. My claustrophobia was so severe and crippling, it would trigger s*icidal episodes. It’s a very powerful breathtaking fear. It’s so powerful, it inspires awe in me to get to experience something so profound. It’s one of the most intense feelings there is, and not everyone gets to experience something so powerful in that way. I don’t like it, but still intrigued by it and thankful for the experience.It reminds me of love even though it’s not pleasant, the intensity of it can be the same, like so strong, it could move mountains.
It got better, but then I suffered a relapse at the end of 2017 after making the mistake of watching the numbers and waiting for the doors to open. It seemed to take a fraction of a second too long, which made me crumble in terror. This is when I began the exposure therapy. When I first got better, it was after getting used to getting into elevators with a dog. Then eventually I could alone. For a while, I would imagine the dog in there with me even when she wasn’t. That helped. I did not have to get into elevators as much anymore so got unaccustomed to it after the relapse. Then I had to again and could not handle it. So I began organized exposure therapy and meditation. The Philadelphia Eagles won the Superbowl in 2018. Their motto leading up to it was Let us prey. I adopted this saying and attitude as my mantra and way of coping with my Claustrophobia. I chose to prey upon the fear instead of allowing the fear to prey upon me.
I’m not cured. I still have it. It’s just dormant. I can still always feel it beneath my surface and know that it can come back. It’s slightly threatening. I know it’s here possibly waiting to be unleashed. This is true even when I’m calm as can be closed inside an elevator. Sometimes this knowing is more intellectual, and other occasions it’s more a feeling with body and emotion. I don’t mind this. I just peacefully coexist with it. I have to keep getting into elevators to keep myself used to it. If I ever stop, it will come back. Some days just for no particular reason, I feel a flare up and avoid them if I can because I know not to push myself; that isn’t the same as having an active phobia and avoiding them when I have to encounter them to get better. But that’s seldom. Also, if I’m anxious about something else or am dehydrated (dehydration gives me anxiety in a physiological way, not anxious thoughts, but just a feeling of anxiety and physical symptoms), my claustrophobia will flare, not a full on relapse, just a flare. The anxiety of dehydration will latch onto thoughts about being stuck in an elevator and manifest as claustrophobia.
My claustrophobia was always present even being inside an elevator with people. But eventually I stopped being afraid as long as people were inside with me or a dog was. The thought of being trapped inside with a dog or other human stopped terrifying me, just being alone did. Even now, I wouldn’t be afraid or only slightly if an elevator wouldn’t open with a dog and me or another human and me. Before, that would have still sent me off the deep end. Even if it locked with just me now, I can handle it, I think, as long as I don’t have a relapse.
Since I was a little girl into adulthood, I have been plagued by recurring nightmares of being stuck in an elevator. In my dreams it’s an old familiar fear, as if I have been stuck in one before, like a knowing feeling, an intimate knowing, like oh this again. This again. Each dream brought with it the same old feeling, like an underlying thread connecting all the dreams together even spanning over years, decades. Like in each dream it was as if I remembered all the dreams before it, not necessarily consciously remembered, but knew on some level that this keeps happening, but in the dreams, it felt more like they were reality than a dream. Almost like I’m stuck in another world where I am sentenced to getting stuck in elevators again and again and again. Like Groundhog day lol Sometimes I would have multiple elevator dreams in one night. The dreams all start out like regular life, I’m going about my day then must get into an elevator then It happens. My worst nightmare.
This again.
It happens in all different ways, but it’s all the feeling of absolute dread where I just know. I know I am not getting out of here.
I stopped having them for so long.
Until last night.
No idea why, but last night, I had another elevator nightmare. I can’t remember when I last had one. I’m not anxious, and my claustrophobia isn’t relapsing.
But last night I had a dream that I was about to get into an elevator. There was a friendly, smiling petite woman already inside holding the doors for me. I remember her so vividly. She was pale skinned and around my age, maybe a bit older, around as tall as me, maybe slightly shorter, and she was slightly thinner than me. She had what may be called strawberry blonde hair, mouth length. She was wearing a navy blue and white striped long sleeved shirt. The stripes were thin. I don’t remember her pants. She wasn’t physically beautiful but not ugly, but she was beautiful on the inside. What some may call mousy or plain in appearance, but she had a cuteness about her, a humble prettiness. She was very sweet and friendly with a gentle air about her.
We both happened to be going to the 14th floor in whatever building it was. I have no idea why we were there. She was delighted and pushed the button for us both. She had a compassionate, warm, welcoming personality, like she never met a stranger, like she may have been open to developing a friendship or at least an acquaintanceship with me, just in that mundane encounter where most wouldn’t even give each other so much as a glance. It was like when she looked at me, she saw me. Not the way strangers around look up and quickly look away. It wasn’t her words that allowed me to know her nature, but her body language, her facial expressions, her energy, her actions, her smile. I remember her warm energy.
We got to the 14th floor, and the elevator sped past and went to the 17th floor and stopped and wouldn’t open. When it went past the 14th, we both knew. We knew It was happening.
It.
It with a capital “I.”
I’m covered in head to toe chills just writing this. The fear and the knowing in the dream were not normal. We were doomed and knew it in a way that people in reality wouldn’t know it. It’s a kind of knowing, a kind of knowing fear that only exists in dreams or nightmares. Sure, real people who are rational may be anxious but wouldn’t already be in despair and *know* they will be stuck forever or die. We did know, and we were in despair. Real people would be thinking like let’s see how to get this fixed or hopefully this opens or what is going on or thinking we have to call for help or wait for someone to let us out…we had no hope and did not have to wonder, we were doomed. There was no one coming to let us out. And we knew. We knew the very split second that elevator sped past floor 14. The woman gasped and said something I can’t remember, and I stood there paralyzed in that old familiar intimate crippling panic. It was happening again. IT.
The elevator just froze there at the 17th floor. I was panicked that we were stuck. Then I suddenly realized we had a bigger problem than just being stuck. I realized being stuck at floor 17 means being stuck in the air, that high up. Just hanging in midair. I imagined it dropping and us falling to our deaths. Suddenly, as if to hear my thoughts and wanting to taunt, it began to go down very quickly. I wasn’t sure if we were dropping to our deaths or it would land safely, but I knew either way, we weren’t getting out of there, and so did she. Suddenly it began dropping faster and making loud noises and lighting up, then it began going back up and then down then back up, the flashing lights getting more and more intense. All the numbers were lighting up. The whole situation felt aggressive, like the elevator was consciously attacking us. Like it was out to get us.
The woman was screaming and had her head down, covering it with her arms in a defensive stance, as if to protect herself against whatever blows were to be coming to her. I wasn’t screaming or doing anything (typical of me in reality also), but my fear very much matched hers. The top of the elevator began to open up, and we both eagerly looked up to see if maybe, just maybe, there was a way to climb up and get out. There wasn’t. We saw something, I can’t remember what, that we both knew meant it was a hopeless situation for us. We looked at each other, her face contorted into a mask of horror and despair and a desperate pleading look. The crashing noises got louder, the lights more flashy, the elevator began to close in on us as we both got into the self defensive position and moved closer to each other, then clinging to each other knowing our end was very near.
Then I woke up.
And that’s that. lol
First thing this morning, I had to get on an elevator by myself for work. And I remembered this dream as the doors were closing on me. So that was fun. lol 😆
I have been having very vivid dreams lately. I always have but not as much as years ago when I was young, and I don’t remember them as much as I used to. But recently I have been having very detailed dreams that I remember. I generally don’t have unpleasant dreams.
I love that my mind made this character up and brought her to life so vividly. She wasn’t anyone I ever knew for real. I’m not sure how true it is, but I read before that our brain doesn’t make up faces, that if we dream a face very clearly, like my situation here, it means we necessarily saw that face before in real life, maybe even decades ago. It may not have been that person in our dream, just their face. So like this woman’s face could have been my 5th grade teacher’s (in fact thinking back, I think they did have a similar face, build, hair style…and she was warm, sweet, friendly, and around that age maybe lol) even if she wasn’t that person/my teacher in my dream. It was so creative of me lol 😂
This is probably strange, but I kind of feel sorry for her. She was so real, and whatever happened to us, I got to wake up, but it was her ending. Not that it was real. But there is a lingering feeling that I got to be the lucky one who escaped because I get to be the real one, flesh and blood, who gets to wake up and continue being. Also, there was a hint of guilt because it’s my brain that created that world and that dire situation for that character. lol I should probably stop now before I sound batsh!t. 😂
Anyone want to share an interesting dream experience/recurring dream/insight on dreams or anything, go ahead! Or even just your most recent dream you can remember, if there’s one. I would love to read! Dreams are so interesting! I’m especially interested in how, like I said, these dreams are like all linked with an underlying thread and how in dream world, we can know things in a way we wouldn’t in reality. Like we just knew we weren’t getting out of that elevator, not in a negative thinking kind of way but true knowing.In reality if the elevator sped past the 14th floor, most people’s initial reaction would probably be confusion. Like WTF or what’s going on. Our initial reaction was knowing. Then panic.
I don’t mind these dreams/nightmares. They are not pleasant but are fascinating. I am more intrigued than disturbed.
I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are! And sweet dreams tonight lol 😆
Pretty in pink today! I’m all pink, I even have a pretty pink bra/panties/socks/nail polish(it’s chipped though lol)/mask….lol 💕
Ain’t nothin’ gonna to break my stride Nobody gonna slow me down, oh no I got to keep on moving Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride I’m running and I won’t touch ground Oh no, I got to keep on moving You’re on the road and now you pray it lasts The road behind was rocky But now you’re feeling cocky You look at me and you see your past Is that the reason why you’re runnin’ so fast? And she said Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride Nobody gonna slow me down, oh no I got to keep on moving Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride I’m running and I won’t touch ground Oh no, I got to keep on moving 🖤
Trigger warning ⚠️: Mention of depression and s*icidal contemplation, may be disturbing or triggering to some, may be slightly graphic details
This post was meant for 11/28/2022 It’s after 12:00am now so the date changed.
Last night I had the STRANGEST dream/experience. Actually, early this morning. It was BIZARRE! I think it may have been mild/partial sleep paralysis, which happens sometimes when I’m depressed, ever since I was young. Usually my sleep paralysis when it does occur (which is not often and even less the older I get), is severe and extremely unpleasant. This wasn’t but was certainly strange. It was actually beautiful and inspiring and just so weird! Usually when I’m experiencing sleep paralysis, I try hard to get myself up and experience a sense of panic and being deeply disturbed and terrified. With this, I was accepting and not trying to force myself awake.
First I will mention for some context that I have a tooth infection that I have had for months now(I’m embarrassed to admit this but over half a year, actually). A few years ago, I cracked my tooth flossing(I have very soft teeth). A few years later (now), that break is infected. I work seven days, morning through evening, sometimes lighter weekends, and we are understaffed so I been doing home remedies and putting it off. My boss doesn’t want to lose clients, and I’m basically the only worker now. We have a few people helping out, but what they do is very limited. I’m a full worker. He said me taking off when we’re so busy would be disastrous for his business. So I been trying to hold off as long as I can. I warned him that it’s life threatening and I can succumb any day(he said ugh! I’ll lose so many clients! I can’t afford that! Just try to stay alive! 😆). Months ago my whole face was swelled up, and I was in agony. I got it under control and swelling down, but cannot get the infection gone. A couple nights I walked myself to an emergency room when it was flaring worse but decided nah I’m not sitting in there for 12 or more hours and don’t want to overwhelm our healthcare workers any more than they already are. Last thing they need is another dental patient running there when they have so many other patients needing them. I just can’t. So I left and got it under control again. One day, at the end of October, I woke up at 3:00am feeling as if it was spreading. I got out of bed and walked to an emergency room then decided I couldn’t stay because I was taking care of someone’s dog and couldn’t leave him alone so walked to cvs instead for some first aid stuff. It helped a bit. I thought I was dying that morning. I had pain & mild flu like symptoms (wasn’t this virus). I was a regular blood donor for years and haven’t been able to donate in so long because of this.
Recently I was very very sick, as sick as I have ever been in this life, and I seriously never get sick. I couldn’t even get out of bed. I had to tell my boss I literally couldn’t work. This is unheard of. In the six years I worked here, I never ever took hours off for being sick. I did work that day, all day, but got too sick by the evening to do my evening work. I thought it was my infection making me sick, turns out, it was just some virus(I wear a mask and don’t go near anyone, don’t work with humans). But being sick like that showed me what can happen but worse if I succumb to my infection. I NEVER get sick like this and it was like seeing another side of myself I did not know. It was so uncharacteristic of me. I am healthy and energetic as can be, walking 10 and more hours a day. I never even get tired. I never just lay around in bed, I’m either out walking or dancing around my room blasting Oldies. My body feels so healthy it’s palpable, the feeling of health I experience each day. And I am very conscious of how healthy and full of endless energy I am/feel. Any physical sickness/cut/injury I get usually heals in a day and doesn’t take me down. This took me down for days. I couldn’t even stand, and I had to work, but had to keep stopping places to rest. So this was so so unusual and I was taken aback. It was like a wake up call. I don’t want to get sick like that but worse with sepsis, which untreated tooth infections lead to.
Also, I have been struggling with s*icidal depression off and on because of lack of close true friendships for a few years now. This gets me to not care as much about myself, feeling I’m not worthy and my own life doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not a philosophy I hold; it’s the depression. It triggers depression then depression tells me I’m a worthless loser with no friends and no purpose and no accomplishments in life…And it just weakens my will to survive. Recently, a fifteen/sixteen year friendship of mine that used to be close officially ended like Facebook unfriended ended lol That’s how we make it official these days. 😆 I went to unfriend him and lo & behold! He already unfriended me(so I went a step further and blocked his account 😆 good to know we still think alike!)! I guess it wasn’t very surprising. We have been drifting apart for years (on his part) and resentment was building for a while, on my part and apparently on his part too since he saw reason for unfriending. And we were inseparable for years. Even whenever he would get a new boyfriend, he wanted to spend every second with me. He would invite me on dates with them, even on their valentine’s day celebrations. We met at a dance and danced all night and that was it, we were bff’s. He even included me in family only events shortly after meeting each other. He came to visit me everyday during my psychiatric hospital stays for my depression. He became very unhappy with his own life through the years and began acting differently in unhealthy ways. Recently he began showing signs of a midlife crisis. He also has severe depression. I held out hope he would change and go back to being himself, but he wouldn’t. His behavior became toxic to me. It would trigger my depression or make it worse. This unfriending doesn’t help my depression, but I was already emotionally done with him (after so much turmoil over the loss of closeness through the years and having no other close friends – we had mutual friends, but we drifted apart too – we were mostly all friends through him, that’s the problem when one person holds a group together) so it’s not the biggest blow.
Depression makes me very physically ill and fatigued when it’s to a certain point, but I still feel a sense of ingrained physical health. I want to keep it this way.
I finally made a dentist appointment a while ago, but there was nothing available til around a month away. So I can’t get help til mid December. I have no dental insurance so found a place where they give us discounts if we’re poor lol The infection seems to have spread into my sinuses, and my nose has been gushing blood for days on the side the infection is on. But there isn’t a thing I can do about it. Dentists and hospitals are overwhelmed and backed up. So I’m just here waiting to get sepsis and die or for my healthy body to hold me over til mid December. I am extremely healthy. I have a wicked immune system. That’s why I’m still alive. I looked it up, and basically I should have been dead months ago. lol I decided to stop neglecting/abusing my body in certain ways I have been, I’m going to get it the help it needs. It’s strong and beautiful and carries me and keeps me alive. It kept me alive much longer than it should have. I’m going to pay it back with kindness and basic needs.
So this is what happened early this morning.
I woke up, and it was too early for work. So I rolled over and fell back asleep. What felt like only a few seconds later, I woke up standing in the bathroom in my house walking to the toilet to pee. lol I had this general confused feeling like how did I wake up standing in the bathroom. And who wakes up standing? Suddenly I peed my pants a little bit before making it to the toilet right in front of me. lol (I recently read a funny post by a mom who has incontinence after giving birth to three babies, and she peed when she laughed and yelled to her husband “I just peed my pants, this is mom life!” and he burst out laughing at her, and they fell over laughing hysterically together. lol She posted a picture of them laughing together. I thought this was funny and cute but was thinking no thanks I’m glad I never had kids! I don’t want to pee my pants whenever I laugh{and I laugh A LOT, like full on belly laughs}! Not that it’s the worst thing and is very common in assigned female at birth people, particularly those who give birth, but I would prefer not to lol I would be peeing all day!)
So then I sat on the toilet to pee the rest lol I was concerned about the incontinence thinking why would this suddenly happen, but even more concerned about the sleepwalking. I sleepwalked my way into the bathroom which made no sense. I never sleepwalk! I was thinking so is this going to keep happening now, the incontinence and the sleepwalking? The incontinence I can handle, but the sleepwalking just isn’t ok! I also noticed I was wearing blue jeans as I was pulling them down. I fell asleep in soft blue pj’s. I don’t sleep in uncomfortable clothes. So that was off. Did I get changed in my sleep too? I was still wearing my red pj shirt though. Just the soft pj pants turned to blue denim ones.
After peeing (can’t remember if I washed my hands or not – I would in reality though 😆), I was walking out of the bathroom back to my bed and collapsed to the floor in the bathroom doorway. Something was pulling me down so hard beyond my control. Half of my body was in the bathroom still and the other half (my upper half) was in the hallway. (The bathroom in my house is in my bedroom! no hallway! It wasn’t my actual house even though it was supposed to be, but I did not realize when it was happening! For real I live in one of those super small houses with only one bathroom that happens to be in a bedroom where everyone has to walk through that bedroom to get to the restroom, and it’s in my bedroom, my sister did not want everyone going in and out of her bedroom lol This house was large) I wondered why I was collapsing. It was happening in slow motion. I couldn’t stop it. Then I realized I was dying. At first I wondered if I was dying then it hit me that I was literally straight up dying right there half in the bathroom, half in the hallway. It was not painful, and I did not feel sickly at all, could just feel the life slowly draining out of me. I remember thinking so this is what it is to die. And it’s my turn here & now. I felt helpless, powerless, but not really in a negative way. I just wasn’t attaching a negative perspective to it like most probably would. It was a powerful feeling. Not pleasant but can’t say it was fully unpleasant, almost neutral but more on the unpleasant side if it were a scale that was slightly tipped to one side or the other. I was intrigued. As I lay there dying, I was racking my brain trying to understand why. It made no sense. I am so healthy, so energetic, so physically fit (not fit like I work out level fit, but physically active enough), how could this be??? There was some anxiety at the thought of dying since it was a new to me experience and there was some uncertainty about what it would be like.
But my curiosity was more prominent than my fear. And I had a faint feeling of this is too bad that I’m dying and felt like I may be on my way to experiencing full-blown fear, I felt panic potentially arising, but more so I had a feeling of it is what it is, if I have to go now, I do, but why?? My age isn’t quite old enough just yet for my body to shut down because of age. Then it hit me. Oh, sh!t, that’s right! The infection is finally taking me out. I thought of my mom and how she wouldn’t be happy as she has been begging me all year to get it treated now. She said f your job and get taken care of. lol She said she can’t believe someone can choose to go this long with an untreated infection. She keeps asking me aren’t you scared?! lol I’m not. She tried getting me to get antibiotics off family members who had them, but I do not take illicit drugs.
I felt something non physical leaving my physical body as I laid there on the bathroom floor. It was like two of me, the physical body I am so familiar with, and a “spirit” me (I don’t actually believe in a spirit that can leave a body, but this was my experience this morning) leaving it. Both were me but like two sides of a coin. I was laying there unable to move at all thinking this is it, I’m dying. The spirit me was slowly leaving. My consciousness still identified more with the physical body. So it was nerve wracking to be leaving it even though it was still aware and going with the spirit me. It was almost as if the consciousness was a thing of its own, independently, watching its physical self and its non physical self. But it had to go with the non physical aspect. There was some anxiety and unhappiness about the thought that I will never be here on Earth again, all my thoughts, interests, experience… gone forever. The anxiety was just at the thought that it’s an unknown to me experience, and the unhappiness was just like I guess I’ll miss out on all the things I love each day. But I told myself it’s beyond my control and has to happen sooner or later anyway. It has to happen to all of us, and I’m no exception; we all have a time to go, and this is mine. It has to happen someday so why not now? What’s the difference if it’s now or in twenty years or forty years or whatever?? Same thing either way. This may seem wise. But in my case, it’s my depressed view. When I’m not depressed I have clung to life if I ever thought I was dying. Kicking and screaming and clawing at whatever I could to stay on Earth (not that I was ever really dying but a few occasions I have thought so).
Then I had another thought, wait! Could I be sleeping and this is a dream and I’m not dying but waking up back into my reality? I wasn’t sure but strongly suspected that. I felt that it’s dream me who is “dying” as the dream world is ending, not actually me dying. In a sense, dream me was dying as that version of me was ending and would never be again. At this thought, I felt more relief than I was expecting as I did not realize how put off I was at the thought of dying. Consciously, I was mostly indifferent to it. (This happens when I’m depressed and depressed I was both in reality and this dream) But I guess I wanted to live more than I realized. I noticed when I am at my most depressed s*icidal points, I often have dreams about wanting desperately to live even though in reality it feels I don’t. When I am dangerously s*icidal, which is not often but recurring, it’s common for me to have dreams that someone is trying to k!ll me, and I am trying desperately to run and get away and live. I noticed it through the years when my s*icide contemplation is serious. In my dreams I want to live and would do anything to survive. My depression produces very life affirming dreams.
Something was happening I just couldn’t quite grasp. My physical body was getting heavier and heavier and couldn’t move as I lay there sprawled out on the floor. The spirit me left physical me completely. It turned a corner, half walking, half floating, if I remember correctly (I think it meant to float, but since I am so used to being physical and walking, it was trying to walk out of habit – the consciousness was me, it was my sense of self, it felt just like me so still had some earthly ways about it even though it was no longer restrained by a physical body) in the dark hallway and was going somewhere with a strong sense of purpose, like it had a mission to accomplish (in reality I have been feeling I have no purpose lately, but this aspect of inner me felt deep purpose, and it was a beautiful feeling. It wasn’t clear at first what that purpose was, just that there is one, later I discovered the purpose was to wake up and live). There was no fear, only a deep sense of trust. I felt whatever is happening is happening and is ok. If I die, that’s ok, if I live and wake up in my bed where I remember falling asleep, that’s ok too, even better. There was a hint of anxiety about what if I somehow get stuck in this state and can’t wake up and don’t die and I’m just here forever(sleep paralysis always does this to me). But I chose to be positive and not let my mind dwell there, mostly I felt trust in the journey. I could feel myself cheering myself on. I felt that I had this, a feeling of “You got this self, just keep going.” I remember me in the back of my own mind keep thinking that’s right just keep going…and feeling joy each step of the way. It warms my heart now and stirs love & fuzzies in me. ❤️
Suddenly, I felt a strong force pulling the spirit version of me. I couldn’t see it but felt it. It was pulling so hard, and I realized whatever was going to happen, this was it, this was the moment I was either going to die or wake up. I still wasn’t sure which but strongly suspected I was dreaming and going to wake up. I could not move by choice. Physical me on the floor was immobilized or dead. And spirit me was being dragged somewhere by an invisible force beyond my control and felt so heavy. And the real physical me in my bed, was also immobilized. None of us could move, and we were all so heavy. (very typical of sleep paralysis but unlike sleep paralysis, there was no sense of intense fear and dread hanging over me, and no general sense of evil, ingrained throughout the dream, only curiosity, joy, determination, and a slight sense of anxiety and uncertainty, but nothing I couldn’t handle)
I did not want to admit this here (I actually wrote this for FB but posting here also) or anywhere, but I have been secretly contemplating h*nging myself recently, like seriously. I even have a cord I got for the purpose and a remote place in mind where I entertain the idea of going one night soon and ending it all. It helps me tremendously while depressed to know I have a way out and the resources needed; it’s less of a trapped feeling. Before I really did not know how/where I can go. Then it all fell into place the more desperate I got. I thought about getting the cord and did, and my concern was where without anyone around. Then I accidentally just happened to come across the perfect place one day where there isn’t a lot of activity, especially at night and in the cold. It feels so liberating just to have this potential plan even when it’s inactive. It helps ease my mind so much!! When I’m not depressed at all and am my usual happy self, I know it’s not the best idea to have this cord & place lined up for when I decide to go because it makes it much more likely for me to act on it. When I’m depressed, I don’t realize I shouldn’t act on it. When it lifts, I realize how messed up it is. But even when I’m my usual happy self, I know how much it helps me in that desperate depressed state just to have a potential way out, not just in my mind like before, but actually have the physical things necessary whether or not I go through with it. It makes all the difference. The risk of acting on it is greatly elevated though. Happy self isn’t happy about that. lol I’m not in a major episode of depression like sometimes that lasts straight through for a month or more, but keep having recurring waves of it that get bad for a few days then lift a while then return. I have felt for a while that I have no reason to live, that no matter what I do, even when it has practical purpose, it doesn’t matter, has no deeper meaning. And I struggle to give meaning to it because of my sense of inherent worthlessness. This is when my depression is flaring.
My body has been so heavy with depression, and while I still experience joy and some degree of interest in things like photography and movies and books and my work and iced lattes, it’s washed out joy, it’s here but numbed out a bit. Sometimes my depression is so bad I cannot even really tatse anything. With deep deep pain, significantly reduced pleasure and interest in things, a body that is so heavy it’s hard to move, no close friends/social support… it’s like why go on?? I keep getting so depressed about no longer having in person friends. I am very social and my happiest and healthiest when I have friends. Research even shows that lack of close friends can physically and emotionally sicken people and lack of physical touch. I am happy and well in every other aspect of life, but this is enough to depress me off and on, sometimes frequently, and permeate all of life. It eventually lifts and I am very happy again(still feeling the lack of friendship though). But it keeps coming back because I need a friend. I have been starved for the love of a friend, and my body has been starved for a hug of a friend. I don’t even have an acquaintance anymore just to hang out with. No phone calls, no texts, no meetups, no invitations anywhere, no message just to say hello or send a funny meme to make each other laugh… literally nothing. Online friends are real friends/family, but it’s not the same and doesn’t make up for in person socialization for those of us who are social/extroverted. Animals are just as important and loved, but different, animal companionship doesn’t make up for lack of human companionship just like the other way around.
Anyway, I promised into the air that if I wake up in my body in my bed, if this could just be a dream, if I’m not dying, I would try to stop giving into my depression, will get my infection treated, and try to stay alive and keep leaning into the joys all around me. That I would keep going. The spirit me was propelled then lifted into the air, up towards the ceiling. I was flying up up up beyond my control being pulled into the unknown then suddenly ripped back down and was falling falling falling so fast at lightening speed with such joy because I knew, I knew then I was alive and waking up. I knew I would find home in my own body. And dream spirit me crashed back into my body, my real body in my bed in my real house with the restroom in my room, not dream me body laying dead on that floor in that strange bathroom and hallway that isn’t mine, but the me who laid in bed, my actual bed. The real me woke with a jolt. It literally truly felt that something crashed off the ceiling into my body, giving me life. I watched and experienced in awe. Two aspects of me merging into one, making me whole, giving me life. That immobilized body in my bed could move again. I woke with a start and a smile. I was back in my soft blue comfy pj pants. The heaviness of my depression was mostly gone, and I felt immense joy, like I can go on. I fell asleep heavily depressed last night. This morning I was layers and layers lighter with a renewed will to live. I still felt the aftermath of being in a deep depression recently. When a depression lifts, if it was very severe, I may still feel some aspects of it lingering for a day or couple days, like the heaviness or a fog or some lingering self deprecating thoughts…, kind of like if you’re just getting over the flu or other physical illness and aren’t really sick anymore but still feel a vestige or hint or effects of it.
The thing that is so strange is how physical it felt. How it truly felt like a spirit or mind or something literally crashed into my body giving me life, waking me. It was so amazing!
I don’t believe in spirits or anything. I know it was my own mind making it all up. And we can dream something is touching us and wake up feeling as if it was real. I believe it was sleep paralysis. I have psychotic depression and have been hospitalized a couple occasions for it many years ago. It’s been acting up again The doctors said I had psychomotor impairment years ago because of severe depression, which can seem like sleep paralysis if we dream or hallucinate/have delusions with it. But I think it was sleep paralysis. It was still early so I fell back asleep. I had another strange dream. lol I woke up in that dream but woke up into another dream instead of reality and remembered the sleep paralysis dream I just had! So I remembered a real dream within another dream that was within a dream. I don’t know if anyone can follow that but anyway, don’t know what was going on with me last night, sounds like I was on acid or something but promise I wasn’t. 😆
I take no medication or drugs for anything currently. Will be needing antibiotics soon, and sometimes I take over the counter cold meds. That’s about it.
We don’t have to believe in spirits/evil/supernatural…to experience fear of it or believe it/feel it within the context of sleep paralysis. No matter how skeptic/atheist we are in reality, when sleep paralysis takes over and that feeling of evil is all around and we “sense” demons and stuff like that, our skepticism/atheism/logic/reason/non belief can be suspended while we are in that state, and we can feel that we are being taken by evil or a demon or taken to another dimension. Upon waking, we realize it was just a dream/sleep paralysis/night terror… whatever it was. Some people who believe in the supernatural wake up and believe they just had a terrible spiritual experience. A skeptic or atheist, like me, will not believe it during wakefulness. I don’t even necessarily believe it when it’s happening, but that does not make it any less real seeming or terrifying. But this one wasn’t terrifying.
It was a positive and enlightening and inspiring experience. I believe it was my unconscious mind sending me a message. My self sending a self love note, to keep going. I think it’s so funny that it involved a toilet and peeing. lol It’s just like me to bring humor into something and I’m immature like that and think bathroom stuff is funny 🤣 💩
The thing about this dream that was also so unusual is how my reality was incorporated into the dream and dream incorporated into my reality. In the dream I remembered just rolling over in my bed and was wondering how suddenly I got into the bathroom. And as I was walking out of the bathroom before collapsing, I was on my way back to my bed that I was just in. And my dream was incorporated into my wakefulness. The dream spirit me crashing into real me as I was waking into my reality. Like, dream state and wake state clashed, making it so bizarre and interesting. I’m sure there is scientific explanation; I think I read about it before, like when something happens during a certain stage of sleep. Maybe I wasn’t asleep enough and began to dream so wake reality and sleeping dream collided and merged, becoming a very intense, strange experience. I like it! I wouldn’t want it to keep happening or happen often though because it was too intense and engaging and wasn’t peaceful. I wouldn’t get enough rest. And there was anxiety involved. A little bit is ok, but I don’t need anxiety in my dreams every night.
And this seems like it could be a fun short movie clip if any artist out there wants to turn it into some kind of film, let me know! lol 😆 I must say, I’m quite creative while I sleep! 😴 💤 lolz
If anyone is reading and has any interesting sleep/dream/spiritual stories you have experienced, please share!! And if you want to analyze my experience and/or provide any insight, scientific or other, be my guest! I’m not interested in supernatural explanations as I don’t believe in that stuff.
💋😘❤️
And these pictures are me this morning after I truly woke up once and for all into real reality.lol
Thankfully I wasn’t actually peeing as I was dream peeing 😂
Also, I totally forgot in October to post my Halloween costume here! I will post it soon! Sexy/naughty nuns are in style all year anyway. 🖤😆
I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are! ❤️ sending virtual hugs to anyone who wants.
“I have nightmares filled with clowns and you’re there too
You have a big red nose and stupid floppy shoes
You’re becoming one I can see the signs” 🤡
Trigger Warning ⚠️: Phobias mentioned here
Fun fact: Last night, I had a dream about coulrophobia. So I decided to turn myself into a clown. Lol
In the dream, I was watching a movie about a young man with coulrophobia(fear of clowns). I don’t remember what his job was in my dream but whatever it was, his coulrophobia was interfering with his quality of work. For something to do with his job, he had to see a clown 🤡 or something if I remember correctly. His job was not actually about clowns though. It was something he usually did not have to encounter but it just happened that he had to cross paths with a clown now at work, just a coincidence. Maybe he had to visit someone’s house for work where they had a clown figure or photo? I don’t really remember much about that but whatever it was, his quality of work was greatly suffering and his boss was angry. He ordered him to be treated with exposure therapy, a form of treatment often used to treat phobias. The young man was having emotional difficulty with the exposure. He had to walk alone into a dark room in an old warehouse or factory or something like that, at night, full of life sized clown mannequins so he can get used to them and no longer be afraid. He couldn’t handle it.
In the movie in my head, his boss called him and was angrily telling him to get his shit together and stop acting like a coward and get on with it because he had work to get done. He was tired of his “nonsense.” I can still hear his voice dripping with arrogance, disdain, indifference to someone else’s suffering.
The movie in my dream was about how people who were murderers, dressed as clowns just like the clown mannequins used for his exposure, and creeped into the building and stood in the room next to the fake ones so they could eventually jump out at him during his exposure treatment. Lol It wasn’t part of the therapy and his boss wasn’t in on it. They were just psychos who somehow knew about it. They were strangers.
In my dream, I somehow got into the movie. Like it somehow turned real. But this wasn’t strange in my dream like it would have been for real. Like in reality we would be amazed, shocked, or confused if we somehow got into a movie or a movie turned real. But in my dream it was just a casual thing. The movie was all of a sudden not a movie and was real life and I was in it. I was walking into the dark room with the clowns. I knew the killers were in there since I just was watching the movie and wasn’t sure if they would lunge for me or not. But I had something to do in that room. I don’t remember what or even if I knew in the dream but I wasn’t sure if I should keep going and fulfill my obligation or turn around and leave since the killers were in there. The young man wasn’t there and I knew he would be coming soon. I think whatever I had to do was for my own job. This is realistic of me to still consider doing something that needs to be done even if it may be dangerous to me. I work with dogs and sometimes they can be aggressive. There are occasions I still considered interacting with them even when they clearly wanted to rip me to shreds. Lol And occasions I had to still feed and give them water while they were coming at me because a dog has to eat. Lol So this part of my dream makes perfect sense.
I wasn’t scared in the dream but a bit anxious and my body was tense like it was deciding it maybe should run. Then I saw some of the clowns moving and a vague thought crossed my mind like is this real or is it part of a movie I was just watching. It was like reality (the dream’s reality) and the movie blended.
So I wasn’t sure what would happen. Are they going to get me or ignore me? I had a feeling like they weren’t going to try to kill me. This is how I am for real in general, very trusting and always expecting the least bad thing to happen. I generally have this feeling like everything will work out well. I am not very anxious. I have suffered a couple bouts with anxiety but am generally not someone who is anxious. So I wasn’t extremely concerned for myself.
This feeling like this is real but also not is difficult to explain but in the dream it made sense. It was like a blend of something. Like sort of real, sort of not. I think this is common in dreams.
I think I decided not to walk into the room just in case the clowns tried to kill me. Better safe than sorry. Lol I remember walking away with this feeling of being very safe.
Then I woke up. Lol Intrigued by the dream. I don’t know what provoked that vivid and detailed dream or if there is really a movie like this but if there is one, I haven’t seen it. My head just made it up.
I had exposure therapy myself in reality, a few years ago, for debilitating claustrophobia. It began as professional treatment but I quit and handled it on my own, continuing exposure on my own terms. My claustrophobia was interfering with life because I have to get on elevators for work. There is no option sometimes to use the stairs and my claustrophobia was taking over everyday even when I did not have to get on elevators that day because I knew I would soon have to get inside them. In my dream, I sort of remembered my real life exposure therapy and how it was absolutely frightening at first and I experienced empathy and compassion for the young man. It’s like cruelty, irony, the thing we fear most in life is the very thing we must come face to face with alone, to get better.
I used to avoid elevators at all costs. I used to run up 20 or more things of stairs just to avoid them. This wasn’t a problem because I am very healthy and fit and energetic, always have been. But in college I had to get to buildings early to be able to run up 20 or more floors without being late for classes.
Sometimes that isn’t an option and stairs are blocked off. Some years ago, my claustrophobia triggered suicidal depression in me to the point I couldn’t even hold my toothbrush to brush my teeth in the mornings. I couldn’t handle knowing on any random day I may have to go into an elevator and that triggered a depressive episode that became no longer about that; the depression took on a life of its own. So I was struggling with a severe depressive episode on top of a bad, bad case of claustrophobia.
I grew up claustrophobic for an unknown reason. I have been for as long as I can remember, mostly about elevators. But it was rarely a problem because I rarely had any reason to have to get into them. So it may not have been able to be diagnosed as claustrophobia back then. Sometimes I had to avoid visiting people in hospitals because I couldn’t get into an elevator to the hospital room. On the occasions I did force myself, I would have some psychiatric breakdown. I have collapsed in crippling panic and have embarrassed family in front of strangers at the mere thought of getting into an elevator. Now I think it’s hilarious, especially embarrassing my mom and dad. One day when I was little we were all on a glass elevator with a stranger and I began to panic. I screamed at the top of my lungs and began kicking and flailing my arms and yelling let meout, let me out, let me out….just to go up two floors. The stranger turned and just stared in shock. My mom and dad were so embarrassed. ” My mom yelled, “Kim, you did NOT have to act like that!!!” It gives me a good belly laugh now when I remember it. 🤣😂😭😄😹 I remember my body flooded with sweet relief when that door opened.
All these years later, if I wanted to keep my job, I had to get over it. And I did. Years of claustrophobia gone in just a few weeks of simple regular exposure. Exposure works wonders, at least for me. It made me realize how something so powerful and debilitating is actually very, very weak.
Whenever I had to step into an elevator, it felt like I was going to die. My mouth dried up and always tasted like metal, like literally tasting fear. My entire body felt squeezed in the chokehold of death. The fear is so powerful it feels like I would *literally* go insane, like lose all sense of language and awareness and bodily movements. I felt like I could claw out my own eyes and claw off my own skin. And one day I actually did claw my own skin off when I was in an elevator alone as a teenager. There was no way out of the building unless I got into an elevator. I went into a panic and just mindlessly began ripping my skin off with my fingernails. Everything turned white like this blinding light around my head. I couldn’t see or think. All I could do was claw at my own body, my arms and ab, all bleeding when I finally stepped out of the elevator.
Welcome to my nightmare. 🖤
(almost had a cow when I saw this a couple years ago 😳 🤣 Just sitting there, doors wide open as if to tempt me; it felt like it was watching me, daring me. Lol It’s an old out of service elevator in a building I visit for work. It hasn’t been in use for some years and is in a strange place, not near the rest of the elevators and looks all old and dingy while the rest are newer looking and its doors are ALWAYS closed. But one day, I walk by and the doors are open! Holy guacamole! My heart nearly leapt out of my chest. Luckily my claustrophobia was already healed by then but this thing made it want to come back 🤣😭😹 Some things you just can’t unsee)
It has always felt like an eternity before the doors opened again and a sense of deep, deep dread and despair & regret as I watched them close on me.
It’s a kind of fear that knocks the wind out of me and takes my whole breath away. I have been in awe at how powerful it is.
I had a relapse once after mostly recovering when it seemed like an elevator door took a second too long to open, when I was inside by myself. It came back with a vengeance. It was way worse than before. I got mostly rid of the claustrophobia on my own by getting into elevators with dogs and found it healing. Then it came back then the regular exposure on my own helped significantly.
Now even if a door seems to take longer to open, I don’t have breakdowns or relapses. I get into elevators everyday by myself with no problems at all and find them very peaceful. Like a very brief reprieve where the outside world and all its problems and noise and stress and drama can’t touch me.
I love how a place that once felt so dark and cold and deadly is now a place of warmth and security like being wrapped in a cozy blanket.
There are some random occasions, I am a bit anxious with elevators and avoid them or sometimes suck it up and get into them anyway. But it’s not frequent. And not severe. I know if I am already anxious about something else, something unrelated, and have to get into an elevator, it sometimes triggers the claustrophobia but it goes away again. I believe if I ever stop getting into elevators for a long while then I do again, the claustrophobia may come back. I have experienced this already. So I try to get into them as much as possible to keep it away. It’s a lifelong condition that has to be controlled with regular exposure or I will go insane with fear again.
I don’t know what is up with this dream. Lol But it reminds me a bit of my own real experience. Even the old, dark warehouse where the clowns were. My work office used to be in one. Lol
I am not afraid of clowns and never have been. This wasn’t a scary dream at all. It wasn’t a nightmare even though it may seem like it. I don’t usually have dark or scary dreams. They’re usually positive, happy, or mundane. Though I have been plagued off and on, for as long as I can remember, by nightmares about being inside elevators and being stuck in them, sometimes with people, usually alone. Or sometimes terrifying dreams knowing I will soon be getting into an elevator. Sometimes I wake myself up before it happens or I force myself awake after I get into one if I can. I still have them on rare occasions but almost never since the claustrophobia went away. They are horrifying dreams and just dreadful. I had them since I was little even when I did not have to get into elevators and haven’t been recently in one. My brain just obsessed with them for some reason. I don’t ever remember any unpleasant experience with elevators that made this happen, just grew up with it. My earliest memories are terror when near an elevator. Couldn’t even bring myself to look at them walking by. I used to curse whoever invented them. I felt like that person destroyed my life sometimes.
This dream is bizarre for me because I don’t usually have them like this and it seems a bit creative. I’m not someone who is a creative writer or anything. So I don’t know why my head made this up.
Very recently, like just over one week ago, I saw the word “heliophobia” and looked it up to see what it is(a fear of the sun or bright light) and while scrolling, the word “coulrophobia” showed up. I think this is what inspired the dream but don’t know why just seeing that word and a pic of a clown holding balloons would inspire a whole story in my head while I sleep. Lol It’s heliophobia I was was interested in, not the clown one.
And the dream was very, very vivid. I remember the clowns and their faces and their pastel colored pj’s and balloons.🎈 And I remember the young man very clearly but don’t remember ever seeing him for real in person. I read before that all faces we see in dreams are real faces we saw at one point in life, even if years ago. It doesn’t mean in the dream they were who they are in reality, just that the face is real. I don’t know if it’s true.
Horror movies are my guilty pleasure, which I think also contributed to the dream, and I think this would be a good movie! 😍
I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever you are!
You’ll never see exactly where the road will lead you, and when it comes to love, you gamble when you need to.. You’ll maybe break your heart on one unlucky throw… but then again, You’ll Never know…❤
I have been holding onto this big dream for many, many years. Since I was a young woman, I had this one big thing I knew I would grow up to do. But it is a dream that felt “too big.” Too scary. Too complicated. Out of my league. So I would put it off and say “some day.” It will happen. Some day. One day. Way into the future. I had various excuses. I should be older first. I should graduate college first. I should have a place of my own first. I should have a “real job” first, Im probably not qualified because I have depression…..so many “shoulds.” A year and a half ago, just out of the blue, this dream began to nag me day & night. I kept telling it to go away that I would get around to it. Some day. But it would not let up. It was on my mind day and night. It was in my dreams while I slept! It was the first thing on my mind when I woke up in the morning! It was the last thing falling asleep. It made no sense; it came out of nowhere like this. I thought about it for years off and on but then it just came to stay. And nag me every second.
So I gave in and said ok. I did research all day and night and prepared myself as best as I could to make the call. To answer the call. I changed my diet and became a health nut. I stopped drinking soda and lots more water. I started walking even more than usual. I began consuming lots more fruits and vegetables. I talked to various people who already did what I will do, and others involved, about my plan and what it will be like. They were all positive and encouraging.
But still, I kept telling myself circumstances can be better. I have to wait. Wait for what? Who knows…but I have to wait. But it nagged me. The dream, it would not give up calling to me.
Finally I gave in. And one day, some day became today.
I answered the call and made the call.
I contacted the Kidney Transplant center and offered one of my kidneys to the next person on the wait list. Whoever it is, I do not know or care. All I know is, this is a person who has to live and wants to live. And that is enough for me.
So today. This is happening.
I am now beginning the process of donating one of my kidneys…..to a random stranger at a transplant center here in Philadelphia. Someone I have never met and probably will never meet because I am choosing the completely anonymous way.
What in the WHAT?!?!
Me? Just an average girl who lives at home with mom, sister, and dad. An average girl with an average job. No special talents or skills. I’m not adventurous and never travel anywhere, dont go on vacations, dont have lots of friends, always had average grades in school, I was never a fitness freak or health nut, havent run marathons, or won any awards, I go to work each day and then straight home, the simplest, most average life imaginable….so what business do I have taking a plunge like this, having my gut sliced open and a kidney cut off my bladder, possibly dying on the operating table(ok so that’s a bit dramatic and is rare), for a random person I do not know and probably never will?
Well, I have two healthy kidneys and a big ‘ole heart and just a little bit of courage….and that is just about all I need to embark on this incredible journey of love.
I am about to undergo a battery of extensive, extremely thourough medical & psychiatric testing. My entire body, inside and out, head to toe, will be examined and I will spend grueling hours with multiple mental health professionals for psychiatric testing to make sure I’m not batshit cray for volunteering to give my kidney to a total stranger. (I promise I’m not! I’m just a universal lover who strongly believes everyone is just as important as my own family/friends) and they want to make sure I’m emotionally strong enough to endure the entire process and that I am not being coerced into it. It’s not all pretty and not for the faint of heart. I will have to meet with a nutritionist or dietician and financial counselors (because I will be out of work for months recovering and have to show them that I will still be good financially.)
I have a history of major depressive disorder(im much much better and not depressed now at all & no longer treated), a kidney stone in 2007 that led to emergency surgery(I remember thinking “well damn I guess im not going to be allowed to donate a kidney one day now” and that is one of the first things I said to my mom upon waking).
These are known as relative disqualifiers, which means I can be rejected for them but will not necessarily be. The team has to know more about them. There are absolute disqualifiers that will render someone ineligible at every transplant center. These include HIV(I am a regular blood donor and do not have this), diabetes(hopefully don’t have this but don’t know – it’s the #1 thing leading to kidney disease), serious high blood pressure problems(dont have this), hep (no), cancer(hopefully not!)…
Currently, I’m in the screening process to see if I even stand a chance at all; some people are rejected right off before testing even begins. They are going to review my application at the center and if they believe it’s all good, they will contact me back and tell me to come on in for the official process to begin!
If they just toss it out, at least I tried! I reached out in love and that will have to be enough. But if they say no, I will move on to a different transplant center until one gives me a chance. It is extremely difficult to be accepted as a living donor. Most people are not healthy enough. And many are considered to be just not cut out for it emotionally. It’s no joke! It’s a very serious, serious matter that just is not for everyone. The average person would be rejected because of physical health issues and then financial issues. We do not pay for the transplant or donor surgery but we do pay for any medical complications we may experience; there are traveling/hotel expenses, and we’re out of work for months and will not be getting paid. I live right here so no traveling expenses for me. If one transplant center rejects us for a relative disqualifier, another may accept us.
This one is a good choice because I read about some of the doctors and they are very warm and caring. There is an altruistic kidney donor here in Philadelphia who gave her kidney to a man also in Philadelphia and this is the center they had their transplant. The story is beautiful. He cried to be loved so much by a complete stranger. And she joked and said he’s crying because he has a woman’s kidney. They did theirs a different way. She chose him and happened to be a match and healthy enough. She chose to remain anonymous at first then revealed herself. Theirs is called altruistic directed. She heard his story about his need for a kidney and got tested for him specifically. I am doing non-directed where there is no specific person in mind. It will go to the sickest who I am a match for. This is always anonymous and I prefer this.
I hope this can inspire anyone else with a dream or goal to go on and take that very first step if it’s something that truly resonates with you. We all have fear in us and love in us. If something resonates with us and calls to us, and we say no or ignore it because we are afraid it wont work out, afraid of getting hurt, afraid it will not go as planned….afraid of anything, we are acting on the fear instead of the love. Is that any way to live? If something just is not worth it to us and we are afraid, that is one thing and is ok to say no to it. But if something is our passion and our calling and we say no out of fear, that sucks! Fear is not worthy of being the one that gets our attention. Love is.
So go ahead, reach out, take the plunge, whatever is calling to you, nagging you, resonating with you, go for it! Even if we are currently unsure about something, it certainly won’t hurt to find out more about it. And if all falls to pieces, at least we can be proud to say we tried and our action was aligned with our truth, life philosophy, passion. At least we can say we acted on love and kicked that fear to the curb.
People have asked me “What if you die?” And my response is, I would prefer to die a young woman on an operating table living my dream than die a healthy old woman, safe in my bed, never even trying because I listened to the fear in me and ignored the Love. What if I die? Then at least I will die living & loving. How does that old cliche go? Something like, what matters is not how long we live but how well we live, not the number of years in our life but the life in our years.
Isn’t that what life is all about? Taking chances, big or small, reaching out, being all that we can be, doing the best we can, then letting go and whatever will be will be. It’s not about cowering in a corner, shaking, living safely in a bubble, not doing what we dream of, just to die in the end anyway. Shake. Be terrified. Let your hands tremble and sweat and your mouth dry up in fear. Let your voice quiver and your legs turn to jelly. Push through that overwhelming “I can’t do this” and “I’m not cut out for it” feeling and try. Maybe we really can’t do this. We all have something that for whatever reason, we can’t do. Maybe we truly aren’t cut out for it. Maybe we don’t have the skills or the heath or the ability. And that is ok! But what isn’t good is not even trying because of fear.
Take that first step anyway and keep, keep going for as long as you can. Conquer that terror. Show it who is really the boss here. Welcome it, let it take up residence here in your world, embrace it as a companion but don’t let it win! Let the love ultimately win.
“Death is inevitable. Living a life we can be proud of is something we can control.” ~ Claire Wineland (Claire was a beautiful, bold, brave young woman who died of an unexpected complication during recovery following a successful lung transplant)
Does this dream of mine scare me? Oh yes! I am pissing my pants! There are so many ways to fail at this, so many chances for me to be rejected, so many things that can go wrong with my body during surgery and even during some of the medical tests and even years later even if all goes well. The remaining kidney can stop working after the other is removed and it may not happen til years later but that is rare. I hear there is ironically a mandatory test to check my kidneys to make sure they are healthy but this very test can make them fail?! The transplant team can decide that I am a total basket case during the evaluations. They can find cancer during all the scans I have to get. And the list goes on of all the things I have to fear.
But the love in me is what is winning. The love is what I will focus on all throughout this journey wherever it will lead me to and no matter how short or long lived it is. Fear will take the back burner where it belongs. And love will lead the way.
So yeah, this 💩 is finally happening!
Wish us luck!
Much love, light, & courage to you; be brave, be bold, be strong; keep going; whatever it is you got this!❤
“…Getting cards and letters from people I don’t even know
And offers comin’ over the phone
Well, I really don’t mind the rain
And a smile can hide all the pain
But you’re down when you’re ridin’ the train
That’s takin’ the long way
And I dream of the things I’ll do
With a subway token and a dollar tucked inside my shoe
There’ll be a load of compromisin’
On the road to my horizon
But I’m gonna be where the lights are shinin’ on me”
One of the best songs ever! So sweet &
inspiring. We can always find our way to the place where the lights are shining on us, whether it’s an outside place like a job or lifestyle we’re longing for or an inside place of joy, simplicity, & inner peace.
Even if we have next to nothing now, whether materially/financially or are feeling emotionally bankrupt, depressed, hopeless, despairing….with fierce determination, we can eventually see those glittering lights…. And just like in this song, there’s people we don’t even know personally who are or will/would be sending us love & well wishes if they knew of us, our goals, dreams, struggles.
Just look at all the love on social media, the acts of kindness all around us, and all the Earth angels we meet each day. ❤
“Do you remember me
I sat upon your knee
I wrote to you with childhood fantasies
Well I’m all grown-up now
And still need help somehow
I’m not a child
But my heart still can dream
So here’s my lifelong wish
My grown-up Christmas list
Not for myself
But for a world in need”
This is my grown up Christmas list! It’s a bit different than that materialistic one! Lol
I think it’s obvious what’s on this list. Most of us probably want the same thing, world peace, the end of wars, starvation, diseases, & everyone getting along well…..we don’t always agree on the best methods of achieving that though or every aspect of it and that’s often where hostile arguments occur, not usually because we disagree on the ultimate thing.
So I’m not listing every single thing because that’s so much and so much is obvious. Who doesn’t want world peace?! (well except for terrorists and all maybe….?)
1.) One of the things I want to end is all forms of bullying in schools, workplaces, cyber-bullying.
This is a serious issue that frequently is overlooked by adults and those who work in schools. It’s not just “kids being kids” and it’s not something that happens to everyone and should be swept under the rug.
Many people say we are all bullied and to just suck it up. No, we are not all bullied.
Most of us probably have had rude things said or done to us at some point or every now and then. But that is not the same as the kids who are the same targets day after day, being tortured emotionally and/or physically for whatever stupid reason.
And not everyone handles it the same.
Not everyone can just “suck it up.” Some people have underlying depression or anxiety or psychotic disorders that are brought out by bullying.
And it’s not just an adolescent problem. It happens to adults in the workplace. Can you believe it?! Adults do this to other adults! And it can affect an adult in the same devastating ways it affects children in schools.
Adults kill themselves too and dread going to work knowing what is coming.
My love & compassion goes to all affected by bullying. Bullies only do this because they are true cowards who feel powerless within themselves so try to make up for it by having power over someone else.
They choose a target, someone they are jealous of or someone they think appears to be weaker in some way, someone who they feel can’t or won’t come back at them. They feel low about themselves even if they seem confident, so they find someone they see as an easy target. Then other people go along with them so they aren’t the next targets or to feel as part of the group of bullies. They want to fit in. Even adults.
It’s nothing personal even though it really feels like it and they often say specific things, maybe even true things, about their targets, things they know will likely get to them. But any of us can say cruel things to and about anyone. We can all have cruel things said to and about us, whether those things are true or not. None of us are perfect in everyone’s eyes.
We can all take any flaw or mistake someone has made and blow it out of proportion and taunt the person day and night, online and in person. It doesn’t mean the person deserves it. It can be done to anyone. I hope you won’t think it is really something about you personally even if what they say is true.
For someone else, they can choose something else and blow that up, magnifying that person’s flaws like it’s the worst thing in the world.
It’s not.
No matter how “perfect” someone appears to be, someone can come along and tear that person to shreds saying true or untrue things.
They take our weaknesses and flaws and use them against us.
It can happen to anyone. It says nothing about us and says something about how the instigator is choosing to be in that moment.
We can all choose to laugh and smirk and whisper about someone and get others to go along with us to try to make someone feel low. It shows how we are choosing to be, not how the person we are doing that to really is.
We only lower ourselves when we do that.
Please hold on. You can overcome it even if you can’t feel that now.
And even if one person or many seem to not like you, many people do like you and love you or would if they knew you.
One day on a suicide memorial page for a teenage child who died by suicide instigated by bullying, I read something I’ll never forget. His mom wrote to all people feeling suicidal and lonely, feeling unlovable, something like “Whoever you are, whatever you do, someone somewhere can love someone just like you.”
It’s so true. We are all desirable to some and not to others. One person or one group of people can make it feel as if the whole world is against us. But it’s never true.
“You can be greater than anything that can happen to you.” ~ Norman Vincent Peale ❤
❤
And if you're the bully, please get help, it's not too late for you to turn your life around and get better and stop trying to destroy other people.
Dragging others down will never bring you up. When we try to degrade someone else, we only degrade our own self.
"We rise by lifting others."
2.) politicians to stop arguing in a negative way and slandering one another and instead attempt to work together whatever side they are on. We can disagree without being vicious. Politicians do a lot of hard work and it takes strength to have a job like that. I love our politicians irrespective of their views. It's not a job for the faint-hearted, for sure! Why not add compassion and wisdom to that strength and determination, even compassion for the "other side." We are One. We are all working or hoping for ultimately the same thing, a better world. We won't accomplish as much good with all the bickering and mocking and anger. Please take your skills and experience and use it for pure good! 😀
3.) people to realize that while anger does fuel us and can give us a backbone, compassion fuels too in an even greater way. Anger can motivate us and anger isn't bad or wrong. When we feel angry about a certain issue we often move to help it, writing to politicians, sharing information, donating money, time,….and this is good. But often while having compassion for one, we have anger for another. For example, if we are for a certain political issue, we may have compassion for those on the side we support but anger and loathing for those on the opposing side and many people think that's a good thing because they say anger motivates us to act. But so does deep compassion. Some people say without anger, we won't act to make things better. Not true. Unless maybe if all someone has inside is anger and it's stripped away. But some anger arises because of the compassion we feel for those wronged. We can work hard for something or someone without anger. When someone hurts our friend or family member, we have compassion for the one hurt and anger for the one who inflicted the pain. But we don't need that anger. It doesn't make us any less passionate or caring if we aren't infuriated by the injustice in the world. We can have much compassion for the one hurt and tend to that person without seeking revenge. Anger can become destructive but compassion and wisdom never do.
If we focus on our love for the people or the issue and focus on our deep desire to see good and see them free of suffering, we can allow the fury for the wrongdoers to melt away.
Feed the love and compassion, not the potentially destructive emotions.
We all have love or the potential for love in us and all have anger or the potential for anger in us, all have positivity and negativity, the potential to hurt and the potential to heal. Which side will win? Like the old Cherokee legend says, “The one you feed.” Let’s feed the positive.
“Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.”
4.) universal love – some people say this is not practical but that’s because they don’t understand what we mean by universal love.
In this sense, love means wishing everyone the best, wanting everyone to be happy.
But how can that be? What’s best for me may interfere with someone else’s “best.”
Example: If two people go on a job interview for the same job and only one can get the job how can they both get the best?
It may be “best” for a murderer to kill someone but that’s certainly not the best for the potential victim.
For political candidates who lose elections and things, they can’t all have the best in that sense of winning.
But when I wish everyone the best, I’m not necessarily talking about external circumstances and getting everything we want, but inner peace which we can have no matter what goes on outside. I can not get the job but still be happy.
A murderer who experiences true inner peace and love won’t want to kill.
I wish everyone the best but not at the expense of others.
5.) I wish for all sentient beings including humans, animals, insects….to be free of suffering and full of love.
6.) I wish for homeless people & animals to stay safe & warm in the bitter cold Winters and cool in the scorching hot Summers. And shelter animals to all find their loving furever homes. ❤
7.) I wish for us to live in deep compassion & evolved empathy for each other and all living sentient beings.
8.) Us to take better care of our beautiful Earth and be more mindful of even just simple things we do. For example, using environmental friendly cleaning products more than damaging ones. Any little thing may help or at least just get our own minds in the habit of being more caring. ❤
9.) For all kids who celebrate or would celebrate holidays/birthdays to have toys and gifts. Some families don't celebrate with gifts or don't celebrate at all and that's ok, nothing wrong with that! But some kids have difficulty getting gifts because their families are financially struggling or they don't have a family. I think all kids who celebrate or would, with gifts, should have baby dolls and teddy bears and packages to open and whatever teenagers like these days. (I was a teenager once but it was ages ago and I don't think it's the same as now, we did not have smartphones and ipads and whatever else! Lol) This is more than just materialistic. Part of being a child is having fun, the joy of playing with toys and things. I used to love baby dolls and Barbies and frequently got them for holidays and birthdays. And I don't want any kids to be without the joy of things like that just because they don't have much money or don't have a family. We can help sometimes by donating toys to places collecting them and sending cards to hospitals collecting them for the children.
10.) world peace. ❤ lol can't forget this one! It's a cliche but for good reason! 😀
“No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
Everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown-up Christmas list”
“And right would always win”
This is a beautiful concept! Beautiful intention. But is it really practical? Is it really so simple? Is it even a possibility? It almost seems like a pompous claim or wish. But I know the people wishing it have great intentions. Some things may not be objectively right. What’s right to one may not be to another.
For example, capital punishment. To me, it doesn’t seem right that it’s up to the state or anyone to decide when someone must die, even a cold blooded murderer. Who are you and who am I or anyone to decide that someone else should die no matter what that person previously did? What gives us that kind of authority? It seems self-important, we think we are in a position to have someone die. But someone else’s conviction is just as strong that it’s wrong to NOT kill a cold blooded murderer. To allow a murderer to keep breathing after that person cruelly took someone else’s life? To protect and shelter and care for a murderer in prison when the poor victim never gets to see the light of day again? To give that person a chance to escape confinement and kill again? It’s unlikely but it has happened. Who is to say, in this case, which of us is really right? There are good arguments and well intentioned arguments on both sides. I don’t think we can come to an objective conclusion which is right. There are so many issues like this one where it’s just not clear and there are so many aspects.
To me “right” is choosing Love in every moment. Love even when we disagree. We can all stand up for the things we think are right while loving those who stand up for what they think is right even if we disagree with their concept of “right.”
“And now let us welcome the New Year Full of things that have never been.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
In Sarah Ban Breathnach’s “Simple Abundance – A Daybook of Comfort and Joy,” she writes:
“January, the month of new beginnings and cherished memories, beckons. Come, let winter weave her wondrous spell: cold, crisp, woolen-muffler days, long dark evenings of savory suppers, lively conversations, or solitary joys. Outside the temperature drops as the snow falls softly. All of nature is at peace. We should be, too. Draw hearthside. This is the month to dream, to look forward to the year ahead and the journey within.”
Isn’t this a beautiful description?! We don’t need a new year to have new beginnings, new hope, and new goals. We can begin anywhere, any place, any time. But January is symbolic of new hope and beginnings. A new, clean, blank slate to be and do whatever you want!
She also writes, “…time is the New Year’s bountiful blessing: three hundred sixty-five bright mornings and starlit evenings; fifty-two promising weeks; twelve transformative months full of beautiful possibilities; and four splendid seasons. a simply abundant year to be savored.”
I shared this last year here, and maybe the year before too! It’s beautiful and full of so much hope! Like I said, you don’t need the beginning of a new year to be hopeful and create a new life or a new you, all that’s changing is the date, it’s what has to change within and our actions that count, but it’s a beautiful symbol!
And the magic of a new year is lovely!
I wish you a happy New Year full of love (of all kinds including self love), success with your goals, happiness, joy, beauty & light! Remember we don’t need lots of money, material possessions, romantic love, a big happy family…to be happy and full of love. Those are great things to have but not necessary to be happy in general. All we need is the right attitude and we can be homeless, financially poor, living in a shack and still be happy. True happiness and joy is within. External things can add to it but we don’t need them.
❤
As I posted here previously, I have vivid dreams that I frequently remember. Sometimes they’re inspirational. My dreams aren’t usually bad, negative, or scary. They’re often strange. Bizarre beyond comprehension. And when not bizarre beyond belief, usually just quite ordinary like an extension of a normal day. But I can often gather little parts of them, bizzare or not, that can be analyzed or interpreted. I like my dreams. They seem so real. And I love that I remember them so easily, I even remember dreams I had years ago. My dreams are so profound and so intense, like I can experience my emotions in my dreams just as strongly as during my waking hours.
I believe that dreams are usually just stuff we have been thinking about consciously or unconsciously whether it’s important or not so much. I think it’s often just our brains releasing everyday stuff in symbols or images as we sleep. Like a kind of replenishment. I think sometimes we have certain dreams for a certain reason that we aren’t consciously aware of. Some deep, seemingly unreachable, part of the Self is attempting to reveal something. I love the mystery of dreams and I think they often try to take unconscious thoughts and put them into the conscious mind.
Sometimes I know things unconsciously that I don’t realize in my waking hours. These messages come to me during my slumber and I’m often blessed enough to carry the message out of the dream and into my wakening.
In another post I mentioned that I have a recurring dream while I sleep sometimes, when I’m depressed and suicidal or having suicidal thoughts. The dream is someone chasing me and trying to kill me and in my dream I want so desperately to live and will do almost anything to survive. I’m passionate about living. My desire to live in this dream is overwhelming and I would do almost anything to save myself. This is a dream I usually only have when I’m depressed and having some degree of suicidal thoughts.
I believe it’s my unconscious mind letting me know I really do want to live, deep inside I want to live, not to listen to and give into the deadly thoughts and urges, that the depression is deceiving me into thinking I should die. The depression is clouding my Truth. My Truth is pure like sparkling white snow glistening on a cold Winter day. But depression comes along like a speeding truck headed straight for me, leaving tracks of mud upon my pure Truth. But no matter how much mud and soil and sludge it leaves upon my Truth, my inner self, my Truth and my authentic Self is still pure and sparkling, still fierce, still strong. No pain can take that. My Truth is that life is always a blessing even when it doesn’t feel so, that there’s always beauty and hope and something to carry on for, something to smile about and be thankful for even when pain or circumstances are overwhelming. No matter how much it hurts. Even when it feels like it will never get better, like all hope is lost. My truth is that I have a purpose and always will. My truth is that I want to live to inspire anyone I can, to share my own story, my happiness and sadness, my joy and pain, my beauty and my uglines, my strength and my weakness,and bring hope and healing to anyone in need.
A few months ago, I have been depressed again and had another dream. I dreamed that someone died. A woman named Angie. She’s not someone I know for real, I don’t know where my mind got her. I don’t think she’s based on a real person that I know of. But I read a fact about dreams that says when we see faces in our dreams they are people we once saw in our reality whether we remember seeing them or not, even if those people were never significant in our lives, even if we saw the face only once, and even if we haven’t seen them in decades. Our brain can’t make up faces.
The faces/people we dream may not, in the dream, be based on who they really are in reality. It’s just the same physical face/appearance, nothing more necessarily. The example I read is that as a child we may have watched a man pumping gas into our dad’s car then years later dream of a serial killer and it’s the man pumping the gas! His face! Lol So while the face is real he wasn’t necessarily really a serial killer, he was just a man pumping gas whose face made it into a dream years later and the brain made him a serial killer. In the dream the serial killer isn’t that man we remember pumping gas at one point. It’s that our brain just took his face to incorporate into a dream. Now, I have absolutely no clue how true this is. And if it’s true I have no idea how someone found this out. How does someone know our brains can’t make up faces that never existed? Maybe it’s common sense how someone knows but I’m lacking that common sense or maybe some research reveals it somehow. Some kind of neuroscience? It’s fascinating but I don’t know much about it. I did go to college for psychology and took many brain classes, even held an actual human brain in my hands, along with a spinal cord. My professor had/has a human brain collection in her basement. They float around in jars of fluid. Lol please don’t ask because I don’t know!
She’s some kind of brain researcher in a lab and keeps the brains for her own entertainment. I would too! Lmao This sounds like something out of some kind of science fiction or horror movie but it’s reality. So yeah. I don’t remember over half the shit I learned back then. But it’s ok at least I’m humble enough to admit it! ;-D It’s funny because sometimes I dream about this fact about dreams and faces that I’m not sure is really a fact. Lol As a matter of fact, it’s only in a dream that I remember first learning it! I don’t remember learning this “fact”/fact while awake. I dreamed about learning this then one day I woke up and thought it was just some weird thing I dreamed out of nowhere. Then I looked it up and saw it’s actually said to be a fact! So I must have learned it and forgot but my unconscious self remembered and had it tucked away until I fell asleep one night. I haven’t found any reliable sources to support it. So anyway, if this is true, Angie in my dream who died, must be real since I saw her clearly in my dream. Maybe her name isn’t really Angie. Maybe in reality she’s not who she was in my dream. And hopefully she never really died.
Maybe I saw her on a bus one day years ago or in a class in college or in a picture on Facebook….who knows? But in my dream she died. In my dream I did not know her well at all but the news of her death devastated me. This isn’t quite a stretch or unrealistic as in my reality I find the death of someone to be devastating, even the death of people/animals I hardly know or don’t know at all. Of course, it’s not as deep as for people who actually knew the person/animal but I am just filled with sorrow over the losses I hear of. I can see on the news that someone died or I read a Facebook status and am somewhat somber the rest of the day off and on or even the next few days. It’s not always equal for every one that I see. Some things hit harder for whatever reason. But in my dream I was in a room full of people who all knew the woman who died. I don’t know where I was in the dream but in the dream it made sense. I think it may have been inspired by the building of the mental health clinic I go to for depression. There were big wooden tables and chairs, like lunchroom tables, and a lady in charge….in charge of what I don’t know…., she was going around to different people with a clipboard and paper and pen and when she got to me we sat on the chairs, facing each other. I was grieving and felt a kind of fear and I sensed this woman before me was trying to push the problem under the rug, not wanting to talk about the issue directly or in depth because it was painful and uncomfortable. She asked me questions I can’t remember. She wrote down my answers. I even remember the paper in the dream, clearly. It was white with black text and black boxes to write the answers in.
Then the last question she asked me I do remember. She said something like: “What is the one quote you want to live by, choose a quote you truly believe in, one that is important, a quote you want to be the foundation for your life?” I thought about it for a few seconds and almost instantly a quote popped into my head. For real I was depressed and in my dream I was depressed and grieving. When I’m depressed I often have certain insecurities thinking I’m not good enough for anything or anyone and in my dream that’s how I felt. I was afraid to answer. Feeling as if my answer wouldn’t be good enough. Just because it’s my answer, because nothing about me is ever good enough, it seems. I don’t always feel this way, only sometimes, especially when I’m depressed. And in the dream I felt this. In reality I was feeling a bit hopeless. It carried over into my dream. And the quote that came to me in my dream:
“You can be greater than anything that can happen to you.” ~ attributed to Norman Vincent Peale
I told the dream lady(who I must have also seen in my waking hours if that fun fact is in fact true, but I don’t remember her either, in my reality) and she happily wrote it down. She seemed impressed and she said to me “Now, you always remember that, don’t you ever forget it.” And then I woke up. I was and still am in awe of the beauty my brain creates when I sleep. Of course my brain did not make up this quote. If only…lol if only my slumbering brain were THAT brilliant! This is one of my favorite quotes that helps remind me whenever something bad happens, whenever I’m in pain of any kind, depressed, struggling with insecurities or painful memories of any past event or day, grief, struggling with tmjd “cluster headaches”….that no matter what it is, I can be greater if I let myself. I can be greater than anything that can happen to me. No matter how painful or devastating or tragic or sad. I have the power within to rise above it. And that goes for you as well. We can all be greater than anything that can happen to us. We don’t have to give our power to other people, situations, events, pain, things, or anything. Generally and ultimately, no circumstance, no person, no thing has power over you unless you allow it. We have the power over ourselves.
In some special cases, people do have the power to control us, situations get the best of us but in the long run, overall, we have the power over ourselves. We can choose to take it back when it seems to be taken away and pro-act.
Sometimes I let my pain, both physical and emotional, repress my Truth. I let it conquer me and my life’s philosophy. I let everything else, everything I know to be true to me, take the back burner and my pain prevail. But then it comes to me in my sleep because it never really left me. It’s still my Truth. It was there all along. And my dreams remind me…
I encourage you to listen to your dreams and your truth. Not everyone can remember their dreams at all or enough to interpret them or glean any inspirational or useful insights but if you do remember them, it’s possible a part of you deep inside is trying to tell you something. Listen. Listen to your inner Self. Not just your dreams while you sleep but your waking Truth. You may have values, opinions, philosophies, virtues that you generally firmly believe in or live by or want to honor and live up to eventually if you don’t already. But pain, either physical or emotional, situations, unpleasant experiences can cloud those truths and they become muddled and repressed and the pain becomes your truth instead. Maybe the pain tells you you can’t go on or that there’s no reason to. Maybe it tells you you’re worthless or that there’s no hope, no point, no purpose, no beauty, nothing but pain. Maybe it tells you that you aren’t good enough, beautiful enough, not equal to everyone else. Maybe it’s just so painful it feels like you have to die to end the pain, whether physical or emotional, or just curl up in solitude and give up on everything.
You can find and develop your Truth and authentic Self through reflecting, thinking, tuning in, meditating, writing, looking for evidence throughout your every day and your whole life to see what you really believe deep within, think about how you handle or have handled various situations and how you felt about the situations and how you handled them(were you sorry you reacted a certain way? Proud of your actions? Was there some sense of dissonance with how you reacted and how you felt? Did the two match up?), think about how you really feel deep inside around certain people, in certain circumstances, reaching out to others, photography if it’s your interest, searching through books, magazines, images and words and seeing what jumps out at you. What captures your heart and resonates with you? It doesn’t matter if you know why something captures you or not or if you never knew something appeals to you til now. Your deeper self knows. I got this idea off of author, Sarah Ban Breathnach, searching through magazines, stores, catalogs without the intention to buy anything, just listen closely and see what calls to you, what clothes, objects, jewelry, vacations, people… call to you? Which ones tug at your deepest parts? Which ones make your pulse speed a bit faster? Which ones make you tingle all over?….glue pictures to paper or a journal and it’s your self discovery journal/journey….keep up with it often to keep in touch with your deep inner Self who may be buried beneath layers of expectations of others or society as a whole or yourself that you think you should be, buried beneath fear, anxiety, pain, and anything else.
Your pain is very real. But pain clouds our judgment making it not sound so we forget our authentic Self and our deeper Truth. Don’t listen to that pain when it deceives you. Definitely listen to your pain, tend to it, embrace it if you can, accept it, let it teach you and strengthen you and deepen your wisdom, but not conquer you and delude you. That’s not you. It’s part of you for sure, maybe even a significant loud part that screams in your eardrums, screams in your face. But screaming and throbbing and being loud doesn’t make it true. The true you is what deserves to be honored even when your Truth isn’t screaming and loud. It’s quiet and gentle and calm and warm and deep, whispering inside but it’s evermore worthy of being honored than that loud, screaming pain that demands you to give up and lose all hope and joy. It’s more powerful than pain and delusions, quiet and gentle as it is.
Sarah Ban Breathnach is amazing! I love her, and she’s one of my greatest heroes, though I never met her in person. I would love to though! The book I referred to above with the self-discovery activity is “Something More – Excavating Your Authentic Self.” She also mentions self exploration and authentic Self activities in her book “Simple Abundance.”
Her books are mostly directed at women but they really can help anyone.
I wish you much love, hope, healing, happiness, and joy. And I hope you will always make the choice to honor your deeper self, your authentic Self, your Truth. Even when other people don’t like the true you, even when it’s hard to honor yourself. Always choose life, always choose you.
I love the sounds of the city especially at night. The cars and voices and laughing, the music…It all stands out to me in a profound, beautiful way. I love laying in bed late at night and hearing people out in the back or out in the streets, talking and laughing and living. There’s something amazing about knowing that people are awake and alive while I’m in bed at night.
Rain is one of the greatest loves of my life. Sometimes I can’t quite find the words to describe the depth of joy it brings me and the thrill that surges through me when it rains. Or even looks or feels like it may rain. I am exhilarated by the mere thought of rain. I feel so alive in the rain. So secure. So liberated. Whenever I walk in rain or mist I am completely free. No matter what may be going on, no matter what fears or concerns are troubling me then, they disappear into the rain. Every insecurity I have that comes and goes, temporarily, goes out the window when I walk alone with raindrops pelting upon my soft skin, streaking my long hair, kissing every inch of me. And I become the rain. Something about it is so protective like nothing bad can ever happen to me when it’s raining. The sounds, the scents, the tastes, the feel, the look…it’s all so perfect.
Dreams – I often remember my dreams, always have. I rarely have nightmares, almost never. Sometimes my dreams know things before I do in life, and they send their wisdom to me during my slumbering hours. Sometimes I don’t consciously realize something or I’m convinced of something that isn’t true and I go to sleep and it’s there that the answers manifest. Sometimes I get depressed and suicidal and believe I want so desperately to die and I sleep and I dream. This recurring dream that comes often when I’m depressed. A Dream that someone is trying to kill me and in my dream I desperately want to live. In my dream I do everything to survive, whatever it takes. I run, hide, do things that are impossible in my reality, I find solutions when I think there are none. The emotion, the desperation, the Will is so strong, so overwhelming. So real. When I wake up I know what this dream is telling me. To live. Once, I had a dream about myself. I was torn about a decision I made. I wasn’t sure what to do. Deep inside me I felt that I knew the truth but still wasn’t sure. I felt a voice deep inside me, I heard it say to listen to my intuition, to surrender to that pull, that tugging deep within, it always knows what I need, want, desire, crave. It knows best. My deep wisdom inside me, in places I’m not all conscious of, knows what’s best for me. It whispers quietly, gently, waiting for me to receive. Waiting for me to welcome it with a completely open heart and let it sink deeper into me. When the uncertainty and pain and negativity and fears and defeat and demands of society, life, and others are screaming loudly, blood-curdling screams, that quiet, gentle whispering wisdom is more powerful, still. I’ll never forget that dream and I carry it with me, every day. My sleepy dreams are why I have a B.A. Degree in philosophy.
Cold – I get cold so easily. In 100 degree weather a light wind can blow and I can become freezing wishing I had a hoodie. I also can’t tolerate cold like most people can. Although cold weather is some of my favorite weather. I’m always wanting to turn the air conditioning off, open windows to let the warmth of the sun stream in. One morning, recently, I woke up in my bed in 80 something degree weather wrapped in three quilts with my air conditioner turned as low as possible and my bedroom door wide open with just a ceiling fan swirling.
I’m a city girl and no place will ever have my heart more than my own city but for my whole life I have felt drawn to the countryside, to the warm South. I have always loved Texas though I never laid eyes on it. I will visit one day and make it a point to visit again and again. I always dreamed of Texas and I feel a deep pull in me to be there. I yearn for the quietude, the green, the southern accents, the nature all around…my dream is to live there part of every year, probably in the Summer. One day a novel found its way into my arms completely randomly and unlikely, like magic, and I read it and it takes place in Texas and is one of my favorite books and made me want even more to go there. I also feel drawn to Aspen, Colorado and my dream is to visit some Winter again and again. I long for the cold, the glistening snow, the pine. I find it so beautiful how I can be so deeply drawn, mysteriously called to people, places, and things and not know why at a conscious level but something deep inside me must know.
I have a strong stomach and like to seriously gross people out just for shits and giggles. My mom and sister don’t have such strong stomachs and when I see or think of something that I know would make them disgusted or queasy I burst out laughing and run to tell them. One day my dog threw up and as I was cleaning it, I described to them, in great detail, the contents of it and said “MmmmMmm this is making me hungry…!” they were so disgusted and appalled.
I think everything is hilarious. I laugh everyday and play annoying, immature jokes on people. Taking my mom’s phone when she isn’t looking, talking in silly voices to my sister that annoys her, sending dumb or perverted jokes in text messages….lol
I love poetry, especially obscure poetry with a kind of darkness to it. I love when the meaning of the poem isn’t very obvious but seems to make some kind of sense. When the author doesn’t explain it and allows the readers to interpret however they will and guess and wonder at the author’s intention or just make up their own meaning to it.. I like to write poetic things which have a certain meaning to me but if I allowed someone to read them I would like the person to apply his/her own meaning.
I love to read and am deeply inspired by just about everything I read. My brain hungrily devours the words and concepts on the pages. When I read novels I fall in love with the characters and the places in the books. I miss them when the book is over. And days, weeks, years later I still cherish the memories of reading certain books that have spoken volumes to my heart and living in the book’s world when I did. I find reading to be very comforting. To be wrapped up in another world, another place, another time. I am sad when the book ends. I feel a kind of emptiness. But I like it. I love being touched so deeply. Before I usually wouldn’t even read novels. I saw no point. I only wanted educational stuff but I’m happy I changed. I was really, really missing out. I love books with profound messages, valuable life lessons, beautiful writing, characters with true substance, page turners that I’m happy to fall asleep with and thrilled to wake up to.
If the only way I were able to live is to be supported with feeding tubes and plugged into machines, I would still choose life not because I’m afraid to die or let go but because I have a will to survive and my life can still be beautiful and valuable even if I need extra help. Brain dead, which is often as good as dead, is not the same as brain damaged or disabled. So if I’m not brain dead in significant ways I would choose life.
Sometimes I have difficulty sleeping at night because of happy thoughts. Thoughts that are so overwhelmingly positive I want to get up and dance, jump for joy, blast sappy love songs into the night, because I’m bursting with love and gratitude for all of life. Because I just read a good book or am in the middle of reading one, because I can’t stop thinking about wonderful inspirational, uplifting quotes I have come across, because I think of sunsets and sunrises and life itself, because I think of beautiful people I know, have known, and want to know, because my music won’t stop playing to let me rest….sometimes I actually do get up at 1:00 or 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and dance around my room in the dark with my earphones in or dance in the bathroom and it annoys my sister when she comes through my room to get into the bathroom and I’m in there bouncing off the walls. I’m not manic, just happy. 😀 i find it not in my best interest to do gratitude meditations, even sleep ones, at night because they keep me up with all the goodness that comes flooding into me. I’m just bursting at the seams some nights, like a child who can’t sleep because she wants to get up and play.
I can fall asleep anywhere and sleep through anything, on a public transportation bus with screaming kids, on the floor of a crowded public place, outside, in class when I was in college(I got in trouble more than once for sleeping in class), with music blasting, at someone else’s house, with dogs barking….lol And if I get woken up I can easily go right back to sleep.
I love when people are raw and open and honest about themselves and share their life story, proudly displaying their names and faces, not holding back. It’s deeply inspiring to see/hear/read people spilling their lives and hearts to all who will listen. I want people to know my name, to know me, the good, the bad,the ugly,the beautiful
“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” ~ Muriel Rukeyser
A Dose of Inspiration 