Friday 19th got
off to a very bad start, within minutes of the beginning of the new
date i had a night terror where I saw some kind of creature crawling
on the wall close to where I was resting my head on the pillow, I’ve
no idea what it was supposed to be as in my shock of seeing something
(which only exists in my mind as i haven't realised by this point I’m
actually awake )suddenly appear, i used the duvet to to crush it
against the wall, at first it appears as though I have crushed this
thing as theres some dark substance smeared across the
wall...normally I’ve regained full consciousness by this point and
realised what happened, didn’t. Only the creature is still alive
and has now crawled into a gap in my duvet, now I’m panicking as I
can't see this thing and I’m afraid its going to crawl onto my face
if I go back to sleep, finally at some point I’ve woken up and
realised its a dream, I'm trying to calm down, my hearts threatening
to explode its going so bloody fast and hard, i'm telling myself I’m
fine nothings happened yet I remain feeling a sense of dread as I go
back to sleep.
That was bad enough but
the next nightmare I was to have (that I remember) made a mockery of
it. Through all the dreams I was having at what seemed like a million
miles an hour all one fast never-ending blur when everything slows
down and I have a female voice say to me “(friend's name) has been
murdered” this friend I have known since I was 15 years old and I
regard him more than a close friend he's family to me, now obviously
in this nightmare I’m really upset and the overwhelming feeling of
grief hits me, whoever told me this isn't there anymore, its just me
in my flat and I try to call my Mother first and then somebody else
(don't know who) but none answer, I begin crying as I need to talk to
somebody, to tell them what's happened to my dear friend, i'm alone
with the knowledge of something incomprehensibly awful.
And the worst is yet to
come.
Now I’m in a street at
night time watching a taxi slowdown in the middle of the road, I
recognise the street, its where I lived for a few years some time
ago, this friend of mine lived with me for a year or so during a
difficult time of his life. He's in the backseat of the taxi...it
quickly dawns on me the full horror of what I’m about to see.
My friend being murdered.
The driver (only thing of
him I can recall is him wearing a grey polo shirt) locks the doors
electronically, the sound of the door catches all thumping downwards,
the driver turns and moves towards my friend, who isn't moving, its
as though he's paralysed, the driver is almost on top of him and I’m
privy to his final thoughts before he dies, firstly that he's going
to die at the hands of the driver and secondly that I am nowhere to
be seen...
And so I wake up late and
I got 10 minutes to get dressed, have a quick wash, grab my stuff and
get out of the door to catch the bus to work, which I manage and I
haven't thought about the second nightmare really, at first I’m too
busy rushing to get out on time and when i'm on the bus I got my
walkman blasting music into earphones, I do briefly ask myself the
question of why the fuck I would dream about something like that but
I can't even begin to identify a trigger for that.
Off the bus I have a 15
minute walk to my workplace, the music is still going but by now the
adrenaline is helping to walk very quickly and I’m hyper vigilante,
scowling at every passer by as though they are threat to me, part of
me wishing for somebody to give me the slightest excuse to unleash
the aggression that is straining within me. I get into sainsburys to
buy myself a sandwich (as I didn’t have time to make my own) and I
go for a meal deal, or so I thought, I picked 2 other items, a drink
and a snack to go with the sandwich, a meal deal that is supposed to
cost £3 but I end up being charged at the self service checkout for
£4.46, now I’m sure the previous day I got the same items and it
cost me £3, initially annoyed by this I just told myself to stop
being a mardy miserable prick and just get on with it, what
difference is £1.46 going to make anyway? So get out a tenner and
feed it into the note slot...it spits back out my tenner, well okay
the tenner was folded in one corner so correct that and put it back,
nope it still spits out my tenner, its not accepting it.
“fuck this!” I
snatched the note back and left the items I was going to buy on the
checkout and stomp out. I get to work and turns out theres an I.T
issue which means we have to work around it and I just can't be doing
with it even so the changes are simple enough and its no big deal,
yet i'm enraged by this point, first the checkout machine wont take
my money and now this bullshit at work.
So after some minutes (7
or 8 maybe?) I’ve finally calmed down, the anger is gone, the
adrenaline is gone and I’m okay now...actually I’m not, I’m at
the mercy of the anxiety that is about flood over me.
The thoughts of the
nightmare I had begin to crawl back into my mind, I’m just staring
into space waiting for a customer to come through to my line and the
feelings that linger from the nightmare are now making themselves
known as the anger is no longer there to suppress it, I can feel the
tears welling up and I try to hold it all back but its no use, the
first couple trickle out and the floodgates open, the deputy team
leader notices after borrowing a document to photocopy from my desk,
she's asking me whats wrong and I cannot get any words out as i'm
just sobbing away, eventually I manage to get up from my chair and
half run into a empty training room, where I half collapsed to the
floor and carried on bawling away meekly telling her that I was
sorry, finally managing to say to my deputy team leader about the
nightmare I had (or rather I just vaguely said I had a nightmare
about a friend of my mine being murdered, how can I possibly explain
the whole thing, it seemed absurd to me, it just wouldn't make sense
to anyone else and it still probably doesn't).
So its established my
friend works in the same place and my deputy team leader asked if it
would helped if I knew he was in work that day, I said yes and she
went off to find out (in fact my friend came to see me a few minutes
later, he was told by her I was upset and we talked for a bit, I
didnt tell him the full story of it either, I didn’t know how to
even begin trying to explain it, it just seems so..wrong somehow.
Seeing the state I was in
(altho I had managed to stop crying by this point but it was obvious
I had been) he told me for one thing I shouldn't be at work given how
I’m feeling as it would the last place I wanted be and that I was
invited to stop over with him at his place for the night when he
returns from having a drink with a colleague so I’m not alone
(turns out I’d be invited to the drink later as he was concerned
about me being alone for too long), after getting over the initial
overbearing anxiety I felt on the bus on the way to meeting with him
I actually had a good time.
Its Sunday morning now and
the feelings from the night terrors haven't disappeared, the feelings
are still there and its difficult to explain, after all I know the
terrors are not real, the creature didn’t exist, I didn’t smear
it over the wall and it didn’t crawl into my duvet, my friend
wasn't murdered, I know this and yet the horrible feelings from them
linger and whats really frustrating is I can't work out the trigger
for them, the CBT therapy I’m going for at the end of May seem a
long time away.
21st April 2013
the journey continues.
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