Last night, one of my friends accidentally sent me some nightmare fuel. I don’t blame them, they didn’t know about this, but it still bothered me. I tried to do some things to keep my mind off it and succeeded in the end, fought off the nightmare and woke up hella tired.
One of my other friends and I forced me to see the counselor today. Here’s how it went:
-I don’t really trust counselors in general, but she seemed alright and said that she had to keep things confidential, which is nice.
-I talked through the things I mentioned in the other post, she said that fear is completely natural and current events could possibly trigger the nightmares. She did get specific about some of the stuff that’s happened in the world recently, which made me feel a bit off.
-Stress balls/grippy things are a godsend, I broke one of hers but fixed it, yay!
-I’m probably going to check in with her every so often, especially on the nights that I get the actual nightmare.
I’m somewhat nervous about it happening again tonight, because of some of the things said with the counselor, but I’ll keep trying the things y’all suggested in the other post.
All counselors have to keep things confidential unless you propose a danger to yourself or others. It sounds like you’ve been suffering from a terrible night terror, brought on constantly since the first time from the fear of that becoming a reality. From the paranoia of harming someone, especially those close to you.
This may be true, and you feeling “off” is also perfectly natural. I get skeptic myself about how events play a part in my emotions. I’m guessing this is your first time seeing a counselor? Correct me if I’m wrong. Mine just left the clinic, but I was very closed off and felt unease to try and share things with her as well.
You can get some things like that pretty cheap around general stores! I-- accidentally broke one in my best friend’s car (oops). This one had goo in it so I had to clean it off his seatbelt and the seat. :')
I’m glad you’re gonna keep in touch with her. She’ll be able to help guide you through this, and provide resources to help.
If you don’t mind, what does your bedtime routine sound like? Do you lay down in silence? In the dark? How much sleep do you try to get? Are you waking up in the middle of the night? Sorry I’m prying, but I’m wondering what we could try to change to see if it can help aide you to not having these sleep terrors anymore, and to find relief at night.
@lunxaire Gonna answer your questions here:
Yes, it is my first time seeing a counselor. Talking with her helped overall except she also gave me a bit of nightmare fuel but I think that didn’t end up affecting me in the end. I currently have a squishy in my bag for if I need it.
My bedtime routine is generally:
talk to my friends
read/reply on heart support
do some art and listen to sea shanties
I generally lay down in silence in the dark trying to get a reasonable amount of sleep (8-9h). I do wake up in the middle of the night after the nightmare’s ‘main event’ if it happened.
Have you thought of maybe investing in some sort of nightlight? I use LED strips now, but I used to have a string of Christmas lights up in my room.
Sounds like the bedtime routine is a good one. I would offer possibly following asleep to something like rain sounds. It used to help me a lot (but my dog has learnt he’s afraid of the rain after we had bad storms.) so now I listen to emkay read reddit posts, or I listen to drawfee streams to fall asleep. Helps to have “someone there” while I sleep.
I do have a night light but haven’t used it in a while. Emkay is cool, I listen to them occasionally but never thought of doing that as part of my bedtime routine. And you’re absolutely right, having ‘someone there’ definitely helps, especially if it’s one of the friends present in the dreamscape, helps keep my subconscious from playing the ‘but are you sure they aren’t in front of you?’ card if I know their location.
I loved having sleep calls with my friends, such a nice feeling.
Yeah, I have the TV set to 1 or just really quiet and snuggle with a blanket and my dog and try my best to snooze away. I have insomnia so I try to find my best ways to fall asleep. I hate the TV light so I lay on my other side.
For real, since I’m not able to have sleepovers, sleep calls are the closest thing it gets. Insomnia must really suck though, I don’t know how it works, but not sleeping does not sound fun.