If I sleep, I dream. When I dream, I can walk. When I wake up, I can’t.
Then the real nightmare begins over again.
My dreams are usually horrible. Bad things happen in them. I always wake up scared – or unnerved, at best. But in them I can walk. It’s freeing. So normal. It doesn’t occur to my brain there is any other way of being. Even residual memories from the darkest dreams or nightmares feel not so bad when I remember how good it felt to walk unimpeded again. It’s a feeling I’ve not had in reality for 18 months.
It’s hard enough to go to sleep. This now gives me even less incentive to even try. In my dreams I walk, run, move without pain. I am free. Even in the nightmares, I am perfectly physically healthy and mobile. And I like it.
I don’t usually remember my dreams… nightmares? – my mind never wants to. Can you blame it when it usually just goes through horrors every night? But I remember the residual feelings… it lingers somewhere in the subconscious. Usually it’s fear that lingers; I almost always have terrifying nightmares – at best they’re horrifyingly creepy. But in them I move freely – run from things, walk without problems, search, investigate, wander… everything I can’t do when I’m awake. Suddenly, nightmares aren’t the problem I wake up distraught… This is. In fact, I would rather go back to the nightmares than wake up.
After these dreams, I wake in the morning thinking everything is OK. Then I can’t move. The aches and pain hits. I can’t turn easily in bed. Often it hurts to breathe. My legs won’t move properly. Reality returns. Then I just wish I could go back to sleep again.
Being able to move freely is just something you take for granted. Even within my dreams, I take it for granted. When it’s taken away, your mind and body miss it. I miss being able to easily walk around the house. I miss being able to go to the bathroom without struggling. I miss walking the dog. I miss just popping out for some coffee or wandering around the shops. I miss going out being easy.
I once rode horses, did yoga, danced, performed, sang, walked for miles. Now I struggle unsteadily to stand on and move my legs, and have to be taken out in a wheelchair. I’ve put on weight that I can’t get rid of because I can’t move properly. I can’t eat properly when I’m on my own because I can’t make anything, so I don’t eat as well as I used to. I need help to get up, walk, make food, go out, push my chair, take me to see doctors, go shopping. I’ve been reduced to… nothing.
But out of all that, what I miss most having the choice. Even if I’m being scared to death in my sleep, in my dreams, at least I can walk there, or run away. I can do what I want to do. And I don’t have to rely on anyone else to do it.
Apparently, that’s too much to ask, though.
