I was walking through a forest in broad daylight, all alone, along a brown dirt path, when three cartoon full-size fairies jumped out in front of me. I wasn't scared of them, but when I look back on it, they were sort of scary looking. They were young women drawn Japanese-style - you know, enormous breasts, unrealisitically long legs and little skimpy outfits, huge doe eyes and no noses. Two were in pink and one was green. They said, "Follow us, and you'll learn the secret." So I said, "Okay" (real intelligent answer, there). We continued on the path. I quickly realized that all we were doing was going in a circle, and a short one at that. The dirt path was a simple circle around a couple of trees and bushes. The fairies were travelling faster and faster, and soon we were running, around and around the circular path. Suddenly, I sensed that I needed to get off the path. I tried to veer off in another direction, to keep going straight instead of turning the curve but I couldn't, my legs wouldn't go that way. I was stuck running, faster and faster, so fast I felt like I was out of control. Then, it all stopped. I was standing dead still on the path and the fairies were gone, and everything was extremely silent.I looked ahead and there was a clearing in the trees, and a little shore leading to a very placid lake. The water was totally and completely still. I looked back at the trees for a moment, and then at the lake again, and there was a huge ship in the center. I spotted someone on the ship's deck, waving to me, so I ran out on to the rocky shore. It was Cody, waving and yelling, "Krista! Krista!". He then shouted something I couldn't hear, and I yelled back, "What?!", and a second later, the entire ship exploded. It looked like a nuclear bomb from a movie, the whole mushroom cloud and ear-deafening noise. Everything was fire and black smoke, and I started screaming and running into the water, towards where the ship had been.
And then I woke up.
Honest to God, I did not make that up. Can you understand why I used to be afraid of sleeping?
It is not as bad as it used to be, especially at this time last year. But the dreams are coming back, slowly. I used to have such violent and realistic dreams that I'd actually wake up screaming. Has that ever happened to you? I'd only heard and read about that before it actually started happening to me. It is such a scary feeling. A little milder, and more common, was waking up with a jump. Either I'd just shake and wake up with a gasp, or if it was a really bad dream where I was so upset or angry at someone, in my dream I'd go to hit them, and in reality I'd actually throw a punch (one time I punched the wall, that hurt so, so bad).
So I became afraid of sleeping, knowing I'd dream about him and whoever else, and I'd wake up really upset. I started staying up until three or four in the morning, which was also part of the depressive episode, but partly because I just dreaded sleeping.
I became really, really sleep deprived. I was sleeping on average 3-4 hours a night for a few months, and it caught up with me. The insomnia turned into sleeping all day. I started to sleep for 13 hours at a time and not remembering a single dream. I'd sleep until the late afternoon, and feel so tired and depressed I'd just lay in bed, sleeping on and off until 6, eat dinner, and then be back in bed by 8 or 9 in the evening.
A really common misconception about depression is that depressed people sleep a lot. Au contraire, mes amis. In fact, when you are depressed you usually suffer from insomnia. And incidentally, around the time I started to sleep all day, I was actually starting to get better. Slowly...very, very slowly.
I was going to continue talking about my sleeping habits of the last year, but Cody just came on ICQ, and he says he is doing "pretty shitty". I asked him what was wrong, and he said, "everything is wrong". Immediate thoughts: Please broke up with girlfriend. Please broke up with girlfriend...
Alas, he didn't, it is just that his GPA is too low and he says he is having a horrible cross country season (I don't know, coming third at the PanAm games and going to the NAIA finals sounds good to me, but that is Cody for you). Damn it, why can't it be the girl! Or maybe the girl isn't the great either and he just didn't want to say anything, and I know he wouldn't dare say anything because I'd get all giddy about it.
Whoa, hopes are up way too high.
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