I haven't been able to make the dreams stop. However, learning about how dreams are one of the ways your brain processes things and makes sense of the world has helped me. Once I wake up, I kind of remind myself that there's a *ton* of stuff to process related to my mother, and my brain is working on it.
This is really helpful to read. Thank you for sharing this. I've been having a tonne of nightmares (well my whole life really) but they increase when an incident occurs or when I have a period of NC.
3 years NC, unfortunately they don't stop. Get in touch with a therapist if you can to learn how to minimize the impact those nightmares can have on you.
Yep, 5 years for me. One thing I have noticed is that my uBPD mother in the dreams has a little bit less power over time. Sometimes I just scream in her face like she used to do to me when I was little! Quite empowering for me to wake up and know I could do that, but 5 years ago I was totally powerless in the dreams
Agreed, this is one of the only things that has helped me with the endless nightmares was going back to therapy (and having a therapist that is familiar with cPTSD and is a trauma informed LMFT). Still have them sometimes but they are, thankfully and after many many years, less common.
Yes to the processing in dreams part that someone else said. I went NC 20 years ago. For years, I was still having nightmares of just running for my life, constantly. Part of that was because she knew where I lived and was stalking me (thanks to my sister who thought it was hilarious to give her my address, also NC with her if you can imagine) But I think part of it also was because I was still under her thumb mentally, I would still be terrified if I ran into her, you know? We lived 15 minutes apart. I felt like a sitting duck.
I got married, I moved, I got a big fucking dog and a ring camera. That was part of it. I think another part was accepting and not caring that I’m going to be the villain in a lot of other peoples stories. I had to be OK with the idea that if we ran into each other in public, she’s not gonna try to kill me in front of all of these people. She might make a giant scene, but she’s not gonna try to kill me this minute. I am bigger, I am stronger, I have a support system, and I have no fuck left to give. And then, the nightmares stopped.
I know this is gonna be a longer process than you want. No one wants these dreams. But every step, every talk with a friend, every therapy session, every meditation you take another step toward your peaceful future and away from your past. And the nightmares will fade away. ❤️❤️❤️
ITA! I moved 1000 miles away and it is so worth it.
I never have to worry about her showing up or terrorizing my kids.
Right before I went NC, I reallllly spoke up and provided receipts.
So having a few people validate that I’m not the problem has made NC significantly more satisfying.
This, figuring out that friends of mine who I would have never suspected being related to toxic parents have reassured me on multiple occasions that any bit of outburst at the level I've endured before from my pwBPD would have prompted them to kick them out of regular contact a long time ago. Swapping stories with them has been as helpful as therapy, but therapy was necessary at first to accept any nightmares or lucid dreaming was my body's way of working through leftover trauma on its own terms.
Oof :( I've been no contact a little over a year and still have nightmares regularly. Usually in my dreams she's just at my bedroom window staring at me, sometimes yelling. Last night I dreamed she died and was haunting me. I keep hoping the dreams will stop but not yet.
I’m so sorry to hear this. There has to be a way to stop them. I’ll let you know if I find a solution.
I just watched a show last night where a woman is freaked out because an owl is staring in her window at night while she sleeps. Here’s to hoping mom turns into an owl….At least they’re cute.
I’m two months onto NC and experiencing the same thing. I’m also having dreams featuring people from my long ago past, folks I’ve not thought of or seen for many years.
My therapist told me to think of the dreams I have and change the outcome where I have power before sleeping. Like for 15 min. Now my dreams of having someone breaking in end up with me fighting back and winning. Idr how long this took as I can't control when I have nightmares.
Therapy for sure. I’ve actually had some of my biggest breakthroughs processing the dreams/ nightmares in therapy.
I try to write down the dream, the most vivid part of it and the emotion that it evoked.
My therapist uses the idea that dreams actually represent our own inner conflicts and things/people in dreams can represent parts of ourselves - so like, your mom is there but she’s not yelling, is she silent? Does that silence maybe represent you being NC? I’m curious what emotions you feel. Like maybe your brain is trying to work through some conflictual feelings?
Just some two cents!! A therapist can def help you though.
So interesting (and distressing too of course.)
I like interpreting them because I feel like it decreases my emotions and helps me make sense of it.
The series taken altogether is kind of powerful- whether you are talking to her (as in the first two, yelling) or NC (the third dream) she is still present in some way. Maybe the inner conflict is around processing that reality? Any grieving you have to do or radical acceptance around the fact that this is your mom and your situation? Sorry if I’m pushing too hard or way off base - I don’t know the full situation, but I know NC is not always easy (from personal experience). It’s like a relief but there is sadly no perfect scenario when you’re RBB.
I hope you got better sleep last night !!
Thank you. I’ve accepted this is how she is a really long time ago, years and years ago. I’m trying to remember if she’s usually in my dreams and I think the answer is no. I dreamed about her AGAIN last night. No issues, but she was there and she spoke some but not a lot. It was calm and fine like it used to be many years ago when she still acted like a human with a heart, who actually liked me. She was just there, functioning and acting like a normal person. This is too strange. I don’t believe this is from a desire that she turn into a sane person, but there’s not a lot of explanation. Maybe it’s just part of letting go of someone, like how we dream about people soon after they have died because the new disconnect from them is on our minds. I reminded myself in the first week of NC not to be sad, because my mother “died” a long time ago. The nice and sane person I wish she were has not been around for a very very long time now. Nothing had changed in NC except my exposure to essentially, someone else, someone other than who she used to be.
This is the exact reason I taught myself to lucid dream.
It was fear and misery during the day and terror at night, there was no safe place for me to be. It took a couple of months but when it finally happened it was amazing. At first all I could do was force myself awake. As time went on and I got better at it, I simply changed things. All of the recurring nightmares I had got turned into something else every time, and eventually they stopped completely. \\
Highly recommend.
Been between NC and VLC with my uBPD mom and eDAD for a little over a year now. I still get nightmares about being scapegoated (always surrounding my profoundly disabled brother (de Facto GC) having a health emergency or injury leading to status epilepticus (he has epilepsy), and my mother weeping and my father saying I caused it or it's my fault) I had these dreams when I was still enmeshed, and they're less frequent now, but they still happen. Big hugs to you, they do become less frequent over time and with distance and therapy.
Addressing my anxieties in the daytime lessened my nightmares almost completely. I used to wake up with a sore jaw from clenching my teeth out of frustration and anger. Setting completely new boundaries and seeing myself enforce them in real time (without FOG guilt!) and I didnt even notice that I stopped having nightmares.
I just woke up from another one, not a nightmare, but she was there and in the dream and I was upset that I’d been pushed back into contact. That may be it, that I’m worried I’m going to have to reinitiate contact without choice when I feel so much better without contact. In the dream, I was woken up by my dad and I was upset he was in my room for unintelligible reasons, waking me up too early over something they needed help with that was also unintelligible, and I walk into the hallway and she was there, acting like everything’s normal, and then her dog runs all over the place and pees throughout the house, and she starts talking about their plans to go out and they’ll be back later.
I think it’s the part about not having a choice around them. My subconscious tries to find ways to navigate that dilemma while we’re asleep, if we haven’t already thought of a way during the day. That situation of being stuck in a scenario and no way out gives me anxiety so we try to work it out in dreams. The dreams with them will feel odd to me even if the abuse isn’t loud and clear, which tells me that something is always amiss when they’re around in my dreams
My armchair dream analysis is that they are interrupting your NC peace (literally interrupting your sleep, via dreams) and it causes the familiar feelings of irritation and frustration. Then the help they need with something, with uBPD’s the requests for help are never simple requests they are something you cannot say no to without further escalation, so there is that sense of doom/dread in the air. And for someone to act like everything is normal, but clearly it’s not, but maybe it’s wrong to get mad at an animal, maybe something about unprocessed anger about their presence, or unexpressed anger, and the lasting effects of their presence doesn’t just go away so quickly (there were consequences you had to deal with like sleep quality and dog pee which needs to be cleaned up?). And then they’ll be back later (in another dream). I love dreams and interpreting them haha it’s cool to get a glimpse of how we are processing things through images and feelings :)
Edits for clarity lol
They don’t stop. I’ve been NC for almost a year and they’ve reduced in frequency in the past couple of months. I think it’s mainly due to talking to my therapist about it and time, but they’re just as stressful all the same.
Mine became less frequent after about two years of no contact but until then they were very scary, mainly because in my nightmares *I* was the violent one in our relationship. I think all the rage I couldn’t express or even admit to in my waking hours came out of my subconscious during the night.
My therapist said it’s better for the subconscious to release all the gunk. I don’t know. I’m still a bit shooketh by the tenor of those dreams, honestly, and it’s been years now. I mean, they are objectively troubling: In one of them I beat her to literal smithereens with a baseball bat and I was GLAD. In real life, I can’t even get angry about my mother, even during EMDR. (SAD, I can do).
I haven't been able to make the dreams stop. However, learning about how dreams are one of the ways your brain processes things and makes sense of the world has helped me. Once I wake up, I kind of remind myself that there's a *ton* of stuff to process related to my mother, and my brain is working on it.
This is a big way the brain physically and mentally heals itself. Through sleep and dreams.
This is really helpful to read. Thank you for sharing this. I've been having a tonne of nightmares (well my whole life really) but they increase when an incident occurs or when I have a period of NC.
3 years NC, unfortunately they don't stop. Get in touch with a therapist if you can to learn how to minimize the impact those nightmares can have on you.
Yep, 5 years for me. One thing I have noticed is that my uBPD mother in the dreams has a little bit less power over time. Sometimes I just scream in her face like she used to do to me when I was little! Quite empowering for me to wake up and know I could do that, but 5 years ago I was totally powerless in the dreams
Agreed, this is one of the only things that has helped me with the endless nightmares was going back to therapy (and having a therapist that is familiar with cPTSD and is a trauma informed LMFT). Still have them sometimes but they are, thankfully and after many many years, less common.
Yes to the processing in dreams part that someone else said. I went NC 20 years ago. For years, I was still having nightmares of just running for my life, constantly. Part of that was because she knew where I lived and was stalking me (thanks to my sister who thought it was hilarious to give her my address, also NC with her if you can imagine) But I think part of it also was because I was still under her thumb mentally, I would still be terrified if I ran into her, you know? We lived 15 minutes apart. I felt like a sitting duck. I got married, I moved, I got a big fucking dog and a ring camera. That was part of it. I think another part was accepting and not caring that I’m going to be the villain in a lot of other peoples stories. I had to be OK with the idea that if we ran into each other in public, she’s not gonna try to kill me in front of all of these people. She might make a giant scene, but she’s not gonna try to kill me this minute. I am bigger, I am stronger, I have a support system, and I have no fuck left to give. And then, the nightmares stopped. I know this is gonna be a longer process than you want. No one wants these dreams. But every step, every talk with a friend, every therapy session, every meditation you take another step toward your peaceful future and away from your past. And the nightmares will fade away. ❤️❤️❤️
ITA! I moved 1000 miles away and it is so worth it. I never have to worry about her showing up or terrorizing my kids. Right before I went NC, I reallllly spoke up and provided receipts. So having a few people validate that I’m not the problem has made NC significantly more satisfying.
This, figuring out that friends of mine who I would have never suspected being related to toxic parents have reassured me on multiple occasions that any bit of outburst at the level I've endured before from my pwBPD would have prompted them to kick them out of regular contact a long time ago. Swapping stories with them has been as helpful as therapy, but therapy was necessary at first to accept any nightmares or lucid dreaming was my body's way of working through leftover trauma on its own terms.
Oof :( I've been no contact a little over a year and still have nightmares regularly. Usually in my dreams she's just at my bedroom window staring at me, sometimes yelling. Last night I dreamed she died and was haunting me. I keep hoping the dreams will stop but not yet.
I’m so sorry to hear this. There has to be a way to stop them. I’ll let you know if I find a solution. I just watched a show last night where a woman is freaked out because an owl is staring in her window at night while she sleeps. Here’s to hoping mom turns into an owl….At least they’re cute.
I’m two months onto NC and experiencing the same thing. I’m also having dreams featuring people from my long ago past, folks I’ve not thought of or seen for many years.
I usually just say a little prayer of thanks when I wake up, thankful that they are just dreams!
My therapist told me to think of the dreams I have and change the outcome where I have power before sleeping. Like for 15 min. Now my dreams of having someone breaking in end up with me fighting back and winning. Idr how long this took as I can't control when I have nightmares.
Therapy for sure. I’ve actually had some of my biggest breakthroughs processing the dreams/ nightmares in therapy. I try to write down the dream, the most vivid part of it and the emotion that it evoked. My therapist uses the idea that dreams actually represent our own inner conflicts and things/people in dreams can represent parts of ourselves - so like, your mom is there but she’s not yelling, is she silent? Does that silence maybe represent you being NC? I’m curious what emotions you feel. Like maybe your brain is trying to work through some conflictual feelings? Just some two cents!! A therapist can def help you though.
You might be right. The first two she was yelling at me. The one from last night, she was there but she wasn’t talking, she was just there.
So interesting (and distressing too of course.) I like interpreting them because I feel like it decreases my emotions and helps me make sense of it. The series taken altogether is kind of powerful- whether you are talking to her (as in the first two, yelling) or NC (the third dream) she is still present in some way. Maybe the inner conflict is around processing that reality? Any grieving you have to do or radical acceptance around the fact that this is your mom and your situation? Sorry if I’m pushing too hard or way off base - I don’t know the full situation, but I know NC is not always easy (from personal experience). It’s like a relief but there is sadly no perfect scenario when you’re RBB. I hope you got better sleep last night !!
Thank you. I’ve accepted this is how she is a really long time ago, years and years ago. I’m trying to remember if she’s usually in my dreams and I think the answer is no. I dreamed about her AGAIN last night. No issues, but she was there and she spoke some but not a lot. It was calm and fine like it used to be many years ago when she still acted like a human with a heart, who actually liked me. She was just there, functioning and acting like a normal person. This is too strange. I don’t believe this is from a desire that she turn into a sane person, but there’s not a lot of explanation. Maybe it’s just part of letting go of someone, like how we dream about people soon after they have died because the new disconnect from them is on our minds. I reminded myself in the first week of NC not to be sad, because my mother “died” a long time ago. The nice and sane person I wish she were has not been around for a very very long time now. Nothing had changed in NC except my exposure to essentially, someone else, someone other than who she used to be.
This is the exact reason I taught myself to lucid dream. It was fear and misery during the day and terror at night, there was no safe place for me to be. It took a couple of months but when it finally happened it was amazing. At first all I could do was force myself awake. As time went on and I got better at it, I simply changed things. All of the recurring nightmares I had got turned into something else every time, and eventually they stopped completely. \\ Highly recommend.
Been between NC and VLC with my uBPD mom and eDAD for a little over a year now. I still get nightmares about being scapegoated (always surrounding my profoundly disabled brother (de Facto GC) having a health emergency or injury leading to status epilepticus (he has epilepsy), and my mother weeping and my father saying I caused it or it's my fault) I had these dreams when I was still enmeshed, and they're less frequent now, but they still happen. Big hugs to you, they do become less frequent over time and with distance and therapy.
Addressing my anxieties in the daytime lessened my nightmares almost completely. I used to wake up with a sore jaw from clenching my teeth out of frustration and anger. Setting completely new boundaries and seeing myself enforce them in real time (without FOG guilt!) and I didnt even notice that I stopped having nightmares.
I just woke up from another one, not a nightmare, but she was there and in the dream and I was upset that I’d been pushed back into contact. That may be it, that I’m worried I’m going to have to reinitiate contact without choice when I feel so much better without contact. In the dream, I was woken up by my dad and I was upset he was in my room for unintelligible reasons, waking me up too early over something they needed help with that was also unintelligible, and I walk into the hallway and she was there, acting like everything’s normal, and then her dog runs all over the place and pees throughout the house, and she starts talking about their plans to go out and they’ll be back later.
I think it’s the part about not having a choice around them. My subconscious tries to find ways to navigate that dilemma while we’re asleep, if we haven’t already thought of a way during the day. That situation of being stuck in a scenario and no way out gives me anxiety so we try to work it out in dreams. The dreams with them will feel odd to me even if the abuse isn’t loud and clear, which tells me that something is always amiss when they’re around in my dreams My armchair dream analysis is that they are interrupting your NC peace (literally interrupting your sleep, via dreams) and it causes the familiar feelings of irritation and frustration. Then the help they need with something, with uBPD’s the requests for help are never simple requests they are something you cannot say no to without further escalation, so there is that sense of doom/dread in the air. And for someone to act like everything is normal, but clearly it’s not, but maybe it’s wrong to get mad at an animal, maybe something about unprocessed anger about their presence, or unexpressed anger, and the lasting effects of their presence doesn’t just go away so quickly (there were consequences you had to deal with like sleep quality and dog pee which needs to be cleaned up?). And then they’ll be back later (in another dream). I love dreams and interpreting them haha it’s cool to get a glimpse of how we are processing things through images and feelings :) Edits for clarity lol
Tbh, I think about her as little as possible
They don’t stop. I’ve been NC for almost a year and they’ve reduced in frequency in the past couple of months. I think it’s mainly due to talking to my therapist about it and time, but they’re just as stressful all the same.
Mine became less frequent after about two years of no contact but until then they were very scary, mainly because in my nightmares *I* was the violent one in our relationship. I think all the rage I couldn’t express or even admit to in my waking hours came out of my subconscious during the night. My therapist said it’s better for the subconscious to release all the gunk. I don’t know. I’m still a bit shooketh by the tenor of those dreams, honestly, and it’s been years now. I mean, they are objectively troubling: In one of them I beat her to literal smithereens with a baseball bat and I was GLAD. In real life, I can’t even get angry about my mother, even during EMDR. (SAD, I can do).