Living

I just went to see my psychiatrist. I feel these sessions are much more useful than the ones I had with a psychotherapist after Moksha died.

One of the questions she asked was if I had been having any particular dreams. And last night (or rather this morning) I did have a particular dream, the theme of which I have written about before (dream 3). I have had this dream several times since Moksha died.

I am always at university, in my hall of residence. It's always my final year and although there are people around I don't know any of them. DH is never in this dream. I don't know where my lectures are and I have no books or notes. We spoke a little about this dream which helped me maybe understand the underlying themes better. I'm not a big dream interpretation fan, but since this one is a recurring dream, I think the underlying themes are worth analysing a bit.

During the session, I realised that in the dream, I feel fully responsible for the disaster of failing all of my exams, which will clearly happen as I haven't actually attended any of my lectures. I know that it is my fault, that I have made no effort to actually find any of my lectures or even a timetable. I am alone, even though there are people around. I just wander around my corridor and my room feeling bad and helpless, but even in my helplessness, I know I'm not really helpless, I've just not made any effort.

The psychiatrist asked me if I am a young student in the dream, or if I am me now. I didn't really know, but having thought about it on the way home, I feel in the dream as I would if I had to take chem.ical engineering finals now - that's my degree but I have never worked as a chem.ical engineer in my professional life, and know jack-shit about it now. And by the way, my father was a chem.ical engineer too.

It's strange as in real life, I was always anxious about exams, until my third year when I did an exchange year in France, and came back for my final year a lot more confident. I often refer to that year in France as a pivotal year in my character development. In my final year, which should be the one with the most pressure, I coped very well. And I got a good degree - in fact it would have been a first class degree had I coped better in my first two years, which counted towards finals 10% and 20% respectively. As it was, it was a highly marked 2:1. (Read here to understand British degree classifications if you're not familiar with them).

So why in my dream is it always the final year when I actually did well in that year?

Of course I can make an obvious link to the anxiety and feelings of avoidable failure and can already imagine the psychiatrist exploring that more next time - subconsciously I feel that I have failed every where as a direct result of my own actions, of which I was in control.

The psychiatrist said that the reason I can't eat three meals a day is probably because I seem to have very little concern generally for me as a living person. I am completely focused on the other living - mostly DH and my mother - and on the dead - Moksha, my father and A. There is no space for me as a living person with my own needs. So why would I force myself to eat properly, when my own self-worth is so low? I did tell her that I have had suicidal thoughts, but that, especially now, my mother and husband would absolutely not be able to cope with that and that was not an option open to me. Naturally she said I needed to be able to live for myself and not only for others. Makes perfect logical sense, but not easy to make it become part of your fibre so that you really believe it.