abigail414's diaryland diary
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Haunted
For most of my life, I have had a sleep disorder. At least once a week, I would wake up screaming. As a child I groaned in my sleep, and had nightmares regularly. There were things in my room, people coming in and out, people coming to get me. As an adult, I would scream, leap out of bed, say �they�re here� and try to hide. It has happened everywhere I�ve lived, and a couple times at hotels when I had roommates for a conference (yes, the �mornings after� are awkward). My bed partners have all attempted to sleep through this, or tried to comfort me � and I end up thinking they are �them� and scream and try to get away. This is one of many reasons I prefer to sleep alone. The professionals determined that I have a sleep disorder involving my REM state, plus have sleep apnea. Drugs and an apnea machine or mouthpiece seem to keep me down for the night, but not always, and sometimes I just feel afraid to go to sleep � I fall asleep while reading, then wake to put the book away and light off and lie awake instead.
Another troubling problem is depression. I come by it naturally, with a distant depressed father and an alcoholic mother � but the depth of my sadness doesn�t seem appropriate for a blond suburban southern Californian who has had some bad things happen but in truth has a lot going for her. I�ve been sad my whole life, but can forget myself and be charming and funny - then go home and feel exhausted. It can be lonely, especially when I�m plagued with my black moods (my last ex likened it to 'going into the basement and turning off the central power').
Lastly, I�ve had an embarrassing aversion to babies. Very few people know this. My first marriage ended when I refused to have one, and my second husband thought I had a bizarre character defect due to a difficult childhood. People would bring new babies to work and I would shut my office door. I am incapable of cooing over them and really don't want to hold them. An employee brought her new baby into the clinic the other day and I went to lunch.
Here�s a possible story that ties the above three problems together, courtesy of regular visits with Hugh the octogenarian hypnotherapist psychic spiritual guy (in the future he will be Hugh or OHPSG). He gets a huge psychic wave of sadness when he sees me, mostly from a past life when I supposedly was a young woman who died in a concentration camp after a long slow utter humiliation, including seeing my baby brutally murdered by Nazis (did you know they burned them alive or threw them in the air and used them for target practice??). Ugh.
The Holocaust museum in D.C. has a room filled with shoes from concentration camps - you walk across a bridge surrounded by them. It is heartbreaking, especially the tiny red pair of Mary-janes that belonged to some little girl. What happened to all those souls, and would one come back as a southern California beach girl?
This is a difficult story to wrap my mind around, but strange coincidences are coming to light - such as the fact that my 2nd ex was part German with a very German last name, an obsession with watching WW II Nazi shows on the History channel (which he promptly stopped doing when we split up), and was nicknamed �the Nazi� by friends due to his control issues. Today�s session uncovered that yes he was a Nazi I knew last time around � giving a whole different spin on the dynamics of our marriage, my sense of being victimized, and the inordinate rage I felt at him. Of all the languages, why did I take 4 years of German in school, and love to hear it spoken (my favorite client is a German named �Manfred�). Why do I have an intestinal disease that was historically linked to Jewish people, and a native american shaman said I brought it into this life from a previous one (btw, many camp victims died of dysentary)? Why have I been attracted to and had German shepherds for 15 years? And, why did I recently buy Elie Wiesel's �Night� (but not read it) � his account of being a teenager in Auschwitz and Buchenwald? Just a few of the odd �huh�s� that have shown up in the last 24 hours.
The best �huh� happened the night after this past-life memory surfaced. I started reading �Night�, took my � Ambien, but found myself in the living room screaming at 11:30 pm anyway. This time, however, I was fairly awake and so was Nelly, my black shepherd who sleeps with me. She started with a couple �what�s that� barks, then went out to the living room and proceeded with a series of �who are you, I�m here, go away� barks at the sliding door - I could hear the fear in her voice. My living room blinds were open and somebody out on the back patio was shining a flashlight into my condo! I did the girl thing, and screamed at the top of my lungs and ran back to the safety of my bedroom to call 911. The 911 operator wanted my address, then said an officer was already there, but at the wrong house. I told her to send him here goddamit, there was a creepy guy just standing around my patio even though I�ve screamed and my big dog is barking. She wanted me to describe him, but all I could see was that he was white, middle-aged, in dark clothes, and appeared to be waiting for someone. When the 911 operator again told me that a police officer was at the wrong house I understood her, and looked more closely � yes, the dark clothes could be a uniform. I pulled aside the blinds and he shined a flashlight on himself and apologized for the disruption. I think I cussed out both him and the 911 operator and went back to bed wide awake. Nelly continued to be unconvinced, with her little 'I'm still here don�t you think of coming in� barks.
Yes, it is an unnerving coincidence that the same day I learn I may have been regularly abused in a past life at night by uniformed officers, I now have a uniformed officer outside waking me up screaming. (Lighthearted side note: when I told Randy my RE agent about the cop outside my condo, he said �was he cute?� � gotta love the guy).
The goal of all this introspection is to stop thinking I don�t deserve to be treated well. On the outside, I�m an attractive, successful, interesting, and dynamic person. It doesn�t match the inside, though, and I grow weary of the sadness and conflict � plus it attracts equally conficted guys that make the whole thing worse. I�d like to stop being bored by nice guys, and allow myself to adore and be adored by someone before I die. The continuity from my past life and this one is that I have the same life lesson � and if I could get it I have a chance of moving on into something more fulfilling.
I think my life lesson is to trust myself, my judgment, and make decisions accordingly. Apparently, I could have avoided the concentration camps by getting out of Germany, but stayed because of other�s advice � and then blamed myself for all that happened. In this lifetime, I have feared making a wrong decision - my mother pointed out that as a small child I had a crisis with simple decisions such as what to wear. This came to a head last week when I finally heard from Gloria (my counselor in Michigan) about buying my house � she was opposed because of the recent death there and the potential costs of remodeling. Supposedly her spirit guides talk to mine � but I had already decided to go ahead, and was unwilling to discuss changing my mind so she hung up on me. Wow. And this was the woman who advised me for 10+ years! The house is a good fit for me, appraised at $50k higher than I paid, and I have all sorts of people showing up to help me with it. Plus, the day after I defied Gloria�s advice I was �psychic vet� at work, which is what I truly want to be (yep, Dr. Doolittle).
Well, it�s been awhile since I�ve written, and obviously a lot has happened - perhaps mostly in my imagination - but for now, Guten nacht, bis spater!!
8:10 p.m. - 2006-12-06
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