night time fears

When will PTSD leave me alone at night? The last few nights haven’t been that restful. I’m a bit tired. I’ve worried about the sublime to the ridiculous. 

Last night I dreamt Skittle was still in hospital. Mid-September and he still hadn’t been discharged and I’d forgotten to visit him and he was lonely and someone tried to feed him prawns. Honestly. Prawns?! I don’t even like prawns. But prawns wasn’t the bit that woke me up in a stiff and sweaty state. 

It was the lonely bit. Was Skittle really lonely in NICU, or was he so poorly, so anaemic, so tiny, that even on the few occasions when he was awake he wasn’t aware. Did he really recognise my voice? Obviously 40 weekers do, but then they had an extra 10 weeks of listening to their mother’s voices. Skittle missed out, how crucial is that womb time listening? I sang, hummed and sang some more in NICU, eventually one of the sister’s commented on it! I sang songs I knew the words to and songs I didn’t, I made up songs and I sang my prayers, whether he was awake or asleep that boy was going to hear my voice whether he knew it or not.

And forgetting to visit? Did he feel forgotten? Every day I would do everything to be with him for as long as I could. But it was never long enough in my eyes. We weren’t together. Mum’s and babies are supposed to be together. End of. 

In most of my dreams lately we’ve been separate and I’ve been frantically looking for him. I’ve found him under a pile of washing on our bed having searched and screamed my way around the flat. I’ve found him being held by my mum in the garden while I’m stuck inside banging and screaming out the window but no one can hear me. I’ve found him being pushed in the pram by my mother-in-law when she hadn’t asked and I was stamping and screaming that she had taken him without my permission. 

Do you see a pattern emerging? Basically, we’re apart for some reason, I scream, no one listens, I tense up, I wake up. 

Urgh. It’s better than the nightmares of previous months which always ended in death. But it’s still unsettling and not exactly restful. 

I shall be glad when they are no more.