I just woke up from a very disturbing dream.
I’m in high school, in sports class. We have to do pull-ups and are being graded on how many we can do. Just a regular, yearly test. I performed really well while practicing, so I’m confident that I’ll do well. We are standing next to each other in a straight line, with the teacher in front of us. My name is called first, and I walk out.
Cut. I don’t remember anything after this. I recall some feelings of anxiety and pressure. This is weird and a little bit concerning, I think to myself. But it doesn’t feel like too big of a deal. I go on with the other classes of the day and don’t think much of what just happened.
It’s the next day. To my horror, I see a video of myself in the class group chat from yesterday’s PE class. The video shows me succeeding in the first pull-up, but struggling with the second one, and ultimately failing. After this, the video shows me suddenly turning into something I am really terrified to see. I start going crazy in the classroom. My eyes turn into something dark and aggressive. I start angrily pulling shelfs off the wall, smashing tables, and making a mess. My classmates freeze up in fear. I’m shouting, and I’m aggressive with everyone who tries to stand in my way. The video ends with the teacher and a couple of my classmates tying me up to a chair with a zip tie to contain the situation, all of them frightened by what just happened.
I’m terrified that I don’t remember any of this. I feel ashamed and deeply concerned. As I’m about to send a long message into the group chat with a mix of apology & an explanation of my honest and scary clueless about what has happened, and how, I realize that I’m actually in a class right now, sitting in the back of the room, on my phone. I feel disoriented. I excuse myself to the bathroom. When I get back, I notice I’m in a hospital robe. How did that get on me? The teacher and a few of my classmates come up to me and discreetly whisper to me that the way I’m behaving is really not OK. They tell me that I am two-faced, I play the nice guy, but in reality, I’m an aggressive, dangerous asshole with them. I don’t know what to say. I’m perplexed and overflowing with anxiety, the feeling reaching down to my core.
I just feel even more terrified now. I was just about to get over what happened yesterday at sports class, and trying to rectify it somehow with the people I scared, yet, people are telling me again that I’m aggressive, and I’m behaving in a scary and very concerning way. What could have I done this time? I can only remember going to the bathroom. What happened after that? I can’t recall anything. And now, people tell me that I’ve snapped again, and once again, I became aggressive and dangerous. I lost control.
I can’t trust myself. I am a dangerous person, a monster, who could hurt others any time without remembering what I’ve done. I am afraid of myself. I have to constantly monitor myself to make sure that I never lose control again.
This dream highlighted one of my deepest fears which to this day, manifests itself in everything I do. It brought to light a feeling of fear that I hadn’t felt so intensely in a while. A fear of losing control and hurting the people around me. A fear that I have to be in constant control, otherwise something will go terribly wrong.
I had a person close to me who I witnessed losing control. People got hurt. Both emotionally, and sometimes physically. I was one of them, too.