Under Construction - MHWA Retreat

Judging by my most recent regular nightmares, which is the voice of the subconscious, I would say that my biggest fear is being hurt. In the dreams, he is typically doing things my ex-husband did, which is totally out of his character. In some dreams, he is dismissive towards me, rather than abusive, which in some ways is worse. None-the-less, it is obvious that these dreams are rooted in fear. I've been hurt a lot and my natural instinct is to protect myself. Yet, if I don't allow others in due to these fears, I would be punishing myself by never allowing myself to find out if something could really be great.

For me, many of my fears, especially the one expressed in my nightmares, are rooted in trauma. Although, I think it is important to look at them and see what the triggers are, which is something I have done. I thought maybe there was something he was doing that somehow seemed familiar, which could be causing it. Afterall, the nightmares could be warnings. After searching, I couldn't find anything. The reality is that he is totally different than anyone I've ever been with, so there is no comparison, hence why I have come to the conclusion that the significance of my dreams is based on my fear of being hurt.

The fear of being judged seems to hold me back a lot. Simply put, I have put too much merit on other people's opinions of me. I have my moments where even on WdC I just assume particular people don't like me. They may not respond timely to a message or nobody responds to a blog entry and I get paranoid that I did something wrong. This is why pretty regularly I delete blog entries. Really I know that this is unreasonable. People have lives and even I neglect a message now and then. It doesn't mean that I don't like someone, so common sense says that it doesn't automatically mean that when someone else does it. Yet, it is a part of myself that I fight against pretty often.

For me, a lot of my fears are based on trauma. My fight or fight tells me to reject others before they have a chance to harm me. Trust is a hard thing to gain with me, especially when people tend to be assumed guilty before they even have a chance to do anything. The result is very few close friends. I've been working on this a lot, allowing more people to get to know me, rather than rejecting them too quickly. Still, there is a part of me that holds back.

I think that my fears are both rational and irrational. They are rational because they are based on experiences and sometimes they can be my gut warning me. Then they can be irrational because I unjustly misplace those fears towards other people.

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