Recurring Dream – Blog Post #9

Prompt: Do you have any dreams that recur? Why do you think you continue to have that dream?

Lux’s age: 20

TW: PTSD/CPTSD, mentions of panic attacks, pedophilia, sexual harassment/assault, attempted rape

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I have this recurring dream that scares me awake in the middle of the night. This dream usually only happens when I am really stressed or depressed, though there are some exceptions. When they happen, I am always unable to fall back asleep, fear, panic attacks, and tears keep me awake, and am then usually haunted by it for the next day or so. I hate thinking about this dream, it is full of distorted traumatic memories that bring back the actual things, causing me to relive those experiences. 

The main memory that plagues those dreams happened when I was 12. I had just gotten a new Elven Magic Studies at-home tutor. She was three times my age and seemed pretty nice at first. But not long after she was hired, she started to change. About two months in, she started to get very close and touchy. At first, it was small things: touching my hand to “help” me complete something, being closer than necessary when explaining something, and being overly friendly when we were alone, and most of my lessons took place in my room so that was most of the time. These things continued and intensified. She began invading my personal space almost constantly, touching me on the hands, arms, shoulders, knees, and top of my head whenever she got the chance. I didn’t mention these things to my parents or my siblings – who I didn’t think would care enough to even listen to me – because I didn’t know if this was normal or not where the only people I interacted with were those in my house. So I stayed silent and she continued, making me continuously and increasingly uneasy. 

My unease turned to blatant discomfort when she took her touching to the next level. She would touch the inside of my thighs, my face, my neck, my sides, the middle of my stomach, my lower back… I tried to tell her that made me uncomfortable but she would just tut and say that I was 12, I didn’t know what made me comfortable or not, that this was all completely normal, and would continue. I didn’t know otherwise, so I once again remained silent. 

I tried to ignore what she would do, instead trying to solely focus on the Elven Magic Studies lessons, the work. I mostly succeeded in this. For a little while.

One day, the last day I saw her, she took things even further. The day started out as it usually did, but halfway through the lesson, it changed. 

I was really tired that day and started to nod off in the middle of the lecture. She noticed and said we would call it a day and that I should take the rest of the lesson time to rest. I thanked her and headed towards my bed, expecting her to leave. But she didn’t. 

Instead, she followed me to my bed, helped me lay down, and sat on the edge of the bed beside me. I quickly started to drift off again when my head hit the pillow but was snapped back awake when she started to caress my face.

“Such a beautiful, talented child,” she had said and a second later, leaned down and forced me into a kiss. I tried to fight back, but she was much bigger than me and easily overpowered me. She pinned my hands above my head and used her other hand to grope my chest, then trailed her hand down to grope my crotch. I was terrified and continuously thrashed my body, trying to get out from under her, not even sure when she got over me, straddling my little body the way she was. She eventually pulled away to get a breath and undo the fastening on my pants. I took this opportunity and screamed. I was able to scream for help and start to scream for my mother before she was able to cover my mouth, telling me to be quiet and that there was nothing to be worried or scared of. She replaced her hand with her mouth and moved her hand back down to my crotch, slipping it inside my pants, which she had managed to undo. 

Luckily, not even a minute went by before my mother and father burst through the door. Her head snapped up at the sound. My mother screamed in horror at seeing my small body struggling under the woman she had hired to teach me and momentarily froze. My father ran forward and ripped the woman off of me, her body thudding to the floor. My mother followed not far behind my father and, after the woman was off of me and while my father continued to deal with her, immediately came over to comfort the sobbing and shaking 12-year-old that was me. I screamed when she first touched me, scared it was the woman again, but when I looked up and saw my mother’s face, I immediately flung myself into her comforting arms. 

…

Hello!

I know this post was really heavy, but I hope you “enjoyed” getting to know a little bit more about Lux’s past. 

The main thing I struggled with for this post was deciding on how I wanted to start it and more so what approach I wanted to take. Did I want to describe the dream? Describe one of the contributing memories? Or just provide a vague idea of what the dream was from the emotions and vibe I describe it with and focus on “why” they have this dream, what triggers a recurrence. Obviously, I ultimately decided to go with describing one of the contributing memories. I felt that was the best way to try to get to know Lux better.

Anyway, see you next week!

~Musette