Nightmares about your kids?

[WCM]

I'm not sure what I hope to gain by posting this, but it's gone on for so long, I guess I wonder if someone else has found relief or reprieve.

About once a week or so I'll have a horrible dream about one of my kids (any one). It's generally a otherwise normal, wierd, random dream, and then suddenly it turns awful. Really bad, bad stuff. Don't worry, I won't describe them. Please don't tell me yours either, I can't take it.


I'm not post-partum, I eat well, get exercise, etc . . . this has been going on for 10 years now. Is this just part of this gig? That they are on my mind and thus somehow my brain tunes into whatever subconcious parent worries I have, mixes them with every awful situation ever imagined, and they show up in my dreams, just like all the other wierd stuff that dreams are made of? (I stopped watching Law & Order SVU 9 years ago hoping it would help. I no longer have cable nor watch anything violent). It's really messing with my sleep (I just woke up 2 hours early from one) and I'm the type who cannot stop thinking about white elephants once you mention white elephants, so these images STAY with me and keep me awake.

Does this happen to you? In every situation there is nothing I could have done or do to prevent or stop what happens in my dream. The badness just suddenly appears.

Does this happen to you? Has it stopped? What are your thoughts?

I need this to stop. I can't take the emotional toll. Thanks a lot.

[MichaelsSahm]

I get occasional bad dreams about DS. I think its because we worry about them so much!

[Artstunique]

I get some horribly vivid nightmares about my girls. I haven't figured out what triggers them, though I've tried. They're pretty random when they pop up. All I know is I wake up either shaking or in tears or both from the intensity of them. I have to literally sit up in bed, turn on a light if it's dark, and see for myself that the girls are ok and where they are supposed to be. I usually don't go back to bed afterwards.

absolutely no help, but lots of commiseration from me, mama

[IngaAnne]

Did you have anxiety issues before you had kids? I've always been anxious and becoming a mom definitely made my anxiety worse. Years before I had my son, I went to cognitive therapy, which is a non-medicated way to retrain your thinking to alter the thought patterns that could lead to immense stress. After my son was born, I had post-partum thyroid problems and when I was hyper thyroid, I just about went insane with constant worry. It was really bad, but thankfully my thyroid has corrected itself since. For me, I've noticed caffiene can increase my anxiety, so if you are consuming coffee, soda, or other caffienated foods you may want to cut back. Worrying about your kids is normal, but if it's to the point where your are doing "everything right" and it's still a constant issue that is really making it hard for you to live normally, you may need to see a doctor to make sure it's not a medical issue and/or to get treatment.

[Hokulele]

Totally sounds like something that could happen with me. Thank goodness it isn't! I feel for you.

I do think this goes with the territory. Especially if you have a tendancy to be anxious about stuff and/or suffer anxiety.

What made me respond is that I wanted to suggest looking for triggers for what leads you to a physical / mental state to have these dreams. What makes me say this is that DD is a sleepwalker and I have been trying to pinpoint what it is that makes her do it.

I had a friend who used to sleepwalk and do some pretty bizarre stuff. He figured out that if he ate cheese any time after noon then he'd be much more likely to sleep walk. I've read that other foods that are fermented (? aged?) can lead to similiar stuff. The reason your post made me think of this is that I have read that if you want to dream vividly you should eat well-aged cheese before bed.

With DD, the sleepwalking seems to occur when she is over-tired. And especially if she's had a heavily emotional day - good or bad (but most often when it is a bad emotional day). But I've started looking into food triggers too.

HTH - good luck!