I have always had issues with nightmares and night terrors. When I was getting my MBA, working full time and coming to Western Mass to visit my now husband I suffered from them. When the stress became to much my brain would say enough. But that nightmare I could handle. I was being chased by a large green fuzzy animal, until I woke up, out of breath and frazzled.

If only this set of nightmares was as easily dealt with. The first set dealt with caskets, the cemetery and the whole burial. I would wake up sobbing, “I can’t leave my baby alone, he will be cold and afraid.” After some meds to get through that set things seemed to calm down. That isn’t to say sleep was easy, or unbothered. By the time night time rolls around, I am tired, emotionally worn out and anything and everything will set me off. With a flood of tears or a short tempered response.

This new set of nightmares can best be described as night terrors. They deal with exploding and burning cars. Fire terrifies me, and it has no base in reality in this situation. Telling my brain that has done no good though. The brain is a funny thing, it takes what it wants and runs with it, reality based or not. I am nothing if not stubborn, I spent a week trying to “tough it out”, dealing with minimal sleep and being more worn out and crankier than normal.

Finally another call to the doctor,an adjustment in medication and for the time being the night terrors have stopped. But of course the adjustment came with a caveat. “These night terrors are fluid, and changing, this is a process and you just need to work through it.” Not words I wanted to hear. I know that this won’t be easy, that my heart is going to hurt for a long time, if not forever but the knowledge that I may encounter these or something like these for an unspecified time, terrifies me. I am learning to live with this grief, it is nothing I would have ever chosen. No parent ever would have, but the more you love, the deeper and stronger the grief.