I met a girl in the mirror. She reflected my past but moved with me in the present. And the more I got to know her, the more I wanted to show her the future.

Two months ago I arrived in Austria. I came here on a hunch, an impulsive act.
I posted a Facebook message that I wanted to spent the winter season skiing, but that I did not have a big budget. Maybe I could visit people, stay with them and help them out with something; pictures of their holiday, cooking, anything. It was a long shot, but worth trying.
For a long time I heard nothing, but then suddenly someone said to me that he knew a girl that works in Austria for the season and maybe I could go see her. He gave me her contact information, and I called. She worked as a hostess in a bed and breakfast home. I could come and help her out. We decided to go for it. Just a gut feeling we both shared. I arrived in Jochberg in February. And I got to know her.

She was my mirror into the past and the present. 30 years old. Fully in transformation. At the brink of knowing, accepting and deciding that things should change. That she should accept who she is and what she needed; So that she could be her full self. Whole. Authentic. She should move through life with herself as a compass. Choosing people and paths that fit, complement and fulfill HER. Not only others.

Slowly this was dawning on her. But it is a struggle. When you are in transformation, you are in chaos. Being consciously incompetent is not fun; Knowing that things cannot go on like this anymore, and knowing that you are still failing at it and doing things the old way, is hard. Letting go is hard. Change is difficult. But you need this phase to grow into consciously competent and hopefully eventually unconsciously competent.

You try to listen to your body. You try to acknowledge that you are tired or stressed or continuously crossing your boundaries. But still doing things that only surplus the stress and exhaustion. You do not understand how things can be different. How you need to be, to function in this world.

But slowly you will see, my lovely girl, that you can claim your spot. That you can be you and still function. What you need to do to keep your balance, your peace and your joy. Your way. Not anybody other’s way. Just yours.
And puzzle pieces will fall into place. You will start to ask for space and time. You will set boundaries. You will see that you will become you more; with more realness, openness and true love to give. Open your heart and receive this from others. You don’t have to do everything alone.

I am so glad I could help you with this path and transformation. And I will, every time. Do not compare yourself to me in the here and now. I am you and you are me. Just 6 years apart. I am a look into the future.
You showed me where I came from. You showed me that there is value in being us. We are beautiful. And that beauty can help others.

I know you will complete transformation again and again. Like me. I have faith in our future. Lets love our way through life. Shit and all. Cause we have a great life. We can move through it anyway we want. That will be my reflection, every time I see you.

Life is one big struggle, and sometimes it is a puzzle. There are problems that, after enough effort and figuring out, are solvable; and there are problems that, no matter how hard you try, are insolvable.

Belief in solvability
Our culture has a immutable belief that every problem has a solution. We have an infinite trust in technology and our capacity to reason, to tackle every problem and bring it to a solution. Indeed, we are capable of many things! There are innumerable techniques and treatments that rid the world off problems. The thought that there are also unsolvable problems in life, is unpalatable for most of us. We just cannot accept that.

Psychic trouble
If you have a physical ailment, you visit a doctor. Similarly for ones mind. If you have a psychological problem, you visit a psychologist or a psychiatrist. Together you solve your problems with the right medicine, techniques and therapy – that is the common opinion. There are after all many successful treatments for the most of us, but maybe not for all?

Sometimes you, unfortunately, keep wrestling for the rest off your life. You go in and out of therapy without any solution in sight. That does not have to be a terrible thing. It does ask for a change of attitude towards ailment, problems and solubility. By adopting a different attitude to life, it is possible to learn to live with inevitable problems. Self knowledge, ownership, curiosity and acceptance are some of the healing aspects of that attitude.

My life philosophy
Learning to live with an unsolvable problem in your life is not an easy thing to do. It demands not for a different treatment, but for a change in perspective and attitude. We can get inspired by the myriad of self-help books and by many of the ‘new’ spiritualities like buddhistic acceptance, taoistic surrender or religious deliverance. In my opinion, everybody needs to investigate and determine for themselves which of the wisdoms are of any meaning in order to realize a healing attitude to life.

The attitude that I try to reach is one of a ‘tragic wrestler’. Out of my philosophical insights I try to live with the idea that life is as it is, as is my psychic condition, without falling in the demeanor of a victim. It is as it is, and with that I have to work it out. It is not, therefore, a form of passive acceptance – that would be a drama, not a tragedy. A victim is opposed to a tragic hero: instead of externalising cause and guilt, the hero takes himself seriously and takes ownership of his whole life – he says ‘Yes’ to his life wholeheartedly with al its trouble and misfortune. A victim would say ‘No’ and give up irrevocably. The hero chooses and tries again.

My endeavour
I aim to keep trying again and again, but not against better judgement. I know that I cannot compare myself to ‘normal’ people. I know I cannot run a marathon with one leg. I am appreciating my limits. Through this philosophical attitude I learn to know how high I can and want to put the bar. Time and again I ask myself: is this really what I want? By thinking about the value of things, I have a better understanding of what I do and do not want to aim at. More than often I will let myself be guided by what I find important, by what is meaningful for me and not by what society demands of me.

This attitude implies that I love myself, even when I hate myself. I try to stay fascinated by myself and keep asking about myself, about how my mind works, how my life has come to be like this. I find that interesting and worthy of studying. It is my life, anyway.

But, alas, more often than not do I falter. Regularly I am in err and take a nosedive. Then I hate myself and curse this life. But then, then I take a pause, suck it all in, think about it and try again to live with myself. Tragic wrestling is a continuous falling, thinking and getting up on my feet again.

How I feel is different every day. I feel less sad than before, in addition I cry less in public. Many people around me think that things are going well again. But how am I actually doing?

Lately I have found more strength, I am getting stronger and I get out more often. Despite the fact that this makes me very happy, it also scares me. It is good that I am going out more often and it is good that I look stronger. However, I do not feel that strong, I often think of myself as weak. I say to myself on a regular basis “come on Shar, do not put it that way. Everyone sees that you are doing better, be happy.” No matter how hard I try to be happy, I can not do much about it. You feel what you feel.

You never know what someone is going through. Be kind, always.

Working out is going quite well. Unfortunately, I have been feeling ill. I feel that I get ill more often than other people. Research shows that there is a disruption in the balance of neurotransmitters in the brain when you have a depression. Also, the cortisol in your body is often increased in these situations. An increase itself is not very bad: Cortisol is a stress hormone, in stressful situations your cortisol level increases so that you can respond adequately. A consequence of a prolonged overproduction of cortisol is that it suppresses the activity of the immune system. This makes you more sensitive to all sorts of physical ailments. And I suffer from those physical ailments. Unfortunately, but there is nothing I can do about it.

In a week I will fly to the wonderful Lanzarote. I am going to train for 14 days, hopefully, in the pleasure of a lovely sun. I would not have done it a year ago. I was too scared to leave the house, let alone that I would be leaving my safe home for several days after four hours of flying. Sports is a major outlet for me. Since the weather is a bit better and my energy level increased, I try to train more often. Although it makes me tired physically, it gives me a lot of energy. I feel fitter, I feel better and enjoy the outdoors when running and cycling.

I have made huge leaps. I sometimes find it difficult to talk about my depression, especially when I am doing better. At those moments I feel ashamed of myself. And let that be one of the reasons why I started writing. It is ridiculous to be ashamed of something that you have no control over, something that you cannot do anything about. I do not want to feel that way. I would like people to learn from my story. I would like when people read this, they feel understood and strong enough to call for help. You are not crazy, you do not have to be ashamed. Someone with a depression must be heard by the people around them, feeling comfortable talking about it.

I do not want to be afraid anymore and I do not want to be ashamed anymore. So for me, the status for now is that I am doing much better. Let that training in Lanzarote begin, I am more than ready!

Love, Sharon

We all have an ideal image in our mind of what our life should look like. Maybe not in detail, but we all have some idea of our ideal partner, the beautiful trips we still want to make and the house that we want to buy (later). To some extent, we can also make this ideal image come true. But sometimes, it just does not work…

Breaking up
We all have had someone in our lives, who is no longer here today. Maybe because he or she died, but there is also a big chance that you see someone less or no longer because of other circumstances. People, both love relationships and friendships, go ‘different ways’ for all sorts of reasons. And although this is usually not fun or even hurts, we can do nothing but accept and continue.

Accept, but do not suppress
I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine, who told me about an article he had read. This article mentions that we do not allow ourselves the time to get over a broken relationship. And on top of that, we often have the tendency to downgrade our previous relationship. We quickly choose someone new and he or she does everything better than your previous relationship. Right?

I think it’s important to realize you can miss something, but not want it back. – Paulo Coelho

No, not necessarily. Sure, you broke up for a reason, whether it was your own choice or not. But, it seems almost normal to hate your ex (ex best friend, ex-boyfriend). And I do not want that. For example, after 5,5 years, my ex and I have split up. We decided that it did not work anymore. My mother said: “At a certain moment the cake is finished.” And that is possible, and that is not nice, but it is not bad either.

I can still see my ex and I often think about all the beautiful and fun moments that we have shared together, the things I learned from and with him. And also about the less beautiful things and how we supported each other (or not).

Listen to yourself
What I mainly want to say is that we all think we know how everything ”should be ”. But sometimes your feelings really tell you something different. And that is not bad. Take your time, there is no handbook ‘dealing with broken relationships’ (although there are many books that try to be) and that is a good thing too. So you have the freedom to fill in how you want to deal with it!

How do you deal with a broken relationship? Share your tips below.

It means a lot just saying this. Introducing myself to you. Because I am able to really be me now. I can say it with more love and presence for the whole person I am.

Life has been a rough journey for me, and it still is at times. I have high functioning Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and High Sensitive Personality (HSP). That’s a whole mouth full, but what it comes down to is, that my feelings, thoughts and emotions are very intense and in crisis, very black and white. I have high levels of stress, fear of abandonment, fear of failing, not being good enough and of being a burden. I can go from feeling ok, to feeling terrified, to feeling depressed, to feeling high in one day.

There are a lot of stimuli and stressors all day long. From inside myself, but also from other people and the world. It’s like I am porous, and others and anything can just flow in.

High functioning means that I can still function. I finished 3 university degrees (overcompensation ;-)) and my management career moved upward fast. I have friends and I am active. High functioning also means that you can pretend for a very long time. I can find creative ways and solutions to pretend or to still manage. And I did. But, up till three years ago, I was killing myself.

As you can imagine always fighting yourself, borderline and life, and always pretending you are ok and still doing everything your life demands from you is exhausting. I had experienced 2 burnouts already in my short 5-year career. I had to do something big. I felt I could sleep for three years. I was tired and done. I decided to go for it. Therapy; No excuses. No fleeing. I was afraid to lose my job and everything I worked my ass off for. But it had to happen.18 months; 2 group mornings and two other counseling sessions every week.

My fear became reality, I could not hold my job and had to report ill. Six months before the end of therapy, I experienced the worst depression I ever had. Exhausted and not wanting to go on anymore. I got medicine and when depression was clearing a little I decided to reward myself upon finishing therapy. That reward was travel.

I finished! I bought myself a one-way ticket to South America, and arrived in Sao Paulo on January the 27th, 2016. My journey began.

I fell into all the travel traps and old behaviors head first. After 6 weeks I was overstimulated, stressed, emotional and exhausted. I rented a room and stayed indoors in the dark for 7 days, with only Netflix. What an eye-opener! The first big one. I had to take into account the whole me. I had to take care of her and make good caring decisions. Many eye-openers, beautiful landscapes and experiences followed. Travel was the best follow up on therapy for me. I created space to process my emotions and experiences. It was the quickest and best way to learn about myself, others, and my place in this world. I literally paused my rollercoaster life and hit the reset button.

What did I learn about myself? I need space and time. Flexibility and slowing down. I am allowed to say no and I can give up on things and people if they are not for me. People and things come and go. I am creative and love nature. I want to trade money for peace of mind. Earning less is a compromise for living more calmly, with more headspace. This leads to the blossoming of me as a whole person. Stress is a part of me and I should be aware of that. The littlest things or thoughts can set me off and, if not taken care of, can add up to depression and crisis. I have to keep my balance. That does not mean I can’t do things that put me off balance, it only means that I have to calculate in rest. To accept rest.

And why do I want to tell this story? One: to show that you can do anything you want. Even when you have a chronic (mental) illness. Even when others tell you that you can’t, for all kinds of reasons. You are the captain of your ship. Sail the ocean of life. Two: I want you to know that you do not have to travel far, or travel at all. Travel is a metaphor. Life is travel. And so you need to constantly check your heading and location. Am I still going where I want to go? Am I still happy where I am? Ground yourself and listen. Reflect. And adjust accordingly. Treat life in this way and you will have your journey. Your life journey. And finally, you are beautiful. You are part of this world, part of the universe. We all are. That is a gift. That is hope. Do not try to understand everything. See, feel, listen and touch. Find your balance and your place. You have one. You are already here.

I am so happy to work with and write for Goalie (now NiceDay) and share my journey and lessons learned with you. I hope they help, inspire or touch you in some way. You can expect articles about personal growth and -leadership from me. But also articles about my daily life and feelings and background information about mental illnesses and mental health.

If you recognize yourself in things I describe or you have questions, feel free to contact me. You can also find me on the I am one Movement. With this Instagram blog I hope to create more openness about mental health. I share my personal thoughts and feelings on there. If you’d like to see more of my travels; you can on backpackingbouwke.

We think about it a lot, some people more than other people: the past and the future. Little things like looking back on your weekend and considering what to eat tonight. And big things, like plans for the future with your boyfriend.

It differs per person how they handle these thoughts. I used to run away from my past, but that also meant I rushed through life. Everything had to happen like yesterday, life went too slow for me. I wanted to get everything together as soon as possible, just ‘like it should be’. The white picket fence. Guess what happened… I failed. And not once, no, I kept trying and failing.

Traumatic experiences
Traumatic experiences affected my view on the future. People told me more than once: ‘it happened, forget about it. Do not dwell on it.’ But these experiences scar you. You cannot forget about them. And if you can, it is temporary: it always comes back to you.

These experiences made me feel insecure about myself. I gained weight, developed performance anxiety and stopped doing things people could judge me for: like school and hobbies. I told people I felt great and acted nonchalant. I acted like nothing could hurt me, even though I got bullied in high school and had fights with my mom. But deep inside me I felt hurt, it certainly touched me.

Acting like nothing touched me was so much easier than showing I could not get my life back on track. People told me that I was not worthy of love and that I would never succeed in life. If you hear that often enough, you will start to believe it.

Giving my past a place
When I started working on myself, my attitude towards the outside world changed. I lost weight and got perfectionistic. But I stayed insecure and had difficulty handling newness. So I got quiet and nothing was good enough for me anymore. I was not acting nonchalant anymore but showed that I worked hard to take care of myself.

That was when I got a burnout. Obviously. I worked so hard to make myself worthy. I would always blame myself. My contract not extended? My fault. Toxic relationship? My fault. Feelings of failure? My fault. I tried to get this punitive voice out of of my mind but I could not, not alone.

Therapy sessions taught me I was worth it: I learned to love myself even though I did not have an education or promising bank account. The punitive voices reduced, they are still there but I do not let them have control over me. However, slowing down is still hard for me. The people around me help me and keep an eye on me. They want to prevent me  rushing into things again, and so do I.

Sometimes I can actually be proud of myself. Other times, I look at my partner and think: I do not deserve you. But then he hugs me tightly and tells me he loves me, which makes me get rid of the negative thoughts and helps me enjoy the moment.

In conclusion
So, my past is really important to me. It is part of me. I never want to forget about my experiences, positive and negative. But what is important is not to get stuck in those memories. Therefore I needed therapy, and that brought me so much positivity. I still learn, every day. My partner teaches me not to worry about little things. He helps me to enjoy life. What more could I ask for?

It hurts,
but not enough.
I stall no longer,
the world is waiting for me.
I am free,
there is enough to do.

The song of this week is Jamai – Genoeg te doen. Not because my partner left me, but because I feel this way about my past. I let go of what happened and and enjoy the future.

Love, Renée x

Routine: A lot of people hold on to it. Work days, planned nights to the gym, social activities and the household in the weekends. Is there something wrong with this? No! Is it boring? Well, it could be.

When was the last time you did something for the first time? Can you even remember? You probably have to dig deep. Challenge yourself and go crazy!

Bucket list
Now that I feel better, energised and have a lot of awesome people around me, I dare to live again. So it is time for a bucket list!
And not only for big things, but also the little things. The little things might even be more special.

A small summary of what I am trying to do now:
-Try new recipes. For Christmas I made a caramel sauce which turned out pretty nice!
-Try different sports. My partner introduced me to cycling. So I got my own bike! And yes, I will continue doing it.
-Yesterday I cut a glass with my hands for the first time, since the machine did not work.
-During my last dance show, I did the perfect turn on one leg, without jumping. I was so proud!
-I realized I reacted wrong on something, from which I thought it was my partner’s fault. I apologized within 5 minutes and realized it was because of my own insecurities. It was good to finally realize that.
-I wrote a blog post for the first time and see where that led to!

Some things I still want to do:
-Travel to Norway. I have been wanting to go there for such a long time and in 5 weeks I will finally go. With the Ford Capri of 1979. New things are scary for me, but I look forward to it and try not to make myself crazy.
-I will start a conversation at work, about getting more hours in my contract.
-I want to change tires of my motorbike myself, with a little help of course.
-Try even more new recipes.
-Get my MBO degree, and I will!
-Skydiving! Creepy, but I have to do it!

Incentives
The things that you do  for the first time mostly stay in your memory. They are either very awkward or they give you self confidence. Either way; you will learn. I hear a lot of people about how they got a boost of doing things more often for the first time! So go pick apples on a sunny day, go picnicking in the park with your friends, brew beer, celebrate your birthday with a big party. And enjoy!

New thing might be scary, but you will always learn something. You will make mistakes, ruin a recipe or get terribly drunk on your own birthday party. But who cares?

The song of this week is Eminem, Walk on water.

Love, Renée x

The past year has been eventful. From feeling down to feeling happy and showing my true self. In this blog post I want to share my positive moments in 2017 with you.

Of course, negative things happened, but I think it is also important to share the good stories! Unfortunately, we often forget positive experiences, since negative experiences have a bigger impact on your memory.

An invisible girl

Conquering my insecurities has been a big eye-opener for me. I used to be the girl in the back, now I am a woman who dares to show who she is. This made it possible for me to dare to make choices for myself.

For example choosing a study in a direction which makes me happy and being bold enough to contact an employer I wanted to work for. And both succeeded! It has been such a great learning experience!

I also began to write blog posts for NiceDay this year. Another step in the right direction and I never thought it would feel so natural. This is already blog post number 20!

Therapy

Ending group therapy after 9 months. Every thursday morning I used to be in a room of women who are trying to help themselves and each other. Leaving that behind feels great, I feel strong. Next to group therapy, I also started trauma therapy in January. It has been difficult, but I found the woman I was looking for: Renée. It is me and no one else!

I also fought (and more or less conquered) anorexia and PTSD. The support of my loved ones helped me a lot. If I look back, I can be very proud of myself because on what I have achieved this year.

Private life

The relationship with my parents grew stronger after I started to tell them what was going on in my mind. They got an idea of my battle and saw it growing inside me. It felt so great to finally share my thoughts! I never want to stop talking about my issues anymore. I also dealt with the conflicts I had with persons who mean something to me. This has been so important for me, I am so happy I dared to confront myself.

Health

I knew my health was not completely fine. This year I finally dared to look for the cause of the problems, to find out what I need to make it better. It gives rest to work on my health, both my physical and mental well-being. I can see it matters.

Enjoying life

I can enjoy life again! A motor ride, a good book or a glass of wine on the couch. A spontaneous dance in the living room when a good song plays, four episodes of my favorite series… Great, right?! Or a burst of laughter with my love, tears of laughter even, I missed that so much! But it is back!

Grateful

I will use this moment to express gratitude to all of my loved ones. They never gave up on me, even when I was having a hard time. I think I do not express it much enough, so:

Dear parents and their partners: thank you for all the hours on the couch, a shoulder to cry on and for all the support! I cannot say it often enough, thank you for being there for me. During good and bad times.

Dear R.K. We are friends for 4 years now and you are one of the most loyal followers of my blog posts. Thank you for hearing my stories, drinking glasses of wine with me, being crazy together and for the book. Cheers on many more years together!

J.T. Another loyal follower of the blog posts! Thank you for the support and sweet words last year. I know you are going through a rough time right now. But you will get through it too! Together with you loving partner, you can do it!

I vd S. We are reunited! Thank you for listening to me. I do not want to lose you as a friend, you are so important for me. Cheers to a lot of motor rides and glasses of wines in 2018, but without combining those activities!

My sweet mother in law, turning her laptop on every wednesday to read my blog post, to talk about it next day during dinner. Thanks for the trust and openness. I hope we can keep on laughing together!

M.G., thank you for the hugs, support and dances! It is one hour in the week which is very important to me. Upcoming year we will rock the dancefloor, I look forward to it!

Sweethearts: C&L, B.J., P. de L, M&N and L den B. You also have a place in my heart. It is so great that your door is always open for me, also when I am not doing well. But also when I do feel well! I am very happy to have you!

And lost but not least… My partner, my best friend, my buddy. Thank you for being there. We can laugh, but also talk. You do not blame me for making mistakes. You try to understand me and love me for who I am. I can be myself, I can also show my not-so-good qualities. I can sing completely off key next to you in the car without any shame, and you embrace my clumsiness. I love you, cheers to the New Year!

Cheers to having all of you in my life in 2018!

This weeks song is a song which is very close to my heart. Teach me how to be loved by Rebecca Ferguson. A powerful woman, with a beautiful voice and a lot of emotion in her music.

See you next year! Love, Renée x

With healthy tension, I opened the classroom door. Bang! I saw a bunch of noisy people in a small room. 28 Eyes looking at me. Anxiety hits me!

Within a fraction of a second I became stressed out. I quickly gazed down, and made myself smaller. Uncomfortable as a schoolboy I wriggled with my briefcase: unobtrusively I tried to get my stuff out while sweat was pouring from my back. I wanted to be invisible. Rather run away. But there I was, being a little loser.

“Take control!” I thought. “Act, now! Not privy but firm, with strength “, it shouted through my head. “Oh, this will go wrong,” said the critic, “you can’t do it.” At this point I really started to panic. “Did you not learn anything from all those years of therapy?” I wondered. “It’s alright’’ said the merciful, “it will be fine.” I took a deep breath.

And then it happened: I made a decision. I straightened my back, straightened my head and looked around the classroom. I consciously took possession of the space. I took the time to watch everyone. With eye contact I said ‘good evening, I’m the teacher’. Super scary, but it felt good too. I felt proud and with this, my confidence strengthened. ‘’I always find it a bit scary, the first lesson’’ I stated. People nodded confirming with understanding. The ice broke and I got into my role. In my thoughts, I thanked my drama therapist.

Plagued by fear

That used to be different: I used to be plagued by fear. I used to run away and crawl under a rock. It took a lot of time before I dared to try again. I have had a lot of therapy, including cognitive therapy. That was a good way to become aware of the distorted way I apparently looked at the world, to others and to myself. My social fear came from such a wrong way of thinking. The fear, in turn, reinforced this distorted way. Thus, I was stuck in this vicious circle. Cognitive therapy definitely reduced my extreme fears, but it all remained, well, very cognitive, too rational. And I was already living too much in my head. I was like a head on two feet that had an anxious body hanging down.

Introduction to drama therapy

So, I came to drama therapy. What a difference it was. There was a lot of attention to the physical aspect of my social anxiety. Here I learned to be in concrete existence, to be socially present with all my being: soul and body – to state it a bit zen. But drama therapy was not vague at all: it was super concrete instead. Social situations were elaborated and practised. At first I thought that it would be oh so dramatic and theatrical. Yes, sometimes there were a lot of tears, hard words, intense emotions. Of course, the events discussed were real painful events, from my own experiences and the group’s own experiences.

But we also did games often. Yes games! As children do in the playground. Super scary if you have a social phobia. Fooling around, making strange sounds, or chair dancing, playing hints, and more socially visible activities – exposure! My traumas were triggered, but those games often led to hilarious moments too. So, I learned to recognize the playful child in my mind and let it go free. Something I have never learned to make room for in my life.

Moving forward

Drama therapy was already very confrontational, socially visible and emotional. But above all, it was very instructive and helpful to me. I learned to use my body, to get used to live in my body. Practice time and again with presence, visibility and experience what you feel about a situation, how your body responds, was very helpful and healing. After two years I personally changed, both in my thinking and in my body. My body and mind are again one – to say it in a wishy washy way.

“Fantastic!” You would say. Pfff, unfortunately no. It is not so sunny all the time. Fear will always be a part of my life. That remains a bitter pill to swallow. However, as soon as I experience panic feelings in social situations, I can give it a place in my body. I can trust that I can stand and that I will remain. And if I accidentally stumble, fall into fear and tremble, I’ll straighten my back, lift my head, look straight into the room around me and breathe deeply. I dare to come and enter rooms again.

Everyone has them from time to time: nightmares. Often it is just a nightmare every once in a night, it wakes you up, but you turn around and fall a sleep again. But what do you do when these nightmares return night after night? And you are not able to wake up when it becomes very scary, like “normal” people, but live through the whole nightmare?

The problem

When did it start? I do not dare to say specifically. The nightmares were suddenly there. For four months I woke up every night of the vigorous images that appeared when I was sleeping. Often I could not remember what I had dreamed, but I still felt the fear in my whole body. After a few months, they would disappear, and I would sleep normal again.

After half a year, it started again. This time it lasted for eight months. Night after night the most dreary nightmares. I dreamed about how I jumped into the water and could not swim… I drowned and I only woke up when I almost lost consciousness under water in this dream. Shots in the middle of the street and during the runaway I got shot 2 times in my back. I do not know how gunshots really feel it, but for 3 days I felt the bullets ticking in my back.

In addition to the violent nightmares, I also dreamed about my family. But then about total panic because they no longer recognized me. They walked right passed me on the street, or picked up another child from school instead of me? I was so tired and slept so badly that I got medication. That helped a couple of nights, but after a while I did not really wake up during a nightmare anymore and when I woke up the next morning I was completely covered in sweat, with a lot of fear in my body. So I stopped using this medication quite fast, I could not handle waking up like that in the morning either!

Sleepless nights

After three months without nightmares, it started again. This time I did not want to sleep anymore, I would stay up as long as possible until I really could not stay awake anymore. This happened just before my burnout. Usually I did not remember them, but with the therapy I wanted to do something about it. So I put a notepad next to my bed, so I could write when I woke up.

All I could remember, I put on paper, even though I felt embarrassed. I took this notebook to therapy, so we could figure out where the nightmares came from. I desperately wanted to find out, because I did not understand anything about the situation.  The nightmares were never about reliving my traumas and there were never 2 similar ones. So why did I dream about all this?

Fortunately, there appeared to be a very good explanation for my nightmares. A red thread that I could see straight through everything. Afraid of losing the people around me, I do not want to fail in the things I’m in doubt about, things like being afraid to not be good enough for others. As soon as I realized this, a world opened for me. In my opinion, there are no deep, bizarre theories behind dreams and nightmares. But, in fact, they are very logical, if you do not take them too literally. I still have nightmares. Fortunately, I’m waking up soon or my boyfriend wakes me up. Then I turn around and fall asleep almost immediately. Exceptions aside, of course.

What you can do about your nightmares

Do you also suffer from nightmares? Think about what you are afraid of and talk about. Your dreams are nothing to be ashamed of. Write down what happened in the nightmare you just had, but do not go and write obsessively every night. Believe me, that does not help: you will sleep worse, I did this for a week or four and my sleep did not get any better.

Does your daily life suffer because of your nightmares? Go to the GP! This way you can talk about it and the doctor will help you find solutions to get a better night’s sleep.

The song I have chosen this time is: Wake She Up from Ed Sheeran. I think it’s a wonderful song to fall asleep to and have a nice dream! Especially when you wake up and your dream lies next to you. Try to turn everything into something positive!

Love, Renée