I’ve made a lot of acute progress and feel a much greater sense of hope and control over my mental health and future than I had before starting this program. I’m making changes to my habits that I believe will help me feel better and influence my life in the direction I want it to be going. And I will never have any choice about my nightmares.

I basically only have nightmares. I don’t know if I would be this way or not if I had made it to adulthood without PTSD. Some dreams are directly about trauma. Some involve my abuser but he’s not actively abusing. Some are just run of the mill stress dreams. Some are more symbolically traumatic. Some are abstractly devastating.

I have been dealing with this long enough to know there is truly no rhyme or reason as to when and why my rapist shows up. The cruelty of this depletes me in a big way.

Last night was one of those nights. I had a good day. I felt good things. I didn’t ruminate. And my rapist showed up and raped me repeatedly, in the current timeline, gaslit and guilt tripped me, I was confused and hurt and alone, and from my experience of it this lasted a large portion of the night. I felt feelings that haunt me but that I haven’t experienced so vividly in a while. And neither waking up nor continuing to move through the day has weakened the torture of last night.

It was a hard morning to wake from. I laid in bed falling in and out of sleep waiting for a haunting easier to start from that barely came. I stayed in bed for too long. But eventually I got up. I did my morning chores. I went for my new daily mindfulness walk, and I made it ten minutes instead of five. I played with the cats. I cleaned. I worked and made more progress on my transcript than I expected to. And I felt my rapist on top of me through it all. Like it was yesterday. Like it was today. Like it will be tomorrow. Like the last fifteen years never happened.

It is a tough pill to swallow that this is just how it is. Part of me is angry, wants to scream at my rapist and anyone who ever enabled him or questioned me, at anyone who’s ever wished I would move on or wondered if it was really that bad. When he was a 17-year-old he inflicted a wound on my brain that scarred for life. I can never be free.

Part of me wants to wrap my arms around my inner child, to gently rub her back until she rests, whispering apologies for the hurt, for all the things that are real, unfair, and unchangeable, to tell her the only thing she’s wrong about is she’s not alone.

Mostly, I want to find the off switch. Move from sleep to wake like everyone else seems to.

By the time I make it to acupuncture, I’m doing okay enough. The day has been long and fine, if only the off switch existed. It may not sound like it now but I did not let a bad night become a bad day and I did not let it stop me from doing the things I needed to do. It’s lingering in the background. That’s not unusual. It’s just louder and clearer than average, really.

Knowing what to expect from acupuncture this time, I’ve come prepared and even excited to try to be alone in my head, find calm, and let the needles do what they do.

The acupuncturist asks how I’m feeling. I have my period, and I mention the nightmare. I get on the table. She says we will do less needles and that the ones she’s using will help with my period and my sleep. Their placement should help calm the energy in my body that doesn’t want to go back to sleep and go through that again. After really bad nightmares, I do struggle a bit with sleep avoidance. I’m hoping this will help. Even if it’s just placebo, I’m imagining I won’t need hand holding to take my sleeping meds tonight.

I can tell she’s taking measures to avoid me feeling trapped. She tells me she is only putting needles in one hand so I can move the other if I want or need, and I can easily adjust things with it. I appreciate this thoughtful gesture, something I wouldn’t have thought to ask for. Her doing so makes me feel not broken or wrong for having that anxiety. It feels kind and accepting from her and helps me feel the same toward myself.

Once the needles are in and the warm lamp is over my belly, the lights go off, and the acupuncturist leaves me. Right away I notice how tense I am. I try to relax on cue and just can’t. I can’t release my muscles in my neck and shoulders. I can’t melt into the soft padded table. I am inspired to guide myself through a relaxation exercise I used to lead during savasana. Bringing awareness into different parts of the body and imagining heaviness within them.

I very rarely am able to achieve a meditative state these days, especially on my own. Last time at acupuncture, by the end of the session, I had found some calm in my body but my thoughts still raced. This time, I am able to meditate. I find that place within me. Not where I am without thought but that truly when I notice the thoughts or even that I’ve been carried away by them there’s no judgment or reaction, simply a return to where I left off. Heaviness in the thighs. I can even see the light I used to visualize and have had trouble finding on my own.

There’s flute in the music playing in the background. All I feel is joy being reminded of my instrument. I do not even think of my rapist. I didn’t realize until writing this that that had happened.

I had asked the acupuncturist to check on me halfway through to make sure I was okay. This also gave me a sense of time. It’s been long enough since she checked in that I know time must be short. I’ve just made it to my shoulders. They are relaxed. I didn’t feel it when it happened, but I must have released at some point.

I bring my awareness to my mind. I see the light. I send it through my body, I feel it moving through me. I have been struggling so much to do this on my own. I feel joy achieving it now. I try to look within my mind once more. I ask it what it has for me. I try to send my inner child love. I hear no big revelations, but I do sense something. I sense within me permission to do what feels easy, to do what I want, to close this chapter of my life in honor of myself and no one else. “You are allowed to handle this the way that makes it easiest for you.” I feel some peace.

I wish the session wasn’t over when the acupuncturist comes back in. I feel calm. I feel tired. I imagine sleeping tonight and hope it is easier than last night set me up for. I am grateful to have relaxed. To have found this place on my own.

This was a good session and a good thing for me to do. At the same time, the needles are not my favorite thing, for the quick moment they are being applied, at least. I may do a lot more of this. I may do no more of this. I may do this once more. I do not know, nor do I feel any need to know. I have the thought “I’ll trust myself to decide.” If my therapist was here right now, he would be clapping in response to that.