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“I can’t do this…I need to stop…”
Caitlyn stopped on her walk to the bathroom, wondering if she was hearing things. It was a little before 3 a.m., and while she had never hallucinated or heard voices before, she figured there was a first time for everything.
“I know…I screwed up…I’m sorry.”
I am hearing voices. Maybe they’re coming from outside. She frowned and started walking to the living room window, being careful not to wake Janet, who would probably think her daughter was going insane. But when Caitlyn looked out the window, she didn’t see anyone walking down the street. She also didn’t think the voice was coming from any of the neighbors’ condos.
“Please just help me. Don’t go! No…come on, please…”
Then, Caitlyn realized. The voice was Janet’s. All along, the noise was coming from her room. She quickly checked the lock on the door to make sure no intruders had gotten inside, and once she saw it was still secure, she quickly went into Janet’s room to wake her.
“Mom!” she cried, shaking Janet awake. “Are you OK?”
“What have I done…” Janet started to come out of her sleep and then turned over to see Caitlyn staring down at her. She put a hand to her chest and breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh my God. You’re here. Thank God. Did I do something wrong? Or…oh…OK. It was just a nightmare. OK, OK. Good.” She reached for the bottle of water at her bedside and took a few fast sips, trying to compose herself. “God. I hate these things. Sorry I keep repeating myself.”
“Do you want me to stay with you for a minute?” Caitlyn asked. “You seem like you need time to get your bearings.”
“Please.” Janet patted the other side of the bed, which she always did when she wanted Caitlyn to sit next to her. Caitlyn immediately laid down and put the blanket over them.
“This probably isn’t what you had in mind when you told me you wanted to sit with me and talk for hours,” Janet wearily joked. “I’m sorry if I woke you up.”
“I was on my way to the bathroom, and I don’t know how I didn’t pick up on your voice and you talking in your sleep. I thought it was coming from outside or that I was having hallucinations. After all, I’m not super awake myself.”
“What time is it?”
“It was 2:50 when I got up. So it’s almost 3.”
“Shit.” Janet put down her water bottle. “And I always seem to wake up around this time when I have these dreams. I don’t know why; I did stupid things when I was drunk at 11 or midnight too, but there must be something my body and mind like about the 2-3 a.m. hour. One time it was 2:30, then another it was 2:01. Or 2:55. OK, there was the time it was 4:15 and I had to be up at 5 for work.”
“You dream that you’re drunk?”
“I never wanted to tell you about this, honey. But you’ve always asked me for honesty, so I’ll give it to you. Yes, I do. They come in a lot of stripes. One time, I dreamed I had relapsed and gone to rehab a second time, and then I was at work waiting to hear about the terms of my probation when I got lost in the hospital and couldn’t find the conference room. I woke up just after I’d fallen on a wet floor and couldn’t move. In another, I was nauseous and needed to throw up after drinking, and as I was in the bathroom getting ready to do the act, I woke up and realized I’d missed my alarm and was going to be late for work. I barely had time to recover from that one.
“In this one I just had, you were coming over to visit, but I decided to have a drink. I don’t know why I wanted to drink, but you’d seen me with a glass of wine and you looked so disappointed. You were just about to walk out the door without another word, and that was when I tried to go after you. My God, I’m so relieved you’re here. I’m sorry if this is scaring you and you want to go home now. I just…it was only a dream. I’m still sober, I promise. You can even take a walk with me around here and I’ll show you that I don’t have any alcohol on hand. It sounds like a silly thing to do since of course I don’t keep any around here. You’d think I’d sleepwalked my way to the liquor store, but taking the walk makes me feel better and reaffirm that it was all a bad dream.”
“It’s fine.” Caitlyn took Janet’s hand. “I can separate dreams from reality. I know you haven’t been drinking. I haven’t had dreams about my depression or anything, but I have woken up from some pretty bad nightmares myself. Actually, I had a bad dream like the one where you fell. I’d lost consciousness for some reason, and I could hear people calling my name and giving orders, like to get me on a backboard, but no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t open my eyes, not even when someone tried to shine a light in them. I wasn’t responsive, even though I desperately wanted to talk. Finally, just when I heard someone say I seemed to be coming around and was squeezing their hand, I came out of the dream. I definitely laid in bed for a few minutes to make sure I could open my eyes and move around. Of course, when I told Ellie about it in the morning, she hadn’t heard any commotion, so she just said, ‘oh that sounds wild.’ Typical Ellie.”
“So you were essentially paralyzed in your nightmare?” Janet asked.
“Yeah. And I don’t remember why I was unconscious. Maybe a bad headache or some sort of cardiac incident. It felt weird to go into work the next day, too, since that’s where I was in the nightmare. When Tori noticed I seemed off and asked if I was all right, I just told her I hadn’t slept well the night before. I was too embarrassed to tell her the real story even though she’s not judgmental; she’s one of my other good work friends besides Ellie, actually. I used to think bad dreams were just for little kids until I had a few as an adult.”
“Considering I’m in my 50s and still having these kinds of dreams…” Janet sighed and trailed off. “You don’t really outgrow them. I hate the feeling of waking up from one, though. You’re momentarily terrified and trying to make sure you’re back in reality.”
“I think what I hate most about bad dreams is that you don’t have any control over them,” Caitlyn said. “They’re not the dreams you have when you’re awake and you can think about your future plans or silly stuff like what you want your dream house to look like, or where you really want to go on vacation. When you’re sleeping, you don’t get to pick what you think about or what’s happening. Your mind just goes to all these crazy places, and then you have to hope you’re not getting subliminal messages about your life or worry that what happened in your dream is going to materialize at some point.”
“Oh, I can relate to that given that there’s a chance I could relapse at any time. Did you feel scared that you were going to be seriously hurt or get sick after that paralysis dream?”
“Not enough that I thought a lot about it once I recuperated and got enough sleep the next night, but it just goes to show you never know. Ellie and I could not come to an agreement over whether that could happen in real medicine, though.”
“I have to admit that what I hate the most is how much they affect your sleep and mood.” Janet shook her head. “Every time I wake up from a nightmare, I can never stop myself from checking the time. Then I try to go back to sleep and it’s like I’m counting the hours and minutes until my alarm goes off for work. That makes me lose even more sleep and always seems to start the new day off on the wrong foot. And yes, I agree with you and Ellie as well…we always do things in our dreams that we’d never do when we have our full sense of awareness.”
“Well, I’ll sometimes grab my ballerina bear and hug her after my bad dreams to help me get back to sleep,” Caitlyn told her, and they both smiled. “She actually helps me fall asleep pretty quickly. That was one of the best Christmas gifts you and Dad ever bought for me; it was the first Christmas after I started taking ballet. Every time I went to get rid of her, I never could. I slept with her a lot when you were in rehab too because it made me think of you and I wanted to pretend you were still at home and everything was OK. Don’t you have anything like that to help you feel better when you wake up scared?”
“Certainly not a stuffed animal; no disrespect. Maybe I could cling to an extra pillow or something. Or get that white noise machine I’ve thought about buying for a while. Abby has one for her son’s room and she said it almost makes her want one too.”
“Oh yeah, I’ve heard those things are really helpful!” Caitlyn said. “I bet that would be a big help. You don’t necessarily have to put on static; you could listen to bird sounds or the ocean waves or waterfalls. I can imagine that would be pretty soothing after a nightmare.”
“You know what? I don’t think I’ll put that purchase off much longer. For now, though…I think sitting here trying to catch my breath has helped, and I’m glad you were willing to come in and talk to me. I hope it wasn’t too much of a pain in the ass.”
“No, it’s fine.” Caitlyn reassured her. “I’ve had a lot of great conversations with Ellie or my coworkers at weird hours of the night. I’m used to it. Besides, it’s OK if you’re scared to be alone for the first little bit after a nightmare. I’ll do this, though.” She reached over to hug Janet, and Janet was quick to hug her back. “I can’t be here every time you have one of these, but I hope it helped.”
“It did. And it made me feel a lot better to hear you still have that ballerina bear and rely on her sometimes. Is she still in good shape?”
“Well, over the years, her fur has gotten a bit messy and dirty, and I wasn’t able to make her good as new even after putting her in the washer. But she’s still special to me. I feel like she’s a reminder that our lives aren’t perfect and that sometimes we won’t see eye to eye or we’ll have bad dreams and worry about what they mean, but in the end, it’s all going to be OK as long as we hold the things and people we love closest to us.”
“You’re right.” Janet let out a long sigh and looked at her phone, which was face down on her nightstand. “Do I want to know the current time?” she asked.
“I’ll look.” Caitlyn stood up and picked up the phone. “It’s 3:08. I don’t know about you, but I was hoping to sleep in tomorrow. I don’t really get to sleep in on Saturdays even when it’s not my weekend to work. So, if I’m not up at whatever ungodly hour you wake up on the weekends, just make breakfast without me.”
“Not a chance. Even if I have to eat by myself, I’ll make you an omelet when you get up. I know that a late-night conversation about our bad dreams isn’t exactly what we had planned when you told me you wanted to have an overnight visit, so I hope that a good breakfast makes it up to you.”
“No, there’s nothing to make up. I feel like we got a little closer. Just not close enough to spend the rest of the night talking and miss out on valuable shuteye. Or share the same bed for much longer.”
“Yes, we agree on that much. One of my favorite things about living by myself has been having all the blankets and pillows I want and no one can say anything about it.” Janet laughed and took another drink of water. “And on that note, I think it’s time to go back to bed. I don’t sleep late much these days myself; I’m usually up between 6 and 7 on the weekends. I like to do yoga when I wake up; will that bother you?”
“Don’t fall out of a headstand or do anything crazy and I probably won’t even notice.”
“It’s a deal. Because I can’t do headstands anyway.” They both laughed, and Caitlyn walked towards the door to leave Janet alone for some sleep.
“See you in a few hours, Mom,” Caitlyn said, turning off the light on her way out. Then, she went to use the bathroom for real before going back to the guest room.
Before she laid back down, she reached into her bag and pulled out her bear, who she had long ago named Belle since she had always liked Beauty and the Beast. She didn’t know why she hadn’t told Janet she had brought it with her, especially since she had slept with Belle a few times while she and Janet worked on reconciling their relationship and she was worried things weren’t going to work out.
“Thanks for being there for me, Belle,” she whispered. “You’re a good reminder that no matter how old we get, we all need someone to be there for us, whether we’re scared and miss our mothers when they’re far away, or we’re out of sorts when we wake up from a nightmare.” She hugged her bear tight and then reached over to turn her own lamp off before she drifted off to sleep, hoping that this time, her dreams would be much sweeter.