So I have been writing down my dreams this past couple of weeks and it’s been both fun and enlightening, as well as helpful for my mental health. It’s been fun to interpret the meaning of them (it gives my brain something constructive to do) and it’s been very amusing to see how my brain uses metaphor for things in my waking life. It’s weird, actually. Things that seem just weird in my dream actually turn out to have some pretty solid meaning, and sometimes the meaning is very far from being obvious.

Well. Last night I had a visitation from Aunt Dee  in my dream.

I dreamed I was in a basement living room with my family and we were listening to music. It was really nice. In real life this is something that we have done all of my life, and when I was a kid it would sometimes turn into an impromptu dance party! I have very fond memories of these times. So I was listening to records with my family, having a nice time, when this bitchy woman walks in the door uninvited, walks across the room, and turns down the music. I couldn’t fucking believe how rude she was. I was speechless. My mom asked her, “Can I help you?” And she bitchily says she is turning down the music. And then my mom recognizes her as someone she is friendly with and they chat. All the while I am getting pissed off at this rude woman. At some point in my dream she yells at me and I try yelling back and I don’t have a voice. This is a common theme in my nightmares. I try to scream and nothing comes out. And it happened in last night’s dream as well. Eventually, after more stuff happens, she decides to leave. She walks up and picks up her bag and gives me a dirty look. I flip her off, tell her to fuck off, and tell her that she is a horrible human being. And when I say it there is no guilt because it is the truth.

When I woke up i almost didn’t write down the dream because I was thinking that it was just my brain being weird. But I wrote it down anyway, and then I let it sit in my subconscious. Eventually I realized that this bitchy woman in my dream was depression, or “Aunt Dee” as this blog post describes it (btw, really great advice in that link if you have to deal with depression).

This makes me happy because in my dream I tell off depression and tell it to fuck off, which makes me feel empowered. I feel like there is some semblance of control there, that I don’t have to let depression push me around.

And I woke up this morning deciding not to let it push me around. I have recognized it for what it is, and I am going to take care of myself and give my self a little bit of compassion. So there.

Suck it, Aunt Dee.