I’ve been keeping a dream journal recently. Not because I think they’re prophetic, or because I believe they’re revealing some great hidden truth. Mostly because they’ve been incredibly vivid, recurring, and strangely consistent. Different stories, different worlds, but the same themes seem to keep appearing.
There’s a world hidden behind a door in my childhood bedroom. A contained universe that somehow feels both familiar and oppressive.
There’s a witch who keeps forcing her way into my reality no matter how many times I drive her away.
There’s a city I know intimately but can’t remember.
There are alternate Earths bathed in strange yellow and blue light where reality itself feels wrong.
And then there was the blackberry bush.
In that dream I found myself tangled in thorns, unable to get free. Every attempt to pull myself out only made things worse. Eventually I stopped trying to force my way out and began carefully untangling myself instead.
That one has stayed with me.
For a long time I’ve approached many things in life by trying harder. Pushing. Forcing. Trying to become the version of myself I thought I should be.
- More confident.
- Less anxious.
- Better socially.
- More comfortable with intimacy.
- More “normal”.
The problem is that every time I pull harder, the thorns seem to dig in deeper.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been wrestling with questions around trust, friendship, intimacy and kink. Not because I’m suddenly becoming a different person, but because I’m trying to understand what actually fits me rather than what I think should fit me.
One thing I’ve realised is that what I want isn’t really about sex.
What I want is;
- Trust.
- Safety.
- Friendship.
- Connection.
I want friends who think of me when they’re planning things. Friends who don’t disappear into the crowd five minutes after arriving somewhere. Friends who occasionally act as wingmen rather than assuming I’ll be fine.
I want people who understand that sometimes just being invited matters.
And perhaps most importantly, I want to stop treating myself like a problem that needs fixing.
That doesn’t mean giving up.
It doesn’t mean deciding that nothing will ever change.
It means accepting that forcing change isn’t working.
Recently I found myself thinking that maybe I’m too old to keep fighting myself. Fifty feels like an age where you should know who you are by now.
The surprising thing is that thought felt like both defeat and relief.
Defeat because part of me still wishes I could simply be different.
Relief because perhaps I could finally stop carrying the responsibility of becoming someone else.
The dreams seem to keep returning to one idea.
- There are threats.
- There are mysteries.
- There are hostile places.
- But there are also beacons.
- Things that keep the lights on.
- Things that sustain life.
- Things worth protecting.
Maybe recovery isn’t about defeating every witch, solving every mystery, or escaping every strange world.
Maybe it’s about finding the beacons.
The friendships. The small moments of connection. The people who make you feel safe. The places where you can just be yourself.
And maybe, just maybe, it’s about learning to untangle yourself from the thorn bush instead of trying to rip yourself free.
For now, that feels like enough.
Leave a Reply