This morning at midnight I had a dream. It involved most of the teens I grew up with and we were all in some sort of building that they lived in (mostly Bryon and Disa) with their parents, that had scaffolding and ladders you had to climb up and down in to get around.
I was hanging out, and like happens often in general and especially as a teenager, I didn’t know where to sit, what to do and I never felt comfortable being in any one place. It even resulted in someone telling me that I would have to go home for the day if I couldn’t settle down. Eventually they kicked me out and told me to come back tomorrow.
I knew it was coming in the dream, but like in real life as a child it hurt my feelings and just reinforced that I hated being at other people’s homes.
This is when I realized that my hubby in real life had moved my head from his side of the bed to the edge of my side (facing the floor). I am sure I had rolled way into his side of the bed, and I don’t blame him but because of the dream I was momentarily hurt by that action.
I sat up immediately because its hard for me to stay asleep anyways and I was realizing something that is pretty obvious I am sure to everyone else, but a huge reason as a child I never felt comfortable in people’s houses, especially if I slept over there, was because of my ADHD. I always knew some of it was trauma from violence of people I didn’t live with, but I suspect now ADHD played a much larger role as well.
As a child I was told by people often that I should go home and come back tomorrow or next week.
I always assumed it was because people didn’t like me as a child (and as an adult I thought perhaps I was exhibiting too much trauma stuff, which also was a thing). Hell I would be told that I often would overdo stuff or that “Lucky never knew when to stop a good thing.” As a teen it was bad if I found someone attractive and they laughed when I did something, almost invariable I would double down on it trying to make them even happier… with the obvious results of being told I took it too far.
I realize a large reason is probably my ADHD (which I didn’t get told I actually have until I was 50/51 years old). Although it is pretty clear thinking back.
In addition, my sleep pattern has always sucked and trauma was part of it, but I didn’t realize that ADHD can cause Fragmented Sleep, Shortened Sleep Duration, Early Morning Awakening and Daytime sleepiness, which is 100% me with an average unmedicated sleep of 3-4 hours and even the latest I normally sleep was 3-4am (and usually before 2am, or even like this morning by 1am). That is also a trauma response but never realized also an ADHD response.
As a kid, my friend’s families and people at their homes always treated me like a trouble child who would get sent home. Not because I hurt or argued with anyone, but I couldn’t stop pacing, I had no idea what to do without some sort of structure, and when I slept at anyone’s home I would wake up at 2am and just lay there wanting to go home because invariably if I got up I would wander into the living room bored and not sure what to do.
This resulted in me literally sometimes getting up at 2am and going home, with the same result as I talk about later with my dad.
Even in friends homes that cared about me and I was left to do whatever. I would wander around aimlessly, exploring the house, trying to hold the. animals. I didn’t know or couldn’t understand what they were ok with me doing. I actually hated staying at other people’s places because I didn’t feel welcome. Looking back, definitely some was due to my sometimes trauma informed feralness but often I am sure ADHD.
Hell, the hubby is very supportive, but even he puts down rules such as “no coming back to bed when I get up.” An understandable request albeit frustrating on my part back then (it isn’t in play at the moment, I am allowed to come back to bed the last year or so and it works out, but the first 2-3 decades I was banished when I got up).
The only place as a child/teen or even younger full adult I felt comfortable was my parents house. My mom would get frustrated with me, and yell at me to lay in bed and stop moving around (although sometimes she acted like my dad instead), but I now realize that sometimes my dad would sneak into my room and have me come lay in the living room. Realizing now that I was probably waking up my siblings (I never had my own room past the age of 4), at the time I just thought he knew when I was awake and wanted to hang out. Although full info is he sometimes had PTSD flashbacks and couldn’t sleep himself. However unlike others who would tell me to go home in the middle of the night, or to get away from them and stay out of the room, he would ask if I wanted to sit with him.
In turn sometimes I would hear him having nightmares (sometimes resulting into hearing my mom scold him for keeping her awake, I always thought that was unfair he was having nightmares), and I would get up (because I was already awake) and go into his room and just hug him. When I did this in turn he would hug me back and sometimes just pull me in bed like a big teddy bear and we both fall asleep (with my mom fuming).
Otherwise the most often we would go into the living room where he usually had brought a blanket out. The lights would be off but the tv would be on and he would make up as a little blanket area on the couch for me to sleep in while he sat in his chair he always sat in. Sometimes it was so bad when I was very little he would just hold me I in his chair.
He even did this sometimes when I would have a meltdown during the day or would just start crying for no reason. I weirdly enough have proof of this last thing with a photo took of my dad holding me when I had a bad afternoon in 1975 (I was 3-4 years old then).
We would sit there (usually mom wouldn’t get up, it would almost always just be dad) because I wasn’t tired, and watch a movie or show in the dark on an old tv from the 70s. He would always ask if I was hungry and make me a fried bologna or spam sandwich, or homemade poutine, or share a kielbasa dog with me (he would try and get me. to eat sardines in a mustard sauce out of a tin but at the time I would never touch that), and we would just sit in the dark with me the whole night watching tv.
Nowadays I can tell that he was making sure I was doing ok. I used to have horrendous nightmares, even before the trauma events happened later in my childhood. I also would sleep walk horribly, sometimes going outside and have conversations during my sleepwalking to things that no one could see. Sometimes he would be having the nightmares (I guess he had them even before he went to Vietnam, but Vietnam made them so much worse.
Weirdly enough I remember that I felt safe then, and I would eventually drift off to sleep. He never left me alone there though, never. I would wake up multiple times at night to talk with him and he would just chat with me. He could be totally drunk, sober, or stoned and it never changed. He might get mad about things at other times but usually because I was being a butt, but never when I either had problem sleeping or even during the day when I realize now I would have an adhd meltdown.
The image and smell will always stay with me. Him smoking a rolled cigarette made of TOP tobacco in the chair beside me (0r sometimes other end of couch), the only thing I could see in the dark when the tv was off (yes there was a time when TV wasn’t projected into homes at late night, I am that old), at that time all I could see would be the orange/red cherry of his cigarette and. sometimes his deep voice rumbling as he talked to me about something. I also think sometimes I woke up and he was singing but I can’t be sure.
This treatment also happened if I was sick, had my bronchitis going (he apologized when I was an adult because he wouldn’t have smoked if he realized I could get bronchitis from it) or when I would have an ear ache (very common) or a toothache (not as common but I have bad teeth). I remember seeing Telefone, and the big 70s disaster movies on tv this way.
While I realize I sort of rambled a little of subject, I didn’t realize how much of my behavior as a child was not just trauma but ADHD and my dad was the only one who never judged me for it as a kid, even when other parents, or even my mom or siblings would get mad at me.
Also dawned on me that I am probably thinking about this because we are coming up to the anniversary of him passing.
I miss you dad, and I love you.
Also I hate all of you people in my childhood who treated me like a trouble, but mostly I just love you dad.
Tales From The Little Blue House 