All your mental armor drags me down
Nothing hurts like your mouth
Mouth – Bush
LEARNING ABOUT DRAGONS IN therapy
In my therapy journey of learning how to understand Mami, why she does what she does, and where I fit in her world, I have slowly been learning to tame the inner dragon that fiercely protects little Doña. The inner dragon who spits fire, lashes her tongue, whips her heavy tail, and squeezes prey with her razor-sharp claws, at whoever little Doña has been silencing her little self for. All of those she comforts and appeases. Everyone, but herself.
When little Doña’s inner dragon is released, she had already been sitting, internalizing, straining to talk with breathy words no one could hear. This is what Doña’s angry dragon sounds like.
DRAGON CONFESSIONS
Let’s talk about the day I finally realized mami does not know how to be a mom. She’s a parent at best. Has always provided financially and responsibly, but never emotionally.
Currently, I feel hate towards her. Now that I’ve finally accepted what I blatantly have always seen instead of blaming myself for what she’s always tried so hard to hide. The woman who bore me is an emotionally immature parent. More likely than not,
narcissistic. She lives in a world where she feeds off of others’ emotions to survive. For a high. Especially her children. Plays them against each other.
werewolf mamis
Worst of all, Mami relies on her children for that fix when she can’t get it in the outside world. Any boundary set is a challenge that she must break down at all costs for her fix. Gnawing at the raw flesh with evil glares back at the child she has sunk her now bloody sharp teeth into. And as she bites down even harder on the gritty, tougher parts of her child’s flesh, exposing the parts that hurt the most, her
child’s now exposed soul, she goes in for the kill. Intentionally killing her child’s spirit by manipulating, lying, guilting, and denying all rational to feed her ego. Much like a werewolf feeds for sustenance.
american werewolves in europe
I remember watching An American Werewolf in London with my parents as a child and having this insatiable fixation on this movie growing up. It would come up again when the remake, An American Werewolf in Paris (1997) came out.
Nothing Hurts Like Your Mouth
The song, Mouth, by Bush on the movie’s soundtrack, drew me in like the pungent smell of my ailing soul draws Mami in towards my feeble body. 14-year-old Doña bought that CD. The song quickly becoming a favorite. My very being always feeling that song.
Conversations? Mami Doesn’t Know Her
Simple conversations are hard with Mami. Her mouth literally pains me. Not only because of her well thought out painful words, also because of how she talks at me and not to me. Conversations then become long winded on Mami’s part, an expected trap I can never seem to figure out how to escape. When we talk on the phone, I usually end our conversations abruptly. Exhausted, I have to because Mami, nothing hurts like your mouth.
drained depression dreams
Drained from these “normal” conversation with Mami, I usually sleep the whole next day, barely able to hear my dog’s cries for food and water. Much like Mami, barely able to hear my cries for emotional support.
This time though, I didn’t wake up early in the morning from dreams in a drooling panic attack like I had so many times in the past. At least not yet. I refused to get out of bed still. I was in and out of sleep for the next several hours. This is where the dreams started about Mami.
The following process as follows: wake up groggy, barely remember the dream with a pit in my stomach, boom, back to sleep to another not-so-distant dream world. Worlds where Mami was still Mami, but worse, never better.
Missing my Plus One
In the first long and twisty dream, Mami had gotten together several family members and friends for a party for me, excluding my then boyfriend. The all-too-common feelings of confusion, anger, and frustration ran through my body in a hot wave.
The Real Witches of Laguna Beach
In the next dream, I was stuck in this game of witches as I watched the evolution of each witch level up their evilness in their dress, mannerisms, and powers. Ironically these ghoulish witches had a catty poshness to them … The Real Witches of Laguna Beach. Mami was one of these witches.
Help
In the next world, I was in the kitchen w Mami in my childhood home. Mami came over to me, face stern, telling me one of my previous boss’ had called. Mami had answered it, snapping at her, with anger and rudeness, yelling at her that I was busy. Mami called me over, shoving the phone in my face yelling, “here, you can’t talk”. “Hi” I answered. The reply on the other end of the phone awkward and skidish, “uuuumm, nothing urgent, you can call me back”. For the rest of the dream, I kept trying to call her for help, out of the sight of Mami. I couldn’t get a text or call to go through. I remembered I hadn’t saved her number and it was too
hard to look back through numbers not added to my contact list. Feeling defeated, I gave up.
anxiety and phone calls
It’s ironic how much dreams literally manifest from real life experiences. Growing up in my childhood home, I would frequently hear Mami on important phone calls, yelling at and belittling the person on the other end of the phone with her vile tone and words, for not giving her the information she wanted or catering to her entitled need. For every phone call, everyone in the house was expected to be completely quiet because she was going to be on the phone. Any distraction too much for her to concentrate.
This took fear of making phone calls for me in adulthood to a new level of anxiety. One that I would have to constantly fight to hold my dragon back from coming out and protecting me from. Telling her, “Shhh dragon, now is not the time, we can do this another way.”
quiet recovery
Years of emotional confusion and solitude subconsciously created these well-established coping mechanisms. Created to process and come to terms with my werewolf Mami. It can come off so harsh that it often scares me. And for years, it has come off so jumbled up from beginning to end that it’s hard to explain.
Wounded from words and inescapable depression dreams that came from the depths of my pain, this is the clearest way I have been able to voice my pain, my disconnect. The desperate cries of little Doña’s dragon confessions begging to be heard by her Mami’s werewolf.
Are you on your healing journey through childhood trauma? Regardless of what stage you’re at, I’d love for you to share in the comments below. How do you describe your dragons and werewolves?