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Originally uploaded by jayfherron

I have found myself having exhausting dreams recently. I guess some call them nightmares-but to be simple,I just call them dreams.
The dreams are about prisons. I think much of it has  to do with the season-this time of year tends to depress me because it reminds me of the past that I wish was not mine.

I also believe some of them are triggered by my recent notification of my PTSD being validated as connected to my time in barracks D. And that notification has made my thought process go wild in every direction from the impact of it all. I am in awe that the truth has been treated as the truth-justly,but yet the past still haunts me.

Last night I dreamed I was in this long corridor-it never ended as it curved around and there were row after row of box type spaces stacked one another above and below.

I also think the dream last night was triggered by Saturday. My son was here and we went to the city for lunch. The city is a university town and Saturday there was a football game. For those who know football know the Florida Gators draw quite a crowd. I don’t keep football in my head-so forgot until we got to town.

We ended up in a Wal Mart store. And the crixmix music was going on-I had not had that in my head so I forgot until we got inside. And then the isles -compressed into the isles….and the place was packed and where we went was all the way across the store. And then I have last nights nightmare dream abut rows of boxes-but these boxes had men in them,not gifts.

Our family had this Christmas sense. I don’t really understand it now,we never were church people. But I remember the tradition of what it was and how the fancy things came out and the crixmix tree was set up and that way we looked at it as kids-our eyes crossed,that way the lights blended in with all the other glittery things. All that and the other teases of that period of the year-the supposed goodness and joy.

My first season away from home that feeling we all had about that time of year was going on the ship as well and the was this melancholy about some of us-at least there was with me. There was turkey and dressings and special stuff on the Vulcan-but it wasn’t like at home.

I get this grip about me when I think the only thing I did was try to go home a surprise my family. I mis-calculated some things about the trip that my 18 year old mind had not thought about…that was snow. I was on on a Greyhound bus that was known as a liberty bus that ferried sailors and such to Washington DC. In better weather it possible to make an afternoon bus to DC and catch a wee morning one back to Norfolk-and be on time for roll call. The snow kept that from happening,but I had a liberty pass for that very weekend.

At the bus station I was able to make contact with the right person on ship and because I had the pass I was free to go.

This was the holiday season of 1969. I was a new seaman on the USS Vulcan-my first holiday away from home. I thought I could make a surprise. Our ship was divided into three groups-each group got a holiday home…my group was New Years Eve weekend. I thought I could run that liberty bus home and get to our house and run in and say Happy New Year and haul butt back to the bus and be back at ship-say hey,and catch the next bus back to finish the week end. Every body did that same route all the time-it just never snowed.

That is why I ended up in barracks D…that was my crime.

Sounds like a stupid story-surely no reason to be locked away. But it’s for real,that’s all I did.

I have been locked in barracks D for the rest of my life. What took place between my being missing at roll call-and the time my brother was sent to arrest me,I will never know. My brothers tormenting and rants on the return ride to the ship put fear in me and I never expected that day was going to be so vivid in my memory for the rest of my life.

The compression of the isles in Wal Mart and the mass of people I think compounded everything else. The dream I had last night scared me and I woke at 0300 and tried to shake it…and understand it too. But I don’t think I will ever understand.

There  has been these wide ranges of emotion thinking about my recent news-the truth has  become justice. I have been validated in that and it set off so much my heart. The things lost. The way my life might have gone,and not this way. The many missing things-those things have been wild in my mind. My father-he is gone now and never will I be able to show him the truth. So the seven sheets of paper that write out my being justified have ignited many emotions-and many hopes too late to happen.

I am exhausted from the dreams-they’ve been too current lately,not like they have been. It does seem so interesting to me how things can be to recieve the news of my truth coming to me during this season-is it this week it is Thanksgiving?

I am so glad in my heart to have a God who I love and who knows all of what happened and knows all of the truth and has taken care of me through all of the things and will take care of me still to come.

Tags: PTSD