what bad dreams are made of

I had the worst dream: I cheated on my (extremely) significant other. This is a common dream theme for me. Its fucking horrid because in these dreams i’m not in the present time, so its like i’m not with my boyfriend, I’m dating someone else and having sex with them and we have a relationship and then i come home and drive up to the house i live in now with my real-life boyfriend. I come home and have this horrible realization that i’ve cheated on him. And I say to myself, how could I have forgotten him? Why didn’t I remember that we were together? How the fuck could i do this AGAIN? I know i have to go in there and tell him and I know that the life we have together is going to be over. The guilt is overwhelming. I feel like i deserve to have my hands snipped off at the wrists with some very sharp scissors.

And then I wake up and thank the god-i-dont-believe-in that i’m over all that misery.

Seems like most ppl would feel that cheating in a dream was pretty innocuous, right? blah blah blah yes well I used to be a chronic cheater. When I would feel depressed/angry/unhappy about a relationship, i would go out to a bar, the mall, a grocery store wtf ever and meet someone new. there were many years that i had to have 2 or 3 things going at once or i felt completely worthless. and then they’d find out and i’d feel completely worthless all over again. it was fucking miserable and i hurt a shitload of innocent people and not so innocent people because i would look for mates that were shitty so that when i cheated i wouldnt feel so bad about it. it tooks years and years of therapy to finally get out of that heinous cycle. i never want to go back and i wish my brain would stop thinking i will.