I've had night terrors for as long as I can remember. They've been a frequent bane of my existence up until a few years ago, when my dreams took more of a turn for the outright absurd and whimsical.

I don't remember much, the contents of my childhood dreams, but what I do remember is the general theme of said dreams.

If I could equate my life to anything at that point, it would be the Silent Hill games. During the day it is still dangerous out, but it's easier to traverse, enemies are easier to spot and dispose of, and you go from fear to treating it as though it's a general routine. During the night, when everything is distorted, those familiar areas become harder to navigate. The enemies are hellza fucking gnarlier, and can be more of a challenge to cope with. It's fucking freaky, is the scent what I'm trying to waft all up in your noses, all idea-wise.

My waking life was absolute hell. Yeah, I was being bullied at school, but the things other kids said never got to me. Kids are just shitty in general, and I knew this well, despite being a child myself. What tore me down were the adults I trusted to guide me, protect me, to teach me, deciding that because their dreams were never fulfilled, because their lives were so shitty, they were going to take me down with them. The people I was supposed to intrinsically put my faith in took advantage of me and convinced me that I didn't matter. This, though, eventually became so routine that I had become numb to it. I still considered my school and my home both places of respite and safe haven, despite neither falling even a millimetre into those categories. They were familiar, I knew how to aptly navigate the dangers, how to make myself go unnoticed, and how to cope with the overwhelmingly negative stimuli.

In my dreams, those areas that I had relied on to keep me sheltered became even more twisted and Mephistophelean. Those same people that were bullying me were now creatures of twisted flesh attempting to kill me.

The obstacles in my way became more frequent, and a bloody cocktonne more deadly. The goal of my dreams was to now escape the area that was once Arcadia, and breach into the unknown, hoping to find safety in the world that I was wholly unfamiliar with.

I think the overall lesson I gained from those dreams is that just because a situation is familiar to you, does not mean it's safe, it can always get much worse. It's a lot more advantageous of you to get your ass the fuck out of that hoe when shit gets rough, rather than remain apathetic and hope that eventually things will get better. Even if things stay the same, and you remain numb to the pain, it's not worth it. What kind of life is that? It's better to flee into the unknown, to bust out of that cyclical prison for good, to go out into the world and make something of yourself, than it will ever be to stagnate and let people essentially stab you in the soul with needles in perpetuity.

Also, I'd like to invite a certain teacher to taught 4th grade at Sherrod Elementary in Palmer, Alaska during the time I went there to fucking gargle my chode. I don't even have my degree yet, and I make more cleaning schools than you did teaching at them. Fuck you, Sharon, you bilge hag. I mean, she's probably dead by now, but her vindictive, spectral ass can still go fuck herself.