Visions unknown

@gio_quasirosso

He was haunted by his dreams at night. Or anytime he fell asleep really. He couldn’t find comfort in allowing himself to drift off. It scared him. Because of the visions that would appear. They weren’t just disturbing nightmares like he thought at first. They were truths, prophecies waiting to be fulfilled. And he was often helpless at preventing them because they occurred somewhere he knew nothing of, to people he could not even recognise. But the news always proved his dreams were more than that. And he was powerless against them.

When he met her, he was terrified.

He fell in love with her from the minute she laid eyes on him, and she smiled so brightly, probably because she realised that.

He kept falling deeper in love with her in every passing day. He wanting to give her the world, simply because she never asked for it. She was there, like a silent support pillar, despite knowing nothing of his torment.

But somehow, in her arms he could fall asleep; drift into a dreamless REM, and wake up without anguish, fear, abhor at what may occur during the day. She was his remedy, without knowing it; she was essential to him.

The day she was departing for a trip, he knew something was wrong. He could feel it pulsing in every minute pore of his body. There was something not right. He didn’t want to let her go. But she hugged him tightly, kissed him gently, and reassured him that everything was going to be fine. She had that positive vibe constantly glowing in her aura, and it made her sweeter, even more charming, and so difficult to resist. He wanted to believe her, even though his instinct reacted otherwise.

When she closed the door to the cab at the airport, he could feel his entire world shatter to pieces.

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Defying your mind

©Sarah Potter

There is trouble with listening to your mind. It sometimes poisons you. Because it tricks you into believing things that aren’t true. It can concoct scenarios and play them out in your head, persuading you that this is reality. And you’re trapped. You’re drowned in negative thoughts that fog your vision of what truly is.

It takes courage and practice to realise your mind is deceiving you and to react to it. Defiance is always considered a radical act. Even against your own self.

It’s not easy standing up to you. Because the most dangerous enemy you have is yourself.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Shrink to grow

When you think about it, cavemen or even people living in the middle ages must have been much happier than we are now. OK, so maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration. But certainly people just a few decades ago were much better off. One piece of evidence for that is that no-one was howling the “financial crisis” jargon over the heads for what feels like forever. Another, is that they didn’t seem to have the urge to run to psychologists, psychiatrists or psychoanalysts to let out their problems.

In fact it seems that as society develops, our problems become all the more complex, intense and stressful. And for that, we need to feel that someone is on our side. Understanding and offering a helping hand, at least in the form of some advice.

Perhaps, this is the reason we often resort to ‘professional help’. Because “they would know better” and offer solutions. But in reality, all they truly offer is a chance for you to release everything that is bothering you, that is tormenting your mind, that is keeping you awake at nights. They allow you to liberate all the emotions, anger and tension that you have been suppressing for so long. And they do that by simply granting you the security that they will not judge. They are there to listen and maybe tell you what they believe will help you in finding the right solution or way forth. So, in essence, they act pretty much like a Buddha would, because the answer almost always lies within you. And in the end, you are the only one who can solve your problems.

You just need to realize what makes you so frustrated, that at times it comes out as passive-aggressive, what makes you depressed, what raises your heart pressure, what is troubling your mind and most of all, why. In this search for inner peace and answers, we all wish there was someone out there who could just provide us with all the information we need to know. But unfortunately, there isn’t. And they can’t. So we still don’t know.

Whoever your psychologist is – be it a Frasier Crane character, or more like a Charlie-type in Anger Management – these people may sit through tens of sessions a day, listening to other people’s problems and in the end they themselves may need someone to vent out on. So we could at least help them in their job and try to solve these inner riddles that are causing us to crawl up in their comfy chair in the first place.

Sometimes, the answers we seek are indeed right in front of us. We just lack the courage, the strength or even the will, to truly acknowledge them.

 

N.B. The term “shrink” is a clipping of “headshrinker”, a US slang term that simply refers to the idea that psychiatrists have the ability to reduce or “shrink” one’s mind into an understandable concept. Thereby (if I may add) helping you grow in the process.