Whenever I wonder if I’ve made progress from where I’ve come, I just need to look at my  dreams. I’ve had a lot of dreams about my family since I left, and in the beginning I was passive in my dreams. Then, even though I was passive, I would walk away from them. Then I started standing up to them, then I started challenging them in my dreams.

Last night I dreamt my mom was spanking Eric (more like beating him over the back actually) and he was sobbing (in reality, mom’s spankings didn’t hurt). I was in my room with the door closed, listening to her whacking on him, then finally I couldn’t take it and I went out and said “Stop assaulting him! He’s 18, which means it’s illegal for you to do that!” (Isn’t it sad, that once someone is an adult it’s illegal to assault them but it’s legal when they are children?) Mom said “He’s 16.” I said “It’s still illegal!” She didn’t really believe me, and said she was going to go look it up but at least she stopped beating him.

Then I dreamt other crazy stuff that didn’t have much to do with anything, like Beth and I were under this dome and people were shooting at us…and then suddenly someone was trying to take photos of Beth and she had copper-red hair instead of brown. Dreams are weird.