You Should Always Have Dreams

 Something you hear a lot as you grow up is that you should never stop dreaming. Usually, when someone brings up the topic "when you grow up, what do you want to be", there's always someone else who has had that same goal in their mind since they were four years old, and they have never wanted to do anything else in their life, and they go, "never let go of your dreams, because you'll never know if you don't even try".

That sentiment in itself is completely fine, and I agree with it because I have no reason not to. It is true that you should always reach for the things you're dreaming of, no matter how outlandish they might seem, because there's nothing to lose in that situation. Trying has never hurt anyone, it has only brought them joy. So yes, have the courage to dream and to hold on to your dreams, no matter how old or young you are, because one day, they might come true.

Whenever someone is talking about dreams, I feel uneasy. It's not because I don't think I have what it takes to achieve my dreams, or because I have given up on my childhood dreams long time ago. It's not even about my realistic mindset that sometimes gets in the way of trying out new things. More so than anything else, it is about one simple thing. 

I don't have any dreams.

I didn't lose my dreams at any point, no. I didn't give up on them nor was I discouraged to keep reaching for them. It was never about that sort of thing. I just didn't have any dreams. Never had, and I still don't.

Something that most people never seem to be able to fully grasp is the extent to which childhood trauma affects the way we see ourselves and how we construct an image of our identities for ourselves. Not being able to understand that means that you haven't had to go through severely traumatic things in your childhood, which is only a good thing. But those of us who had that happen to us, we know what it's like. Childhood trauma prevents an identity from forming in a normal way, a personality from developing into a cohesive being. Those of us who had traumatic childhoods never had an identity, a healthy personality. They were taken from us; the trauma, the abuse and the abusers took them away from us – along with our lives.

They say that what a child does best is playing and dreaming. A child has the courage to dream because their outlook on life, themself and other people is innocent, pure, and naive. As you grow older, you might forget about your dreams or you chose the most realistic path for yourself, and you lost the courage to dream. But the dreams never fully disappear; they're still living within you, in your heart. 

Childhood trauma breaks that connection. You lose your connection to your younger self, and your dreams disappear. Or sometimes, you never even had the chance to dream when you were a child, and as an adult, you're desperately looking for anything that might work as a dream as much as you're looking for fragments of your identity. 

People around me talk about their dreams and how they still think about the things they wanted to do when they were kids, and they say that maybe someday, they might try reaching for them once more. I am disconnected from that moment, from that conversation; I don't belong there. Because I don't have any dreams, I never did. They were taken away from me. 

copyright "ichigonya"

A major part of your identity is what you want to do when you "grow up", whatever that might mean to you specifically. When you are experiencing a loss of identity due to borderline personality disorder, one of the key points you tend to struggle is deciding on a future job, a career path or an education. You might think back on your childhood years and try to remember how you felt about those topics back then, but more often than not, that thought process ends up in blood and tears. So what do you do when you never had any dreams, you're unable to come up with them now, and everyone else keeps telling you how important they are?

Take a deep breath.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Repeat.

And say these words to yourself:

"I don't have to do everything like the rest."

You are different, and that's okay. Your story is different, and that's why things go a bit differently for you. Don't rush it, give yourself time. It's okay.

The more you think about it, the harder it gets. You have go about it like a child would: try out different things and stick to them that feel good. Don't think about it any further, just keep doing what feels good. "Feeling good" doesn't even have to be the same as "liking something", because sometimes, it might be hard to even say what you like. Do anything and everything that peeks your interest and see how you feel about it – just like a child would. Because now, you are getting your first chance to become who you are. Your identity wasn't taken away from you; you never had one to begin with. But that's okay, because now you are safe and you have been given another chance. And you can finally begin the journey to finding what it means to be "just yourself".

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I have been working on something in secret for quite sometime now. It is a passion project that will take a long time to get finished, but the process itself is what makes the biggest difference for me. It is not a dream, that word doesn't feel good in my mouth, but it kind of resembles one – to someone, at least. Who knows, I might be working on that "almost-dream" in front of a crowd of people while no one pays any attention. And I think that setting is very fitting for me.

Learning to dream,

ichigonya