I don’t dream. Well, I suppose that’s a bit of a misnomer. I don’t remember dreaming, and I haven’t for a long time. I don’t know if it’s a product of the amount of cannabis I consume, or a product of my neurology, or a combination of both, or what. It’s been a welcome relief. The times when I have completely ceased my cannabis use have seen an uptick in dreams: most of them leaving me very restive and uncomfortable when I awake (the last time I dreamt regularly was five years ago).

Not dreaming is a blessing for me. Darkness is all I want when I sleep, a complete shutdown of all processing. However, over the past two weeks I’ve struggled a great deal at night. I’ve had several nightmares, which have woken me up in the middle of the night and leave me unable to fall back asleep. Sometimes I wake up and I’m close to a meltdown because I’m experiencing sensory-type interactions inside my dreams. I wake up sweaty, with hitched breath, and usually a scream alerting my wife.

The dreams over the past few weeks have all revolved around themes of war. Sometimes it’s ultra-futuristic, like the night after I re-watched Aliens. Sometimes it’s common, modern war scenes I’ve cobbled together from visions of movies and tv shows. There are times when I am a soldier and I’m fighting. More often, I am an innocent bystander observing it all go down and being affected by it. There is always a feeling of fear and confusion, exhaustion and hunger. It’s unsettling and the dreams end quite abruptly (as they often do), leaving me awake and uncomfortable, tossing and turning and moaning.

As a former psychotherapist with a penchant for Jung, I’m always going to analyze any dream I hear about or experience. It’s taken me a while to pin down what’s going on in my subconscious, but I think I’ve hit the nail on the head: I’m at war all the time.

I’m at war with depression and anxiety, my autism, the world around me. I’m at war with the idea that I’m stupid or unable to do anything of worth. I’m at war with meaning. Sometimes I’m fighting, teeth clenched, bearing down on my enemy with all the salt left in me. Sometimes I’m hiding, hoping the enemy doesn’t discovery and eviscerate me. Sometimes I’m just watching it all go down in a traumatic, almost dissociated haze. Sometimes it feels like I’m looking down from above and watching these things in my mind pummel me.

Let me give a harsh example of my truth. Sometimes, like yesterday, I can have an amazing day. Yesterday we had a close friend from college visit from Portland. We had a great time, lots of laughs and memories and creating new ones. We went for a walk, got a pint, and generally just had a lot of fun. We came back to the house with take-out in tow, still smiling, and as we began to eat I thought, for no reason, “You’re a dumb asshole. You should kill yourself. The best way would be to get a hold of a gun, or just swallow all your pills.”

This situation happens on a daily basis for me. Not a day goes by where I don’t have a seriously suicidal thought, including how I would do it and picturing it would look like. I don’t have to be depressed for this to happen, my mind just goes there. It’s one of the most frustrating things in my life and I don’t know how to get it to stop. So, I don’t.

I can’t stop it, so I don’t try to. Usually I start asking questions: why did this thought pop up? What is happening in my immediate situation? Do I feel unsafe? What thoughts were going through my head? How does my body feel right now? What can I remove from my immediate experience that may alleviate whatever stress brought this about? Often times I can find an answer, and cessation of the thought doesn’t necessarily follow. Just as often, I can’t find any reasons for the thought, and in reflection, it seems when I can’t find the answer I’m able to let it go more quickly and with less effort.

I am very cerebral. I live in my head, most autists do. I have a whole world going on up there that has nothing to do with what is happening in reality. Not finding a reason for the way I’m thinking is actually quite a relief. I’m able to stop the string of thoughts right there. When I find an answer, it generally leads to more and more questions. Thoughts lead to more thoughts. Answers lead to more questions. I need peace in moments when I randomly contemplate suicide. I need a respite from the war when this happens.

I generally don’t get rest. When I do it’s in short, cold, bursts: A 20-minute episode of Ducktales or The Simpsons. An amazing chicken sandwich. My morning quiet time, watching the birds arrive in the backyard. When these moments pass, it’s back to the front, and back to war all the time.