This is so fucked up and I really apologize for writing it here, but I can't get it out of my head.

Last night I had the worst dream. I dreamt that I was at my parents' house and I found a videotape with all sorts of clips of stuff on it. I watched it for awhile, and suddenly the film cut away to a scene of me when I was about five years old being sexually abused by an adult.

Now, this definitely didn't happen in real life, but in the dream I suddenly remembered that, oh yes, this did happen and my entire life changed because I was now a "victim." I became a different person: more vulnerable, angrier, more likely to snap at people. I wore my victimhood on my sleeve and expected people to cater to me because of this terrible thing that happened in my past.

I woke up feeling just awful. First I was grossed out by the graphic videotape aspect of the dream. Then I was mad at my dream-self for who I had become. I had been doing fine in life, and upon watching the tape I became sort of pathetic and fragile.

However, I've been thinking about the dream a lot and feel like I learned some things from it...

1. I am so, so fortunate to have avoided abuse when I was a child. This dream made me feel oodles of sympathy for any person who was not so lucky.

2. I realized that I look down on victims because they are weak. I have to think about this a lot more. Why do I feel that way? I certainly don't believe in being a professional victim. Some people have terrible things happen to them, but the interesting part is how those people choose to deal with what life has handed them. Easy for me to say, since I had a relatively pain-free childhood. But I do think that one can choose to dwell on the past, or one can look at the good things one has and the lessons that have been learned and use that as a platform to build from. Those awful memories and the after-effects will always be there, but I think you can control your own destiny in a way.

My dream last night made me reconsider my thought process in this area. Can a person really "choose" a state of mind? Am I being too harsh?

I feel sort of weird writing this, because I really have no business talking about this subject. But it's the only interesting thought I've had all day.