For years, my nightmares were reruns my mind never stopped airing—dark corridors of memory where I was assaulted again and again. The dreams didn’t just revisit the past; they replayed my helplessness. They held me hostage in a story I never chose.
For a long time, I woke up shaken, sweat-soaked, heart pounding like it was trying to outrun the past. I would lie there, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself I was safe, even while my body insisted I wasn’t. Trauma has a way of blurring time like that. It’s hard to feel the present when your nervous system is stuck in the past.
So I began writing it out with my therapist. Not to relive it, but to untangle it. To give shape to the shadows. To say, “Here is what happened,” and then slowly learn to say, “And here is who I am now.”
Putting the dreams on paper felt like cracking open a locked door. It let in air. It let in truth. It let in possibility.
And then came something unexpected: talking to my martial arts instructor about how to change the ending.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
We walked through the moments that haunted me. We broke them down, named them, reframed them. We practiced how I would move—how I could defend myself, break grips, angle my body, use my voice, create space. We practiced what my body could do when it wasn’t frozen in fear. Strength over silence. Skill over shock.
For the first time, I wasn’t replaying the trauma. I was rewriting the narrative.
In real life, I pray there is never a “next time.” But if there is, I now know something that my nightmares never showed me: I am not powerless. I am not cornered. I am not at the mercy of the story that once swallowed me whole.
And something shifted.
I still dream—but now I fight back.
The dreams haven’t vanished. But the endings are different. I am different. In the places where I used to be frozen, I now see myself moving. In the scenes where I used to collapse, I now stand up. My subconscious—once a battlefield—has started to understand that I am capable, that I am stronger than I’ve ever been, that the fear isn’t the only truth.
This isn’t about glorifying survival. It’s about honoring the quiet, steady courage of reclaiming your body, your voice, your story. Healing doesn’t erase the nightmares, but sometimes it teaches you how to walk through them with your hands open, your stance grounded, your breath steady.
And one day, maybe the dreams will stop.
But until then, I’m not running anymore.
I’m fighting back.
Crow and Flame 