Dreams: My brother has testicular cancer (Nov. 16)

Last night I had some troubling dreams...

I dreamed that I was scheduled to visit my younger brother, but unable to go. My dad called to say, “did you know he has to have a surgery?”

“No, I had not been told.”

“Oh..” His silence hung in the air, wet with disapproval. Shame hung heavily over me.

I knew somehow that the surgery was to remove his testicles, due to testicular cancer, but nobody would tell me anything.

We were driving through a town, and stopped to get a deal on pizza. The pizzeria became the halls of a high school or college, and I saw on a billboard: My mom was doing a book release!

In desperation I was trying to tell my wife, “we need to get out of here..” but it was too late. We left the grocery store, but there was my mom, standing in front of our van.

I was awkwardly trying to walk past her. Not really talking to her, trying to get the kids in the van.

Now, we were in the parking lot in my hometown.

When I woke, I thought, “maybe I needed to get angry, to get the greater power to get her out of the way.”

I realized I don’t really have a plan for meeting them in town, which may happen, with people in my hometown.

Would we feign politeness? Let them say "hi," like we would with any other person? But then they would “win,” and seek out those opportunities. Would we try to walk past them like they didn’t exist? Or try to avoid them? Flee the store if we saw them? Not go out if we knew they were in town?

What are we going to do? What is our plan?

***

Counsellor's interpretation:

Feeling frozen is the definition of fear. 

In danger:
If the danger is stronger, but slower, we run
If the danger is faster but weaker, we fight.
If the danger is both faster and stronger, we freeze.

...I still freeze thinking about some situations.

We decided that a very good thing to do would be to create a "cheat sheet" of statements that are true, and responses to lies he may say. This would enable me to become strong enough to stand and fight.

"That sounds really hard!" I admitted.

"It will be," He said candidly. “This is the hardest thing you will ever do! Literally! If you can stand up to your parents, in this sort of situation, you can do literally anything.”

"I get that -- and I definitely know that it is true. It's like if I can fight this battle in here, nothing could scare me in the world."

"It's like your mother in that scene was the archetype of the dragon, and your children were the treasure. You were seeking to get the kids safe from the dragon. That is the deepest archetypal struggle anyone can have."

Then he asked me: “where did the cancer come from?”

I did not know.

“Your mom gave him the cancer... then made it so they had to castrat him. Does that sound about right?”

I admitted that it did. Then I had a thought.

We had a computer in a bedroom “the office” with internet, and a closed door. I looked at porn as a teen, and had found evidence that others did as well. One time, I heard mom lamely say, “maybe we should move that computer.” I asked why? She muttered and stumbled, then said “well, because I don’t want anyone watching poem on it, that’s why.”

I thought... we’ve been watching porn for months...maybe a year or two already! How could you be unaware? And even now, it was just a “lame” attempt. She wouldn’t do anything.

I thought of how she gave us "the talk" — at around 10-11 — by starting a tape and leaving the room. Why? What did she want to happen? (of course my "big strong" dad was too much of a coward to ever broach the topic of sex with us)

I thought of an audio book I had heard earlier. “There’s a bad part in it. I just want you to know.” I think she had said that. There was a suggestive scene , just enough to pique the interest of a young boy. I still remember it vividly.

Perhaps unrelated, but I remember shifting through the debris after her mother passed. There was a kids book on the shelf. “Sex explained — with pictures and no nonsense.” There were pictures... and no nonsense. All in cartoon form. All a young man would need to become an abuser. A “how to manual” of sorts for molestation. So many terrible things happened in that house, with all the foster children -- and birth children -- that my grandmother fed, but did not parent.

There is a cancer in this family. I saw it in my grandfather. I saw it in my uncle. I see it in my little brother. I think I saw it in my older brother. I fear I see it in Dad. I have wrestled mightily with it in myself.

[Note to the reader: my battle with pornography occupied much of my late teens and early adulthood. It is difficult to express the level of anguish that I felt, living a double life with an addiction that I could not control. I called upon resources in the church. Through accountability and mentoring in my local church I found a level of control, and finally found freedom through the counselling ministry Caring for the Heart. It has been over a decade since I looked at porn of any sort. Freedom is possible, friends!]

Where does this cancer come from? What is source? How old is it?

Does she hate it? Or carry it?

Does beauty turn the beast into a good young man...or does she turn a good young man into a beast? [See related post here]

These things are so wicked: can they be true?

One thing I know...it ends here.