Nightmare

I am feeling a little raw these days.
I am a little scared of how fragile I feel inside.

A few days ago, I had a terrible nightmare that involved B. holding my family hostage inside my family home.  There was also sexual assault, or at the very least, his attempts to coerce me into something I did not want to do.  And in the entire dream, I just kept running... from one room to the other, from one family to the other, crying for help.

But it was like nobody could hear the intensity in my voice, or the distress.  My family, who had been held hostage for so long by him, had already given up.  They were not very responsive because they were so sleepy.  As if they were drugged, or if they simply surrendered to his tyranny in the house.  I also felt like they gave up because that felt like the safest thing to do.  In order to keep me safe and to maintain some stability, they just had to accept the situation as it was, and let things... happen.

I still feel very disturbed by my nightmare.... all of its contents, all of its details, and also the ending.  Or should I say endings?  I woke up towards the end when I was running to open the front door to the police.  I had called the police and was trying to open the locked door when B. saw me and started running towards me.  The lock was jammed in the front door, so I kept turning and turning, looking at the cops who were simply on the other side of the door waiting for me... and directly behind me, was B. headed straight for me because he caught me escaping.

When I went back to sleep again, I think I continued to dream.  I dreamt that the cops came in, fortunately, and they arrested B. right then and there.  My family slowly came downstairs, terrified and still dazed, and all the while, B. is looking at me in total and utter confusion.  His faces bears the look of betrayal, of being misunderstood.  He does not understand why he is being arrested and he just keeps saying over and over, "What did I do wrong? I didn't do anything wrong.  All I did was love you.  All I've ever wanted to do was love you..."  He's saying this even while they are cuffing him and getting ready to take him away.

This dream is so symbolic because B. has hurt me in so so so many ways and I firmly believe that he believes he's done nothing wrong.  He will forever maintain that he loves me.  He will believe in his heart that cheating has nothing to do with his love for me.  And he will never think that when I say "no, stop," that he needs to stop, and to accept my "no" for what it is.

So, here I am, a few days since I've had this dream, and I feel very scared and vulnerable. I feel dirtied by this relationship and I wonder if I can ever return to my purity.  I wonder if this relationship has forever changed me, and I wonder if I can ever heal from this.  It was only after I went to therapy this week, that I realized the words "sexual assault" were in my relationship.  I thought that his blatant disregard for my "no"(s) were because he is an asshole.  That it carried into the bedroom and is equal to sexual assault makes me, then, a.... victim?

I have not thought about myself like that ever, and it makes me feel even more like hiding into a place where no one can ever find me.  More specifically, where he can never find me, never contact me, never even know about my existence.  I just feel very... sick.