I've been having scary dreams lately, with the same theme.

A few weeks ago I dreamt I was in a dark parking lot and couldn't find the car. I dropped the keys, and as soon as I was about to pick them up, I noticed some creepy looking men looking at me. I became more vigilant and decided to not pick up the keys.

Then I was sitting on top of a container, with other large containers gathered around me to keep them from getting to me. I tried to talk to them in my dream to let me be, but they continued to walk towards me. I had a brief moment of imagining what would happen next and at that point, I woke up.

Last night, similar dream. I am looking for the car again and I can't find it. This is on a city street. The car was parked on a side street right off a main-ish street.

I walk into a side street and there's one guy ahead of me. He looks dangerous. I hear him say something like "there's no escape from this street" to himself. I decide to leave upon hearing that. I don't see the car anyway. He notices me when I turn around and asks me something, and almost as if I heard what he said. I respond to make him feel heard and quickly leave. I realize the end of that street was dark. There really was no escape.

I come back to the main street. I check a few other streets but its dark. I then stumble upon a shopping plaza which is better lit. I ask this guy where the street is. He's Asian. I realize I'm trusting him. Then he says "you can always come home with me," suggestively. I realize how uninformed it is of me to trust this person only because of his better lit surroundings and normal looking clothes.

I turn to this woman, who looks off too. But while she's telling me something, I see a police officer. I go to him. The woman gestures to try to tell me something about him but I don't understand.

I feel safer as I sit in the one-room office that really doesn't look like police's office. I sit there. We talk. Not across from each other on a desk. There's no desk. The police officer has a stain on his shirt and doesn't look well kept, which makes me wonder if I am safe with him.

We step out. It is the morning. I see that night before there was a riot on those same streets and riot police is everywhere, cleaning up the streets.

We walk over to a car, from where me, this other guy, male police officer and a female one are to get on a truck. But I feel unsafe again. I think to call up a friend at that point, and that's when I wake up.

All the while, the fear is that I am not safe. While sitting by the police officer, I wonder if he will attack me. The concern every time is about physical safety, about being raped.

I haven't watched any tv shows. or movies lately. I am not sure where all of this is coming from.

I need my own clone to talk about all those difficult things that make me want to crave chocolaty desserts to make me feel better. Really, they feel like a variant of existential concerns. They make me wanna hide out in a dark place.

Its not about death though. Its about making sure I'm living a life worth living. Worth living by standards that span societies over 100s of years. By standards that I have inherited. Any indications to the contrary make me feel little.

No matter who you speak with, that unbreakable barrier exists. I end at my skin, my concerns begin and end with my skin. I have had care. External, distanced care, not empathy (not often enough) that breaks that barrier. And how could it. The other person is limited by their life's limited resources.

That real true empathy heals. If there's one thing I'm learning, no one can make a profession of it and still continue to unadulteratedly empathize. You can't do that for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

There are only a few clients with whom I forget the divide. When I truly empathize, I hurt. It brings back my own pain of one kind or another. That is why the distance is necessary.

That connection though is also what makes me love what I do. That connection is what I want.

That connection is also what brings moments of loneliness, of realization that I end at my skin. That my life is experienced by only me and must be lived by my standards.

I'm not sad right now, or lonely. I'm musing. I'm distracting myself from the initial ache, that I can describe in CBT terms. But it doesn't fix it. What fixes it is gathering your bearings and making this life worth living, a little at a time.

What do you do when you know a friend is going to get his daughter circumcized...

Just saw the little girl's pictures, and I can't stop thinking about it. Our last conversation about it was way before his wife was even pregnant, and he had said its part of the community.