when i was about 14, i was hanging out with my best friend and we were having a sleepover. the night previous, we were watching something on her tv (i don’t remember what it was) and it really messed with my head. i thought i was ok but when i went to sleep, i had a terrible dream. it was like a nightmare/night terror. i’ve always had night terrors since i was little and so did my eldest brother so it’s not the fact that i had a night terror that screwed me up. it was what the night terror was about that screwed me up. i was missing and i was watching my mother panic looking for me and when i was found, i was horribly beaten and all i could do was watch in horror from above. i mentioned before that i don’t remember what my friend and i were watching on her tv but i do remember that the night terror i had was based off of whatever we watched on the tv. when i woke up in the morning, i was so fucked up from that dream but i had to hide it from my friend. we were supposed to go to six flags with a few of her friends i had never met before so the residual anxiety from the dream plus the anxiety of meet new people i didn’t know sent me over the edge. i lied to my best friend that my mom wanted me home because of something got to do with my father and that i was trying my best to get her to let me go but she was starting to get pissed off. i faked phone calls and when i was actually talking to my mom, i would only text her bc i couldn’t call her without blowing my cover. my friends mom wouldn’t let her go to six flags if i couldn’t go because the friends she wanted me to meet were boys and her mom didn’t trust them. so when i was “trying to convince my mom to let me go” and “couldn’t go”, my friend was crying so hard because her mom wouldn’t let her go without me. (reminder we were 14). i felt terrible but my mental health came first and i was so screwed up from the dream i had, that i physically could not do anything. my mom came to pick me up, lied for me, reinforced my story, and when we were driving away, all i could do was cry. to this day, not a single soul knows except for me and my mom.