Dungeons and Dragons : a personal fairy tale
Including links at the end to all my current writings on childhood trauma and sexual abuse
I was a voracious reader of fairy tales as a child, & continued to read them off and on as an adult. I devoured Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimms. The Red Book, Green Book, Yellow Book, Blue Book…any color book of fairy tales. I found stories that made me confront monsters…and survive. And stories where brave children saved parents from their doom. And stories where stepmothers and fathers treated their girl children badly…but the girls escaped.
For 60 years I remembered what I thought was a dream I was certain I had at age 5 — a dream centered around fairy tale imagery that had puzzled me all my life.
I “dreamed” I was in a deep, dark dungeon where a wicked witch was forcing me to eat baby alligators. Up to age 65 I thought the dream was conjured up by having been that voracious consumer of fairy tales, and I never questioned how it might be connected to my flesh-and-blood life as a child. And until recently, following the death of my mother, I hadn’t shared it with any of the multiple therapists…
