Dream Catchers Do Work, Just Not How You Expect.

Lots of things suck when you're a sick teenager. One day I was a healthy, happy, thought-I-knew-it-all GCSE student. The next, I can't walk to the toilet without two rest breaks and a set of crutches.

In a sea of ghastly experiences, one stand above the rest thanks to its lasting effect on my mental health. The night terrors.

In case anybody is confused as to the difference between a nightmare and a night terror - they are vastly different things. They occur in different parts of the sleep cycle and are linked to completely separate parts of the brain. And while nightmares do absolutely SUCK, night terrors are a whole other kettle of fish.

Thrashing in bed, screaming in my sleep, bolting upright and ripping my stitches. Not to mention that when my mother would come to check on me, sometimes I would be staring wide-eyed at the ceiling but not actually awake. It's some next level horror movie type voodoo!

Funnily enough stress, mood changes, anxiety and disruption to a person's sleep schedule can trigger night terrors. Apparently being thrown in the deep end with an undiagnosed chronic pain condition and multiple surgeries has that effect on a girl.

Who knew?

The result was that I couldn't escape feeling awful even in my sleep. The brain is simultaneously an insanely clever and absolutely terrible creation.

But one of the most important good deeds I ever experienced came from that horrendous period of my life. I remember it quite vividly, and doing so brings actual tears to my eyes.

I was sat in my bed, as normal for me back then, trying desperately to summon the will-power for homework. My mother had opened the window before she left, trying to get some fresh air into the room. Instead that brisk autumn breeze was dragging in the smell of next door's bonfire. At least the watery sunshine gave the room a soft buttery glow.

I heard the crunching of stones on the driveway as my mother's people carrier pulled up with my younger siblings in tow. Then came the regular sounds of the heavy door handle being yanked down, followed by trampling shoes and dumped school bags as they scrambled to the kitchen for their after-school snack.

Yet out of the ordinary, I suddenly heard sprinting footsteps coming my way. I looked up as my youngest brother raced in. Little more than five, his round face was bright red with his lips stretched wide in a manic grin. He jumped across the room, blond tuffs of hair bouncing with each eager step. He threw himself onto the end of my bed, sending ripples leaping up the mattress towards me.

"I have something!" he announced proudly, holding up what looked like a mess of blue and purple wool in his hands.

"Oh yeah?" I asked, glad for the distraction, "It’s lovely.”

He thrust the mess into my hands. It’s sticky with undried glue, covered in vibrant feathers and beads in a strange circle shape.

“It’s for you!” he told me.

“For me?” I asked, thinking it's just like any other art project that comes from the enthusiast but less than accurate hands of a child. Still I was touched. He’d thought to give me some of his art to cheer me up. The last few months hadn’t been easy on any of my younger siblings. Least of all him.

I held up the circle of wool and feathers like a trophy to properly admire it.

“It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

“You’ll hang it?” he asked with hopeful eyes. This seemed to be the all-important question.

“Of course,” I reassured him warmly, “I’ll put it on my pin board when I next get up.”

“No! It needs to hang near your bed!” he insisted, “Otherwise is won’t work.”

“Work?” I enquired, trying tactfully to dodge the fact I didn't understand the function of this particular ensemble of PVA and string.

"It’s a dream catcher!" he said taking it out of my hands and knee-walking up the bed. He went to one of my bed posts, hanging a loop of wool around the wood, “We were playing with wool in Creative Playtime and Miss Smith thought it might help you with your nightmares!”

I’ve been a writer all my life, but never have I struggled to find the right words so intensely before. Utterly speechless, I desperately tried to make myself say something – anything – rather than burst into grateful tears and smother him with big-sister hugs and kisses.

“Really?” I managed, my voice on the verge of cracking into undecipherable sobs, “For me?”

“Yeah!” he answered brightly. Then he hopped off the bed and spirited off in search of a snack and some afterschool telly.

I left that dream catcher hanging on my bedpost for almost two years. Did it stop my nightmares or night terrors? No. Night after night, they kept coming.

My mother and I would lie to my brother. We’d say that the catcher had reached capacity overnight. We said that it had caught the really nasty ones, but the smaller ones could still slip through. He seemed happy that he'd rescued me from ‘the bad ones’, and I was so touched that he’d thought to try and help me however he could.

My brother is now a regular GCSE student himself. He mostly grunts rather than talks in full sentences - in the way that teenage boys do. But he’s not lost his generous, thoughtful spirit. He might not express it with words very often, but actions and gifts show his love and caring.

All these years later, I still have his gift of a dream catcher stored safely in a box full of precious memories. It sits right on top of my University Diploma and my school leavers hoodie smeared in dozens of blurred sharpie names. That catcher is one of the most important gifts I’ve ever received.

Knowing that someone is thinking about you, knowing that someone can see you fighting, is a powerful sensation. It’s both relief and horror. It’s a sharp and fizzing tangle between joy and pain. But it’s powerful. Powerful enough - sometimes - to help you to continue to fight.

I still have a chronic pain condition. Most days I can manage it. But when I can’t, I open my box of memories and I pull out that knotted mess of wool and feathers and remember that someone can see the fight. And they’re routing for me.

Always.