Parents in Dreams

The first dream I had, I dreamt that I visited my parents at their house. It was just me and Lexi. I brought some few gifts and some other things to show them.
I felt that old terror and dissociation, and acted as much. The day wore on, and someone said something about how I was raised.
“Spanking is one thing, and makes kids behave. But beatings are another!” said Dad, or something like that.
“So, why did you beat us?” I asked pointedly.
“Oh, you weren’t beaten!” spat Mom. “Maybe but once or twice. That’s not so bad.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Maybe you don’t recall, since you weren’t the one being beaten,” I remarked. “but- does it really matter?” I added, louder, noting that my brother and his wife were listening intently. “Does it really matter if I was only beaten once, or ten or fifty times?” I had a mind to go on, but Mom was silently pursing her lips, looking at Dad in a pained way.
I sensed the threat. Mom was communicating her blameless victim status to Dad- her delicate feelings were being hurt for no reason other than my pointless insistence on dumpling the past on her. And dad was only too happy to violently and sadistically punish whomever she wanted punished. And, I felt angry.
“You people are revolting.” I said, quietly into the still room. “You’re evil, and irredeemable. I’m leaving.” I stood and started collecting my things.
“No, no!” Mom sobbed. Her tone was desperately sad, tears willed up, and I knew it was completely fake. The performance was for my brother and his wife, since they needed some kind of deniability for their complicity. I grabbed my things, ignoring her.
There was a book on the floor with pictures in it. I knew that when I gave Mom her gift, she thought the album was included, but I had only brought it to show them. Being dissociated and scared, I never said so in the moment. I was waiting for a quiet moment in which to unobtrusively assert the reality of my ownership of it, as was my want to do.
This was a pivotal part of the dream.
The understanding that I must pretend, act, and otherwise believe in the goodness of my parents, and refrain from the taboo sin of humiliating them by revealing their violent, brutish and sadistic nature, or else is the basic premise of my dissociation and terror. The tension that strings my existence taught lies in the continuous threat that I pretend reality is other than what I truly experience it to be. What happens when I assert the truth of what I know? What will happen if I reveal my true self and all the vulnerability, anger, hurt, and thereby expose the evil nature of mom and dad for all to see?
Well. I grabbed my book, because I valued it and the pictures. I also valued preventing mom and dad from taking any pleasure in the pictures or knowledge of the family that I worked for in spite of them. I knew that my revenge on them was simple and just; they would experience the Hell of living together with no one to blame for their misery but themselves. I left.
For a few sweet moments I thought I’d gotten away with it. I thought that I had finally performed the last forbidden task of exposing them, primarily to my brother.
I had Lexi in the car when mom came and cryfully tried to hug me and convince me to come back in. “No.” I said firmly, but she was insisting. I tried to get around and do the things I needed to get out of there. She grabbed some things and fought for a moment- but she looked over my shoulder and nodded soberly. Terror engulfed me as I looked back to see dad in the driver seat of MY vehicle, turning the ignition.
I screamed. In that moment I knew their cold murderous intent.
And I knew that’s all it ever was.