do I have to dream about him every night?!

As I expected, my physical escape has to be followed by an emotional escape. He can't get to me physically anymore, but he still invades my brain. So far he has pretty much kept to "no contact" except for a few brief comments which he tried to post to my blog, but which I rejected. I did read them, though, and mostly they were laughable -- except when he said I had abandoned the children.

She smiled to leave her husband dear
To go with the Gypsy Davey
But the tears come a-trickling down her cheeks
To think about her blue eyed baby
To think about her blue eyed babe

This from the guy who told me "You should not concern yourself with children that are not yours" when I called him on his behavior -- sitting upstairs indulging in untreated panic attacks while the kids asked me why he wouldn't come down to be with them.

The dreams:

I sneak back into his house to find he has made it a paradise. My bird is missing but there are dozens more in huge, beautiful cages, some not even kept in cages but given perches to climb around on. Several large lizards in handsome tanks. I'm overwhelmed trying to find my bird among these and get out of there. I see him coming in the door holding the hands of both children and he sees me and I am trapped. I close my eyes and think, "This is not going to happen," and the dream switches. I'm just wandering around the house trying to find my way out. I wake up.

I dream I am far away from him, in the hills of California, in a house with a large kitchen with huge windows. My housemates are college acquaintances. I look out the window and see several small planes; one is on fire. It is heading my way. It is going to crash. I dive to the floor to wait for the impact, and something shatters the window, but it seems smaller than I thought. I look up and it's just a remote-control plane. I pick up the plane and see a note inside; it's several pages from him. I can't read most of it but the end, where it says, in huge letters, "I STILL WANT IN." I realize he will not let me go. I realize that this remote-control plane means he is nearby, waiting, physically close enough to get me. I run upstairs in the house but all I'm wearing is a towel, which I clutch to myself while hanging on to the note; I'm hysterical. On the top floor there are three therapists; one is my friend Stacey. I beg to speak to her. She comes out of her office and sees the note. "Oh, honey," she says. I wake up.

I am in the car with him and the kids, just like always. We are chatting and happy. The kids fall asleep and he turns to me with this look on his face of anger and fury and hate. I realize that I am trapped and he has got me now. I wake in terror.

My compulsion to contact him is so strong. I know that he is in pain and I have to force myself to remember him slamming me to the floor, smashing my face against the wood so hard that I could not close my mouth, feeling the drool slick against my cheek, I have to remember him slamming his boot onto the floor next to me as I curled up to avoid him, missing me my millimeters, smashing whatever I'd been holding. Then I manage to not send him the angry email or post a response on my (other) blog. Knowing that once I respond, the floodgates open. They will open sometime in the next 6 months and I want to stave it off as long as I can because I don't know what happens next. He has always gotten me back that way and I don't know what happens when I don't.