I keep having concerning dreams that are effecting my mental health while I’m awake
I’m a mid 20s male. I have had bad anxiety my whole life and so I went on zolaft for about a half year. It was working but made me less physically energetic and gave me horrible nightmares so I opted to go off of it and deal with the anxiety returning again.
These nightmares never had me as the victim but instead as the perpetrator of heinous crimes and activities. For example in one I was a guard ushering people into a gas chamber at a concentration camp, and in another I was a spree killer. I had many more with the concentration varying but with me almost always as the bad guy. For a while after I stopped zolaft the dreams stopped, but they recently started again, although less pronounced. For example I have been waking up with vague feelings that I am responsible for atrocities in my dreams rather than remembering, and last night I had a dream that I cheated on my girlfriend with a prostitute.
I never have contemplated doing anything that occurred in these dreams nor will I. I am not suicidal, I do not feel in danger in any way. But the dreams just make me feel like a horrible person for the first half of every day, sometimes longer. I feel like even though I know they aren’t real, some or all of the emotions/trauma carry into my waking life. Has anyone ever had this happen?