My heart hurts...

I haven't written in this blog in YEARS... nearly 4. But I really felt compelled to find the signon and get in here.  My 3 year old daughter is plagued with nightmares about monsters and dinosaurs that "rawr in her face," and I feel totally and utterly helpless. I don't know if she's just resistant to try, or totally unwilling to, but whenever she does wake up from a nightmare, she becomes nearly inconsolable, and sometimes won't even let ME help her. She'll cry for her aunt (who is living with us temporarily), or for her daddy, and when those days come, she will barely even allow me to touch her, let alone hug her to tell her it's alright and that nothing can hurt her in her own home. We keep telling her 'monsters aren't real, dinosaurs aren't real' and that she can change her dreams, that she can use what she calls her "pink powers" to change what she's dreaming about to overcome the baddies or to just make it a more pleasant dream. Nonetheless, here I sit, benched. I feel like I know the winning play and the coach won't wave me in. I have tried all the tricks I used with her sister and nothing will help. I don't know if it's something she has to work thru on her own, or just something she, for whatever reason, refuses to let go of, but it's KILLING ME. I hate that she has nightmares, and I hate that I can't help her get over them. I hate that my beautiful silly and amazingly weird baby girl can't or WON'T let me in to help her get rid of the torturous thoughts that plague her subconscious. I understand that children are far more affected by nightmares as adults, and I had my own recurring theme to my nightmares as a kid. I feel like I've been there. But she's not taking the advice, not taking my loving hugs. I go in to console, and she flails and gets out of my loving grasp, only to back herself into fetal position in a corner. Is there something WRONG in my little girl's mind, or is this just something she must work out on her own? Why does one kid easily move on from scary nightmares when another is battling the same monsters night after night, only to have them come back again? I remember having recurring nightmares about alligators coming to get me. However, in the end, my mom and dad were ALWAYS there to save me. I honestly don't remember waking up screaming, if my parents came in my room to comfort me, or how the nightmares finally stopped, but they did somehow. Later I would go thru a series of Devil related nightmares. They were never the same nightmare twice, but always the same story. Devil, coming to get me. I would try to scream and it was impossible, I would try to move, to wake up my husband, and I couldn't. I would eventually wake up and scoot under his protective arm, whether he woke or stayed asleep, and they would subside. For a while, then they would come back. Eventually those, too, gave way and stopped. Thankfully-I really hated those. The alligators were something else entirely. One time I was walking holding mom and dad's hand on the fairway of the golf course that was behind our house, and they suddenly lifted me up by my arms and an alligator glided (with wheels for feet) under me and between them. No, I don't understand why or what it meant. I was 5. I do know they all eventually stopped. No more recurring nightmares (unless you count work dreams-those are nightmarish enough!), just the occasional crime drama tv show or horror movie induced freak out, nothing I couldn't wake up from and either giggle at the sheer weirdness or shudder at the "wow, the really freaky part is, that COULD happen."  I just feel like my hands are tied and I CAN'T help her. and that's what really hurts. I can't help my little baby. I want to so bad, but I can't.