Believe it or not, you grow out of it in your seventies!

[Hazel Russman]

I shall be eighty this year. Somehow I doubt if anyone else on this forum can say that ;-). I've been a compulsive daydreamer all my life but I'm not so sure about the "maladaptive" label. Yes, for many people it has been, and I'm not challenging or dismissing the experience of anyone else here. But for me the balance has been positive on the whole.

I was a weird child (probably on the autistic spectrum though I never had a formal diagnosis) so of course the other children picked on me. And what kept me from being utterly miserable was the fact that I had my own world into which I could disappear at will. I was a compulsive reader and went through about three library books a week. When I was reading fiction, I often disapproved of the way a character had reacted to a situation. In that case, I would replace that character with one of my own who would react in a way that seemed to me more reasonable or more interesting. The result was a complete change in the plot line and sometimes it developed into a saga that went on for weeks!

I'm sure that if I had not had my "characters", I would have spent a lot of my childhood feeling lonely and I don't think that would have been an improvement.

I decided quite early on that I wanted to get a good job, so that meant I had to work at school, go to university and get some qualifications. But all the time that wasn't taken up with that project was available for my private narratives. The other girls at my school spent that time buying clothes, learning how to use makeup, and meeting boys. They wanted good jobs as well of course, but they also wanted love and marriage and children and a social life generally, and it seemed that to qualify for those things, you had to devote a lot of time to them. Or so I was always being told. I just thought it sounded like a bad bargain.

I did in fact get a job that I liked, and I saved most of the money that I earned because there wasn't much to spend it on. I lived at home with my mother and my favourite occupation didn't cost me any money! I never did marry or have children, but I haven't regretted it. I think I would have made a very bad mother.

About 20 years ago, I started a fantasy that was a bit different in that it didn't start out from somebody else's fiction. All the characters were original, which was a completely new experience for me. And it was more compulsive than anything else I had created. Every spare moment, even toilet breaks, I would dive back into that world. Over many years it grew into a novel. To this day I believe that I didn''t write it; I just let it write itself. Eventually I self-published it on lulu.com. I never made any money from it but it was a hugely satisfying experience and I still love reading it.

Funnily enough, that was my last serious fantasy, but I didn't even notice until quite recently that I wasn't fantasising any more. Now I wonder: did the act of creating an actual novel finally use up the energy or did I just grow out of it because I'm now too old to sustain such concentrated imaginative thinking?

[Hazel Russman]

Decision making: that's very difficult for me and always has been. Especially on small things. Mostly I tend to let things drift and go with the way it works out. My mother was very decisive but also very prosaic and unimaginative. I take after my father and even more perhaps after his sister Mila, who was a poet and writer. Mila was away with the fairies a lot of the time.

I don't think I ever made a conscious decision not to get married. I knew at the age of about twelve that I didn't want children and I remember wondering how I was going to explain this to my husband. But within a couple of years, I realised that I didn't want the husband either! I'm asexual and I find it rather amusing that there's now a place for people like me on the LGBQT+ smorgasbrod. Of course my mother was very disappointed because she wanted grandchildren to replace the family she'd lost in the holocaust. I still feel sad about not being able to give her that.

No, I've never suffered from depression or anything like that. Certainly I was never suicidal. I was unhappy as a child but I considered that entirely rational because I was being bullied at school. I remember promising myself once that I would never as an adult tell a child that these were the happiest days of their life. But in those days they didn't tell unhappy or anxious children that they had "mental health issues" or put them on medication. We were just left to grow a thicker skin and I did.

One good thing came out of all this. Most people sell their souls for popularity when they are still children. That's the bargain the world makes with you: give us your soul and we'll love you. And once you have capitulated, you can never buy your soul back again. I would happily have sold out back then but fortunately no one was buying!

When did I realise I wasn't "normal"? I guess I always knew that. But it was only in the last twenty years or so that I realised I probably have Asberger's.

I became a Christian in my teens as a result of reading the theological work of C S Lewis. Those books aren't remembered now. People today only know him as the author of the Narnia stories. But he did write a lot of books on Christianity and they impressed me greatly. I felt that this was a man who actually cared about truth, not simply someone who was trying to make converts.

Dreams: doesn't everyone think they are real? If you know you're dreaming, then that's a lucid dream, not a normal one. Some people can do that but I never could.

You could try visiting my website. You'll find a link to my novel there.  But I warn you: I come of a generation that does not give a fig for political correctness so, if you find anything that offends you, don't get hysterical, just shake the dust off your feet and don't go back there.

[Santhi]

a bit more , like your process of decision making, did you suffer negative thinking, how did you handle your decision of not getting married and have kids ( probably there must a pressure from your well wishers).

did you suffer depression /negative thinking/bipolar /suicidal etc.

when did you realize that your not normal

your connection with god

did you get weird dreams which appear to be damn real until u wake up, 

you can answer these question only if are comfortable, as u r 80 i thought i can have valuable feedback

[Hazel Russman]

I thought I'd been pretty autobiographical in the post. What more do you want to know about me?

[Santhi]

just wanted to know your story, 

[Santhi]

ok no worries, when will u be online post the time, 45 years female.

regards,

[Hazel Russman]

No, I prefer to maintain my privacy. Let's keep it in the forum.

[Santhi]

hi, can i have your eamil id please want to talk