Been falling for a while. Won't be pretty when I hit the ground.

[Source]

Maybe someone will sense a bell ringing after reading this, maybe no one will. Doesn't change it much.
I've had my senses shrouded in daydreams since 2009, but I have reason to speculate it began as far back as 2003. That makes it a significant percentage of my existence. During this time, its form, meaning, purpose and functioning have all changed multiple times, sometimes subtly, sometimes drastically, ranging from spaceships to weird striped aliens to battles between demigods, and in the last few years and especially the last few days, the possibilities connected to ordinary people.

As a kid, I remember it being an amazing enhancement to anything I did, much like virtual reality augmentations. As a middle and high schooler, it was a vast and interesting alternate world, as opposed to the degrading junkyard that was daily life, but in time it started making my life hard. Now I am in university, and it has become a curse that's making my life impossible.

It's all in the mechanism. Complex beyond my understanding, powerful, immensely cruel, and surgically precise. Whenever a girl (the thing doesn't target guys, so my few friendships that remain are safe) shows that she's friendly, this hellspawn instantly takes a snapshot of its new, fresh target, and relentlessly tries to substitute itself to her regardless of her role or significance in real life, force-feeding me with frighteningly accurate and "positive" daydream scenes and sequences, trying to overwhelm and override my perception, trying to kick me out of the driver's seat and numbing my senses to isolate me from the 'outside', and even going as far as trying to inject memories. The speed at which it carries out this whole process is nothing short of terrifying, and to say that its effects are abhorrent is to put it lightly. I can't trust my own memories - I'll leave figuring out the implications to the reader - and that's bad enough, but the saddest part are the consequences.

It basically has a mind of its own. I of course cannot communicate directly with it, being a part of my own mind, but it's all too evident that it denies my authority over my own thoughts. And it's always the same story: Could this one have a position of significance in my future? What role is she going to cover as time passes? How will things unfold, in the specific and global context?
I have no way of knowing. This mechanism, this engine, this procedural demon steals every possibility I could have in my life - and I'm not just talking about girls and social skills anymore - and reforges it in its own image. An image that's the twisted reflection of things that never belonged to it.
There are only two things that I know for certain. One is that it has already done permanent damage, and not only to me. The other is that it will happen again, unless I can destroy it.

Aad semblio impera, dela can carpio semblex. This phrase has been in my profile page for a while now. It's Ehlnofex for "As in the images of kings become the hearts of their shadows". And that's what happened to me.
I'm supposed to be the king of my own mind. It's meant to be my domain, and the only images that live in it should come from me - and in a way, though twisted, they do. But in the attempt to see more than my eyes could give me, I created something that is the heart of the shadow that is doing everything in its power to devour everything I am, everything I represent and everything I do.

And now I'm blind.

[Source]

Whether or not I'm okay depends on how you define it, but at its most basic I guess I am, given that I still breathe. As for managing well, I have my doubts. It's a full-on war of thoughts that drains enough energy to prevent me from seriously focusing on anything, but there are rare and short moments when the parasite goes dormant. In those moments I'm more 'awake' than usual, and I can catch a glimpse of what I was meant to be. It feels... far, for lack of a better word, along with the vast emptiness that's left when the flood isn't there.
A barren crater is much better than an unrecoverably contaminated lake, if you ask me.

[MatthewR]

It sounds like you created a monster, and it's devouring you from within. "As in the images of kings become the hearts of their shadows," is a strange phrase that's full of meaning. I read that line and imagined that the one who is dreaming of kings becomes a shadow because they cling to the ideal of being one. But i can see what you mean about feeling like you're not in control of your own thoughts. It's a very scary feeling. I sympathize with what you said about it doing "permanent damage," because i know some things simply can't be fixed, and it's really hard to accept that. I hope you are okay and managing well. take care, Source.