Hold fast to dreams / For if dreams die / Life is a broken-winged bird / That cannot fly

[Gwenevere]

[Hey.  New here.  Below, is a vent.  Thanks for reading my vent.]

I want to stop living in my head, I told my friend, even if that means having to cut out music, television, and whatever else triggers these fictional worlds.  My friend encouraged me.  

With things inside my head less interesting, I'd be forced to make my real-life more interesting, I reasoned.  I decided to try getting involved in activities that my fictional characters became involved in.  One character works at a horse-assisted therapy ranch.  I began volunteering again at a horse-assisted therapy ranch.  I got a calendar and filled it in with social engagements.  I drove to see an old friend and spent the weekend with her and some others on the beach.  I opened up to friends about the issues for which I used daydreaming to self-medicate.  I found a therapist.  I interviewed for and was offered a job.  

But, it felt so forced.  It felt like an act.  Fake-it-til-you-make-it, but I still don't feel like I've made it.  

I turned down the job.
I dread the social engagements.
An old, close, dear friend replied, "Well, I don't know how to help you." 
The therapist said, "I don't think you're ready for me to help you" (basically)

Real life.   My passion for it is gone.  The only passion I feel is when my fictional people feel passionate.  A typical day at work included a bout of feeling trapped, hopeless, and wanting to run away, as well as frequent crying spells.  This month has been great at work--I don't think I've cried at work in over a month--but it's because I've given the daydreaming full reign, more or less.  And it's fun, intoxicating, distracting, powerful, but then that starts to wane.  The headache sets in.   My head feels full.  The same scenes don't bring the same high, so I have to find triggers or come up with ways to twist it so that I can feel as great as I did before.  I don't want to spend time with my family (and don't spend much time with them).  I don't want to go to work, church, or paint or write or exercise or shower.  I don't want to take the time to eat right.  And I realize, "This is an awful way to live," but life without the daydreams is awful, too.  

I miss the real dreams, the dreams that used to mean something, but life snatched them away and now I'm left with these simple-carbohydrate dreams.

"Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly."  --Langston Hughes

[Catauxgory]

Gwenevere, thanks for starting this interesting discussion.

Basically, a daydreamer pays a price - their personal life story includes the fact that they daydreamed. There is no way to, in real life, be someone who never daydreamed. It has to be embraced and incorporated into the larger story of you.

To reiterate what you said, daydreaming, besides being an escape, offers a way of feeling that life has purpose, that life has meaning, that life makes sense - if only for one's daydream characters. You know what's going to happen in the daydream world because you are the author and orchestrated all the events.

While it's hard to find meaning and purpose in real life, let's consider the fact that it is the challenge of every person, daydreamer or non-daydreamer, to find meaning and purpose in life. It is handed to no one on a silver platter. I think it would be  a mistake to think that non-daydreamers have it easy.It does look like non-daydreamers have it easy simply because they never daydreamed. For some daydreamers, myself included, this invokes a latent, feeble inner wish that they too, had never daydreamed.

However, I also think that daydreamers, especially ones who are "recovering" from the daydreaming experience and who want to more or less permanently return to reality, find themselves grappling with  a particular kind of existential pain. It's one in which the daydreams don't work, and reality sucks, and sometimes, absolutely sucks.

The bottom line is that non-daydreamers are advantaged because they never daydreamed. And daydreamers are advantaged BECAUSE they daydreamed. It's a level playing field.

The key for the daydreamer is to own their daydreaming, to embrace it, to know why they did it, what they got out of it, and where it ultimately brings them in life. You would say that about anyone who has a particularly unique and rarefied experience. Say they had a chance to visit an extremely exotic island and take part in its life for several years, or live among a rarely encountered people whose culture was vastly different from theirs and learn their ways. If they didn't incorporate the experience as they moved on in life, then what would be the value of it?

"What is the most meaningful thing you can do right now, today, this hour? What is heartfelt?" For me, the answers have to do with developing myself and connecting with people. Many things that I do still have a direct connection with my daydream world, and I do them because I feel driven to tackle the "content" of my daydreams from the angle of dwelling in reality. My emotional life derives from what I experience through reality, not from what my daydream characters are going through. And since life is so short it's important to make pretty much everything you do meaningful.

I'm glad to know that other daydreamers know first-hand the particular difficulty of dealing with life post -daydreaming. I feel I'm not alone.

[Gwenevere]

Alex, thanks for much for your comment.  I'm sorry about the giant hole in your heart.  I understand what it's like starting at square one.  Life really threw me for a loop a couple of years ago and brought me to a grinding halt.  I still haven't figured out how to interpret it; I don't know which direction to go in, what's up or down.  You're right; it's hard watching friends fulfill their dreams, watching them have a sense of direction, while you're clueless and wondering what's up.  My characters--they have direction, they have purpose, and so it's easier to just check out of life and watch them. 

But, I still have hope that it won't always be this way.  The past two years have been some of the hardest of my life, but I've also experienced a lot of laughs, new family members, I have been there to support others, etc.  So, maybe, Alex, this is just the beginning of my story and your story, when it all seems bleak and dark and hopeless, and it's that conflict that draws the readers in and makes them want to finish reading.  Without conflict, stories are pretty boring.  These hard years and these struggles--maybe they just mean that our stories are going to be some really awesome interesting stories.

So, God bless you and give you the patience and confidence you need to take the risks and put forth the effort to become the person you want to be.  You've got a goal--that's a good starting point.  Thanks for your comment.   

[Geobukseon]

You know what?  I completely understand how you feel.

For the longest time, I was friendless and alone.  I couldn't find any peace or stability in life and I only had my daydreams to escape the uncertainty.  It kept me 'sane',  but I stagnated to the point where I was basically a 12 year old in a 18 year old body.

From then on, I had to work my way up from there, trying to prove something to myself that I could be strong just like the characters in my daydreams and achieve something solid to show that misery I endured was worth something, but, no matter how hard I tried, it wasn't possible.  I was human like everyone else with a host of problems that always got in the way.  I was so desperate for change that joined the Navy, but with the many people they're cutting back, was sent home under a ridiculous excuse.

Now, I'm trying to move on, but there is a giant hole in my heart as my life situation pulls me from my daydreams and forces me to see where I am.  My friends are achieving their dreams and moving on in life, but I am forced to start at square one.  It is the most painful feeling, but I have to find the strength to continue.  I still aim to be like what I dream about, but it's going to be a long and arduous journey filled with the risks, requiring patience, confidence and effort.

 

 

[Gwenevere]

First, I ought to point out that the verse in the title of my blog was also by Langston Hughes.  (Neat guy--you should Google him if you don't know of him.)

"roll out a big Stop sign or construction sign and reassess" -- I like that, Catauxgory.  Thank you for your comment.  

"What is the most meaningful thing you can do right now, today, this hour? What is heartfelt"  I try to approach life this way.  It feels like a bunch of disconnected bits.  Sometimes it feels like there is no plot.  It feels pointless.  The daydreams--they have a point.  They have plot (well, sort of).  If it's not too personal--what do these questions of your look like in your life?  How have you answered these questions?

[Catauxgory]

Gwenevere, I can relate to what you have posted here. In fact, I could have written it myself. I have been going through my own really low point with regard to living and being in reality and it is very much along the lines of what you articulated so well. Why try? Why go and do things, even if they are things your characters did? Why keep busy? Why go through the motions? Why do any of this when you know that if you got into your daydreams your moments would be so much better? Or, maybe they wouldn't be better. Maybe they would still suck because nowadays, even your daydreams suck. They're nowhere near the fun they used to be that that's so depressing. From this perspective, I daresay life begins to approach meaninglessness.

And that's when you have adopt a little bit of a shift in perspective. Heck, roll out a big Stop sign or construction sign and reassess. You KNOW that continuing to invest in a daydreaming life will lead you to unhappiness. My point being, you know what daydreaming basically has to offer you. You've tasted it, sampled it through and through.

But reality. It's untried, ESPECIALLY by daydreamers like us. Reality and all its possibilities, its surprises and mysteries. It's asking too much of life to think that after stopping daydreaming, a person will be whisked away to happiness.

In my opinion, a former daydreamer definitely can have the pleasure and satisfaction of knowing that they are in the game, and that they are playing the game, the game of life. A newly-emerging, former daydreamer has to admit that they do not really know life well enough to say that it has little to offer them.

Life is not something to dismiss. It's not something to give up on because your experiences aren't rockin'. Explore, engage, appreciate, and love. When you think about it, these are the same things that fueled daydreaming, it's just that a daydreamer directed them inward. When you engage with reality, a magical thing happens in which what you put out comes back to you in physical manifestation. And, you get to give and share with the world, even if in small and quiet ways that only you know best.

So I'd ask yourself, What is the most meaningful thing you can do right now, today, this hour? What is heartfelt? What will make you proud of yourself? What, in the real world, takes your breath away? What brings you to your knees - figuratively.

I believe life has joyous surprises for you, me, and everyone. I don't really know life that well myself, but I think this is the way it is.

Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly - until it is NOT a broken-winged bird anymore, until it CAN fly again.