Introduction: The "Real World"

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Hello everyone :D

I'd like to tell you about myself, but its hard to know where to start, and maybe I'll get into too much detail... I'll just start. Also, please look for any "clues" or "hints" that make me sound like a Maladaptive Daydreamer to you, I'm not sure if I show consider myself one yet or not.

Ever since I can remember, I've always felt different from everyone I knew, especially most other kids my age. I'm not just a kid anymore, I'll be turning 23 soon, and I've got to find a way to live in this world, but sometimes it feels like I'm my own enemy. I'm indecisive, always seeing too many possibilities that its hard to choose. Even when I pick one thing, I turn around and second guess myself all the time. I know the kinds of things I like and the kind of person I am and want to become and grow into, yet any kind of description of these is not easy, and I consistently refuse to be pigeonholed into someone else's framework of what the world is and how I should live in it. This to me seems noble and essential to my own character, yet it keeps be from committing my energy and emotion to a practical and consistent way of life, and bewilders people around me that I depend on, especially my mother.

A couple years ago I heard about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a personality type test. Looking into it, I took a test or two and quickly began to relate to the INFJ personality profile. I found out that this personality type comprised only about 1% of the population, rarer than many of the other 15 personality types. To me this seemed like some kind of explanation, I thought all the people around me have different personality types from me. Its not that this is not necessarily true, but difficulties I've faced in life, especially with school, seemed to need some kind of explanation.

I've always felt like a pretty smart kid, and my own interests and reading began before school ever became very involved. I have always been able to pass tests pretty easily, and got consistent good grades when I first started school. But as I got older, and there was more homework, I'd often forget to do homework, lose it, or simply not really care that much. My grades didn't really matter to me, since school seemed silly and annoying. I felt like I learned more on my own time, and it was much more fun that way. I'd rather follow my interests than to have to pretend to care or force myself to care about what other people thought was important. Most of this is still true for me today.

In a education class in college, when we were learning about ADD I heard a term "twice exceptional" or "2e", and that many 2e kids get by without being diagnosed with ADD. I thought maybe this happened to me, I was always considered "bright" and "well behaved", since I wasn't causing any problems there was no reason to consider something like ADD.  I figured ADD was a kind of silly, that it was just some label to put the blame on kids, when the education system is at fault for not compensating for how different people can be. When I heard of something called "neurodiversity", I decided maybe I should embrace the idea of having a difference like ADD, under the caveat that it shouldn't be called a disorder, and that it has its own unique benefits as well as weaknesses, just like being "neurotypical" would.

I've always felt pressure to somehow justify my behavior. When I'd get reprimanded for not doing an assignment, I'd feel years worth of sadness or animosity about not being understood or given attention. I never felt like my parents paid adequate attention to me or spent enough time with me, and my feelings of loneliness as a kid probably just amplified my imagining, which further distanced me from my family and friends. I just wanted someone to step into my dream world with me so I didn't have to be alone. I wouldn't feel bad about not doing something my parent's wanted, since they didn't know who I really was inside or ever seem to really care. I didn't think I owed anything to any authority figure, I only owed it to my dreams to make them real, to make them understood.

I don't know if I should call myself a "MDer", but it seems I need some kind of explanation for myself. Maybe it'd be a way I can express my feelings of difference to others. Whenever I try to explain to my mom how I see the world, which in my mind justifies my actions, she can't understand or resists. I've lived a year as an exchange student in Istanbul, Turkey, and the next year at an International University in Madrid, Spain. Though I used to want to show people imaginary worlds, like in the video games I played, now I want to show people the real world, or at least what the real world seems like to me. Most people living in a place have no idea what life is like in another country, nor do they realize how the "comforts" of the "developed world" often come at the costs of those living in the "third world". If the people around me aren't aware of or don't acknowledge the environmental, social and economic injustices that their conventional, status quo life style, then why am I to blame for refusing to adjust to a corrupt system? It certainly has never adjusted at all for me.

Sorry if my tone has come off a bit, life has been emotional for me :-P Here's part of my introduction at least, we'll call it one half for now. Next I'm going to write the dream half... its gonna be more fun :)

[Lauren M]

I strongly believe you're an MD'er. I can tell because we're always highly intelligent, lonely (by choice) and we're escapists. We travel the world in search of experiencing some kind of rebirth. Well, at least that's what I was looking for when I joined the Navy 5 years ago. I figured I'd find my true identity somewhere out in the world while becoming a sailor. We think big. We're indecisive, but we also sometimes make random decisions that are inconsistent with our default personality...like decisions that are coming from another identity.

PS

My recruiter never knew anything was wrong with me, still doesn't know (probably doesn't even know I'm out)

I made it through bootcamp without any suspicion

I boarded my first ship without any problems with authority

...and then BOOM! 7 months in and I desperately needed to daydream. I needed to pace or at least be granted the privacy to act out these scenarios. I sometimes resorted to bathroom stalls. It's the only place no one will bother you at. So, that's where my naval adventures had to come to an end. The ship's psychologist just called it borderline personality and sent me home. I'm like, these guys will call anything anything in order to avoid admitting they just don't know.

I'm glad you finally found wild minds.

[Anjali Negi]

Wow you sound so much like myself , i can identify with so many things that you wrote above.

[taffle]

Hi and welcome to wild minds!