My Story Thus Far

[Aine]

I guess it all started when I was around 4 or 5, I had learned to read at a pretty early age, so my imagination was already sparked. I'm not sure what triggered the MD but it most likely came from many sources at once.  My parents separated 6 months after I was born and my Dad would visit once a year or so, he lived in Europe.  I grew up in a single parent/extended family household, so I was always surrounded by adults most of them much older than me.  I was a lonely child and an only child until the age of 9. TV, music and books were my escape.

At the age of 5, I was sent to a prestigious French school. We are not a French speaking family. Kindergarten was bilingual, but all grades after that were "total immersion" into the French language and culture.  I didn't understand why I had 4 hours of homework every night from the time I was 7. My mom was a teacher and very strict about my studies I couldn't play outside after school with my friends.  I was forced to do homework immediately after school.  My daydreaming became my escape from it all. The first DD was an ABC book that had loads of children in one family. They became my family and from then on my DD always consisted of a large family full of siblings. It still does sometimes. Well one of my recurring fantasies does anyway.

School became a nightmare because I wasn't focused on my studies , my mind would just drift.  I didn't feel like I fit in with many of the kids. I was just a regular middle class kid and I was going to school with  the elite, it made me look at myself differently and judge myself at a very early age. I never wanted for anything, yet I always felt left out and different. I no longer fit in with the neighborhood kids, because I went to the fancy French school. I also spoke differently, dress differently etc. I just wanted to be like everyone else, I guess. DD was everything to me, hours would be lost with a book open studying. I'd swear that I was studying, but my mind was not there. Grades were not good, I was screamed at and hit for not performing well in school. School was not a place for learning but my prison. In many ways it almost destroyed me.

I later went on to use DD throughout my life as stresses increased during my childhood, parents reconciled briefly, then abandonment and betrayal by one parent, DD was all I know and what I needed to get by.

As an adult, DD has taken over at time, keeping me from achieving many of the goals that I have wanted to achieve. I am thrilled that I am not alone and that I have found others who "get me". I always just thought I was weird and crazy but was scared that others would see me this way too. Since coming on this site and meeting so many lovely people, I have learned that MD is a gift. What a shift of the mind. I now have to reexamine everything that I believed about myself.  But now the possibilities are endless. Yes, I will still be challenged, and no one other than my therapist knows about the MD, but I can rest so much easier now, knowing that I'm not alone.

Thank you SO much Cordellia for this site. And sorry for ranting and raving so long.

[roxanne]

I am so glad you are seeing the positives of MD.  It doesn't erase the difficulties, but certainly makes them a lot more bearable.  

I'm curious as to how your therapist responds to this?

[Jennifer]

Woow, very inspiring. Thank you for sharing your beautiful story.