Outside my head

[Jessica Ballantyne]

This is going to sound annoying. Living in a town for 29 years, all I ever heard by others is that I'm so quiet. They literally couldn't get a word out of me. I was too busy daydreaming in my head to realize how I looked on the outside. I actually never knew it made me look stupid. Non-family can be vigorous that way. I always used MD as a way to escape my frustrations, but it did me more harm that good, so I had to quit. It was the best decision I made. 

What reasons did you start doing MD? We're their any social issues involved that triggered this? 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

I think that I deserved what I got, for not living on Earth. Life just passed me by. Everybody walked away from me. Now I'm out looking for a new bunch. Fortunately, the past is all behind me, like I'm not interested in looking back anymore. I can finally move forward. 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

As much as I believed in my daydreams—they weren't real. In a way, I just drifted apart from life itself, which I shouldn't have done. I kept on thinking life will get better, when really, I was supposed to make sure it get better. I was waiting for everything to just come to me, when it should've been vice versa. Probably it's how I got raised and overindulged, and had it quite soft. I get mad when I look at my peers, and they're not in the shit I'm in, because they did the right things. In spite, they were goofballs and idiots back in school. And I was the one who sat there all calmly and quietly. I guess there's no fooling anybody when it comes to who you truly are and what prospects you really do have. My point is I mentally walked away from life, when I should've stayed in line with it. Maladaptive daydreaming was the biggest mistake I've ever made, and lots of people found out about it.  

[Jessica Ballantyne]

I'm looking at my background with a new viewpoint. I wondered why everybody was so picky when I was in school. It occurs to be that you're only young once. They all noticed the same thing about me, I wasn't a social butterfly, and I wasn't talkative. So the teasing and harassment was ongoing. Of course, these were children had no propensity and understanding of the world awaiting them. So they didn't realize how harmful their actions and doings were. 20 years have gone by, and I realize these teenagers are now grown adults like my parents. They'd have significant, bigger lives,—which I have yet to work on. So I've been jumping at shadows for a bit of time. Now I wake up this morning and realize I need to get a life...and stop dwelling on what I went through. 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

I'm networking with a director from a toy and product consumables company, and a recruiter for a confidential real estate company. Showing them my resume and portfolio, and everything. I hope it all goes well, and one of them decides to hire me on. 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

Ever since covid-19 broke out and I lost my job, my health has gone down hill. Waking up in the morning is hard. I feel awful and need a dark roast coffee with my breakfast. I even drink a second cup afterwards. My mom brings up that our grinds get used up faster. And then I don't feel a 100% for hours. I wonder if quarantine is doing this to me. I get headaches and brain fog, because I'm always sitting down in a room, and the muscles in my neck and upper back get tender. 

[Kiruba Victor]

Wow, that's quite something. I guess he learnt skills immediately, whereas we both take our own sweet time with it.

I tried Tinder and Bumble yesterday, but to no avail. No matches. I'm starting to lose hope of ever getting a date.

[Jessica Ballantyne]

My cousin didn't do his best in school and sometimes sat there unemployed, then his mom passed away of a disease, and he now works as an online IT consultant and shares a house with his mom's boyfriend. 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

It can't escape me how confident I was that I was going to win someone over. I didn't stop to think, what if my parents were gone in 10 years, or tomorrow, what will I do then? I was so stupid. Now I'm in big trouble. I'm out of school and out of work. 

[Kiruba Victor]

Yeah, sometimes, that does happen to me as well. But I try my best to clear it. You can perhaps clear it out if it happens again. 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

I always dwelled on how I feel about everything and how everyones treats and views me. But I never stopped to look at the other side of the coin, and realize there's other people in the world. Maybe I didn't stop to think how somebody else might feel having me around. As much as, many of them were jerks. Somebody must've thought I was a jerk too. I might've impacted others emotionally in a way they didn't want to be my friend, and I didn't see this.