Relieved and Overwhelmed...and full of Hope

[lulu]

Please forgive my grammar and spelling punctuation, as I have a lifetime of secrets. I wrote this at 5am this morning and my internet was down so I sent it as soon as i could. It’s just a steady stream of a reaction of finally having HOPE.

 I’m 30 years old. For 30 years I have been escaping into my own head. From a lonely little girl to a lonely adult. I’ve been diagnosed and rediagnosed with mental disorders for years and no one has known, not the expensive child psycholgists employed by my parents to normal their dark and awkward child, to the kindly spanish shrink who doles out my Celexa and Ambien today, about my secret world. I was so scared they were going to tell me this compulsion was  symptom of yet another disorder, schizophrenia, and then what would happen to me? But schizophrenics don’t control there hallucinations, and this is clearly NOT hallucinating. I was reading Eat Pray Love and Liz was talking about her inability to quiet her mind and mediate and oh how I know the feeling. I want to have a quiet mind but I have never had one. I’d never get out of this mental prison of my own design. This is escaping into your own head for comfort and control, Oh, I have a lifetime of who-be-gone tales I can tell, but tonight, after a fervent prayer to God to get rid of my addiction to my own mind once and for all one of those God whispers came, that still small voice, “You spend so much time on the internet why don’t you just google it?” I typed in “I have lived in a fantasy world my entire life”. I burst into tears when I read the call for help of someone caught up in their own brain, elaborate characters, the history, the fact they couldn’t remember a time when they DIDN’T escape, the music trigger, the compulsion to jump around like a fool, the facial expressions, the hiding, being called a space cadet. The delicate egg of a land where only you rule and your terrified of someone finding out. OH MY GOD. I’m not the only one. Few more clicks and IT HAS A NAME. Maladaptive Daydreaming. Oh God thank you thank you. I’m not alone. I need to be in reality with my kids, not in fantasyland. I need to be here. I’m sorry I’m bawling as I write this. I was so, so frightened that one day I would retreat into my world and never come out. I’m realizing right now that I don’t have an emotional connection to my characters that have evolved with me over my lifetime, but I’ve never even considered that. For the at least last 10 years it has been a burden. But a soft place to escape out of my lonliness to a place where I am adored and loved where the things I am lacking in my life are fullfilled. I’ve never questioned that it bloomed out of extreme lonliness. But I couldn’t and can’t make friends, so I didn’t have any choice. I’m also a food addict. They say food addiction can be helped by engaging in relationships with people but I never had that option. I know if I had the choice I’d be surrounded by people. My inner universe speaks to that. So I am a binge eating daydreamer. I’ve tried lovingly releasing my world but it only leads to another world, and I retreat back to my old stand by universe where I am really for all intents and purposes a goddess in my own mind. It occurs to me now that if I could just show my dr what goes on in my fantasy life it would be all to clear what is wrong with me and what I need because it’s all there, written in the characters I have created for myself. What color is the sky in my world? I’m often asked because I can be found staring into space. I have been embarassed by people finding me jumping around. I used to have odd compulsions to run as a kid, making me even more of a social pariah. Even after a 8 year relationship, and 2 kids, I am still not fully in the real world and never ever have been. Now I live unemployed, I don’t have a license, waiting for my disability appeal to go through, alone with my kids, not dealing with things. Not entirely rooted in reality. I know my world is not real, but I’m not fully engaged in the real world, never have been, and tonight, well it’s 5am now, I realized this. I’m feeling a relief I haven’t felt in years. I want to clean my house today and take my son outside. I want to be HERE AND NOW. I want to move on with my life and be in reality and love me for who I am and not the woman I created in my head. But maybe I am her some where, minus the rock star, omg I can’t believe I actually typed that! Yes I am a rock star in my world! It feels so freeing! Smart and confident and strong, somewhere... now if I can only get her out of my head and make that independent woman from this scared anxious, utterly dependent mental case! Oh God I am so happy. Right now if someone told me they were an Atheist and didn’t believe in a Higher Power instead of my normally tolerant self I’d call them a fool. I got my answer. I thought my habit too strange to even think about searching for a answer before. and there is a whole community of US US US (more then just me!) with entirely different dimensions we live in. The music trigger. Wow. I thought I was so crazy and this is a typical symptom. I the urge to jump around like a fool. OMG I’m so overwhelmed and happy. This is something I was too embarassed to even tell my shrink about, for fear he’d recommend a lengthy pysch ward stay and tell child protective services to take away my kids. It feels like iron bars on my brain have finally been lifted. I have a chance at freedom. I have a chance at freedom. I have a chance at engaging fully in THE NOW and being a better parent and dealing with my issues, which are many. but right now I just wanna bask in this sweet serenity of reality. I can exhale, It has a name. I can rip the top off my head and let the people and scenarios out, let them go, now that I have other people to help me, so expect me here a lot. Hi, my name is Sara and I’m a Maladaptive Daydreamer. 8) 

[Jules]

Hi Sara. I'm so glad you've found us too! (: I understand a lot of what you're saying, and it was a relief for me too, to know I'm not the only one. I believe in God...not sure what I'd do without Him. All the best. xo