I watched two episodes of The Queen's Gambit and one one Riverdale. That's a lot of tv for me in one day. When I look back at what I've done in one day the answer is usually very little. but my day usually feels like I have been kept busy and my time has been well spent. That's because I've spent it lost in my imagination, spent with Ray. Over the years I've mostly spent my time with James or Ray or had other brief interludes with whoever I was obsessed with at any given point. Of course I've had real life relationships. When I've been with someone my reliance on my imagination has diminished. When I am alone though, I need that crutch to get through life.
It's not just the men that have been imaginary though. There have been whole imaginary lives woven around us. I am my best self when I am with them. I feel like I am the person I could have been had I been given a better start in life. Some of it is wish fulfilment too of course. When I am with James I can play musical instruments and paint and make art from embroidery. My name is Virginia and I have a loving family and strength of character. With Ray I can dance and do gymnastics. I can stand up for myself in a man's world and am bilingual.
With them I am never lonely.
I spend whole days with them, living other lives, barely leaving my sofa in the real world.
I read somewhere there is a name for this. It is called Maladaptive Daydreaming. When you lose yourself in an imaginary world because your real life isn't bearable. It becomes a problem because it starts interfering with your everyday life.
I know it's a problem, but so is my everyday life and I can't do much to change that, so imaginary life it is.
*
I vividly remember walking along the street between my mum's house and my old secondary school one day. I still lived with her so I might have been in my early twenties. I was going for my daily walk. I couldn't go very far from home without being utterly overwhelmed by fear and anxiety but staying in the house all day drove me nuts. I would go for a walk to the library or to the High Street and buy a wholemeal scone from the Co-op or a cappucino muffin from Boots. I'd get one for mum too as I'm a generous person, and also she always made me feel selfish and greedy if I didn't.
As I was walked along the quiet residential street I passed a red car. As I passed I felt an intense urge to stop and read the registration numbers on the license plate. I don't know why, I just felt the need to do it.
And then I felt the need to do it again. And again. Soon I was reading the license plate of every car I passed. It was ridiculous. And boring. And time consuming. And a compulsion I could not stop.
At home things were getting strange too.
I suddenly found myself afraid of contamination. More me contamination others than the other way round. I began washing my hands a lot and in a very specific way. I had to wash them between touching things and I remember mum shouting at me for moving something on the kitchen worktop with my elbows, but I just couldn't touch it with my hands as I'd already touched food. I couldn't risk the contamination. I felt if I contaminated her, she would take it with her wherever she went and it would spread exponentially completely out of my control and I was helpless to stop it. I could see it unfolding in my mind with complete horror.
I started doing one or two little rituals before I went to bed at night. Nothing drastic, just checking the time, making sure the taps were off, things like that.
Then one day, completely out of nowhere I realised it was light outside. It was morning. I could hear mum stirring as she was about to get up for work. I honestly thought I only did a few harmless pre-bed rituals, but without me even being aware it had spiralled out of control and it was taking me literally all night to go to bed. I would start at around ten o'clock, but I might have to start again if mum fucked something up before she went to bed, and I would spend the whole night locked into lining up tins in the kitchen cupboards, straightening curtains, moving the phone into the exact right spot on the table under the stairs, checking the time on the three different kitchen clocks (cooker, wall and microwave), washing my hands and other stupid pointless bullshit that provided no purpose or added anything of value to my life. But I would rather have died than not have done it. I was locked in to it. I was screaming inside the whole time. I hated every second with a burning passion. I wanted so very much to go to bed and stop this bullshit but I absolutely couldn't.
