ohmymagenta0214
New Daydreamer
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. - Nietzsche
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Post by ohmymagenta0214 on May 8, 2021 3:47:25 GMT
I was recently reminded of one of my first celebrity crushes, a WWF wrestler named Owen Hart (It was the early 1990’s - don’t judge me). When I was about 15, I became a big WWF fan. My boyfriend at the time & his friends introduced me to it & I ended up really getting into the drama of it all. Wrestling became super popular in the 90’s, featuring wrestlers with larger than life personalities. I found many of the men attractive & incorporated a few into my daydreams, but nothing serious. I always found Owen Hart attractive & loved his stage personality. He had such a kind face & just looked like he was a genuinely nice person. Perhaps it was that characteristic that made me insert him into my daydreams. My aforementioned boyfriend at the time, Fred, was very emotionally abusive. He was living with my mother & I at the time to leaving his own physically abusive household, so I had nowhere to hide. My bedroom was in the loft of my mother’s apartment, separate from the rest of the house. It had a large walk-in closet, where I’d often be found sitting on the floor reading comic books. One evening during a particularly nasty verbal onslaught, I retreated to the closet while Fred continued to berate me from his seat in the bedroom. The way the loft was designed the closet was set apart from the main area; you couldn’t see inside it unless you got up to look around a corner. So I’m standing inside the closet crying listening to Fred tear me down when all of a sudden, I ‘see’ Owen standing in front of me. He was speaking very softly to me, saying everything was going to be alright, saying don’t listen to what Fred was saying, & that he’d take care of me. Just being very soothing and kind. At one point he wrapped his arms around me & I could feel the warmth emanating from him. I have no idea how long this went on for, but I snapped out of it when Fred suddenly appeared in the closet behind me, grabbing my shoulder asking me if I was alright. He said he’d been standing there calling my name for a while & gotten no response. I was just staring at the wall. The thing that brought me back to reality was when Fred grabbed my shoulder, making direct physical contact. My recollection of the particulars of this incident are somewhat hazy given that it occurred 28 years ago. While I was very much comforted by the experience in the moment, after I had time to process everything, I had some questions. My earliest memory of daydreaming was at the age of 5. I regularly engaged in daydreaming for the majority of my childhood as a pleasant escape from reality. This incident felt different. I didn’t consciously daydream about Owen; he just ‘appeared’ during a particularly awful verbal dispute. When I say that I ‘saw’ Owen, I don’t think I visually hallucinated him or had tactile hallucinations when I felt his body warmth. Knowing what I know now about trauma, I’m sure it was my brain’s way of protecting me. Still, it was a tiny bit unsettling for me at the time. To this day, I haven’t experienced another incident like this. I’ve certainly been in more toxic relationships since I was 15 & have called upon my daydream characters in times of need to comfort me, but its always been with purposeful intent. I’ll never forget that experience or how it made me feel & am grateful for how it helped me cope.
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Post by fellowmder on May 9, 2021 13:28:36 GMT
Well, I never had an experience like that before but my own recollection of past memories make we wonder if a certain incident in my life were a reality or not. I think I was also a daydreamer since I was 5 and I used to daydream maybe because I was jealous of my brother being center of attention in the house(he had major health issues back then, and I do realise as I grow up why my parents had to take care of him). Right then, I don't quite remember if it were a daydream or reality or a nightmare but an incident had happened between my brother's friend and me. I was kinda molested by him over the course of few days and remembering back I wonder whether as a 12-13 yr old did I felt uncomfortable by it or actually did not mind it. It may seem disgusting, I myself feel the same way but because it is a very hazy memory I don't quite remember myself. What puzzles me is my maid, all of a sudden was part of this scenario and helped me out of this situation, where I clearly remember that guy forcing himself over me. The scene was so weird, like I don't know how she suddenly came within the house even when that guy had locked the doors from inside. So, realizing at age of 17 that I was a daydreamer (maybe not a maladaptive daydreamer) since a really young age, I think it was a daydream.
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Post by Theaxe on May 9, 2021 18:04:53 GMT
I remember Owen Hart well. (I'm Canadian, and followed the happenings of the Hart family for a while.)
As most of us know, daydreaming for us is a form of soothing ourselves, to feel good - whether we are trying to ease the feeling of boredom or protect ourselves when we are feeling bad. It's quite natural to read that you morphed Owen Hart to be your guardian angel during the times when you were abused. You needed to do this in order to survive the horrible treatment you went through.
The rest that I'm about to say is a bit lengthy, but it does help me a bit to get this off my chest.
I have a similar story, but like you and many others, my daydreaming started when I could create independent thought as a toddler. I used it for times of feeling bad myself. (Though I was never abused as a child, I constantly felt inadequate and misjudged.) My MD crushes/loves were often famous men from TV shows or films. I believe the very first one I can recall was Bo Duke (John Schneider) from Dukes of Hazzard. Funnily enough, I don't have an attraction to him whatsoever today, and really don't know what I was thinking back then as a five year-old.
When I was in my mid-30s, I was in an abusive relationship. Not physically. Mentally and emotionally. I was in a long-distance relationship and the treatment I had over the phone, on Skype, text messages, and emails (no FaceTime yet back then) was something you'd think I could just "delete" and be done with. But it wasn't so easy.
This person came into my life with all the sincerity and goodness that I hadn't expected. I "met" him through a real-life friend in a game we played online, and he and I just continued to talk offline. At first, I hadn't been through anything like this before. My relationships were always in-person. I thought this was wonderful since getting to know someone from afar -- without intimacy -- means it couldn't interfere with the things I often overlooked when I met someone.
This carried on for about five months before we really did meet in person. I went to his end of the world and stayed with him for about a week. He assured me there would be no sex, and everything was in my court. When I arrived, he played by the rules. He barely touched me. It was actually me who initiated our intimacy, and because of that, I felt more trust.
When I flew home, I noticed things had soured. He became a bit possessive and boorish. When I asked him what the problem was, he excused the behaviour saying that it was just that he missed me so much, and how hard this was to be apart now.
I took it as a bit of an extreme compliment. He was so crabby because he couldn't see me. What an ego boost, right? That's how I interpreted it.
But things worsened.
This guy had wormed into my life when we were on "good terms" and knew my parents, talked to them, knew their address, knew my address, knew some of my friends, knew where I worked, etc. I mean, we had been together talking for hours on end every day and finally met and sealed the deal, it was pretty natural he knew some of these things.
Because things soured after meeting, the damage was done from afar. He knew details about where I lived and worked, and the closest people to me, and used these things as weapons.
First of all, I simply could NOT get some peace and quiet after a raging fight on the phone, which was beginning to happen often. He could call incessantly, clogging up my Voicemail, sending texts. It didn't matter if I shut my phone off, they'd all be there waiting for me the moment I turned it on. And no sooner than we saw each other, HE booked another flight to come see ME. So it loomed that he would be here, and know exactly where to go.
It was incredibly stressful and the things that he used to scream at me were unbelievable. I say we were together for two years, but the reality was we were together for about five months, and I spent the remaining 19 months trying to get rid of him. And yes, in that remaining 19 months I saw him four more times -- always because flights were booked. When we were physically together, he was relatively good to me (still had his moments!) but he again blamed that it made him crazy when we were apart.
I know what people might have thought: "Change your number." I did this. It didn't stop the barrage of letter-writing, contacting my parents by phone and mail, or my friends on social media. He was a frickin' nightmare.
Finally we saw each other ONE last time, and since I already took my vacation time from work that year, I told him I must go to work during his stay and not to give me crap about it while he was here. He said he was fine with it.
So he stayed for a week, then left. We seemed to be fine. He had his stupid moments of raging jealousy, but perpetuated the same excuse that it's because he loved me so much.
When he left, he went back to being awful. Each time worse than the last. I was berated, screamed at, threatened, and like always, he took things to my family and friends. I decided enough was enough. I broke up with him, and of course he became unglued and impossible to deal with -- even from afar.
It was the first attempt at breaking up, and it was like bracing for an earthquake. I knew it wasn't like he could drive by my apartment and hurt me, but he could do so much more damage socially and with my workplace -- and yes, he tried.
Like most people who experience abuse, often times, you don't know how to handle things logically, so you try and pitter-patter around to make things manageable. So like always, I ended up calling him back and trying to keep the peace.
This is where my MD comes in....
One of us made the suggestion to watch a movie together simultaneously while being on the phone. That way it could feel like we're watching something together in-person. I liked the idea, since it gave me about 2 hours of him being quiet. (He was otherwise always unnecessarily loud, always talking, or always making mouth-noises.)
He suggested one movie to me, and sent me a copy by mail. He had a copy himself and once I got mine in the mail, we played it at exactly the same time while we were on the phone and watched it.
Then...I saw him.
There was an actor in this one particular movie that I looked at and instantly felt love. Up to that point, I had a very stale MD crush that really wasn't doing it for me much as of late. And with all the stress, focusing on him wasn't easy either. The abuse I experienced was taking a front seat in my life, and nothing was helping me deal with it, and I didn't even know how to begin. I was a woman in her mid-30s and really felt I should have known better because I was otherwise strong in life. But THIS? I didn't know how to stop it.
So when I saw this beautiful man on the screen, I was so smitten that I chose to re-watch the movie over and over and over. My boyfriend, not understanding this, agreed to even watch it with me over and over. "Good movie, huh?" he assumed. He had no idea what was about to happen.
First of all, it's a foreign film, and the actors are really not known in the English-speaking world. The man I saw was someone I'd never seen in my life, and never heard of even after checking the credits and finding out who he was.
I started stalking him researching online and realized he was just gorgeous at every turn. No matter what film, or how he looked, he was perfect.
I then suggested another film (with him in it). He agreed, and we found it on YouTube and watched it together. He had no idea.
After that, this man became my belly-butterfly-fluttering new crush. I loved thinking of him, daydreaming of us being together in all ways.
My boyfriend unbeknownst to him, helped me find my future husband. I'll explain:
What ended up happening was that I had so much fun daydreaming during the times when I was being abused, that the abuse was now something I wasn't focusing on anymore. Once over the phone, he was screaming at me about something he hated I was doing (unrelated to MD or movie-watching), and I just sat there, took it in one ear and out the other, and when he stopped and panted, waiting for me to cry or yell something in my defense, I just simply said: "Okay, are you done?"
I'm not kidding when he actually screamed the words: "ARGUE BACK!!!!!!"
It was so ridiculous. Argue back? I smile as I type this.
Next, came the actual break up for good. It was incredibly hard, but I just had to do it. You see, he didn't just have a bad temper, but he was never in it for my best interests. I had computer problems, and one of my techie-friends told me he found a webtracker installed on my computer -- get this: installed on one of the dates that my ex was last at my place. So, he had intentions all along of tracking my online habits without my knowledge. Once the tracker was removed, he began making phone calls that day to my family and friends citing that he needed to be in touch with me because I was "in trouble".
He booked a flight to come to me again, but since we live in two different countries, for whatever the reason, the Canadian border decided to randomly screen him upon arrival. (I wish I could take credit for this, as I guess I could have warned about him coming here, but I didn't know he had a criminal record.) They found that he had outstanding issues on his record including criminal harassment and a weapons charge. Weapons?? He was ordered to leave Canada on the first flight out. I wasn't aware of any legal wrongdoings. In fact, I was surprised I hadn't even assumed. He was harassing women he dated previously while we together, claiming he had a right to get "stuff back" from them. I just figured he was obviously reactive and hot-tempered, but didn't really see the signs.
So you see, he was not a good person. He was awful. He knew what he was doing right from the start. Butter me up, and worm into my life, trying to make me believe only his way mattered when it came to everything.
But this webtracker nonsense made me feel so violated. I went to the police, and got some good advice, plus a police file was created in case trouble happened. It was the final time we had communication, in one email where I said: "We're over. I never want to speak to you in any way again, on any medium, or over the phone in any way. Don't contact me. Don't contact my family, friends, or workplace." That was it. I never did talk to him. He desperately tried tactics to get me to talk to him, but I stood my ground and ignored. For three months, I battled the never-ending phone ringing and texts coming in. Didn't answer, I just deleted. At work I was sent flowers and gave them away to someone at a bus stop. Never said a word. It wasn't letting up. He was now pretending to call me by accident, send messages "by accident" saying things like, "I don't know what's gotten into her either. I know I didn't do anything wrong." That sort of thing.
So, after three months, I changed my number, blocked him on social media, put a call out publicly to my friends on Facebook that I'm being terrorized by this person, told my BOSS of all people to watch out because he's going to start making phone calls to my workplace. AND I moved. This breakup was more time-consuming and expensive for that alone. But I got through it all thinking of my handsome new man.
Yes, my (now ex) boyfriend really tried his best to ruin me. He went to social media himself, making claims that I was addicted to drugs, contemplating suicide, and that he had nudes of me to send. (All false, and everyone who knew me, knew better.) He contacted my parents, he contacted my workplace -- but they were all on alert. They shut him down completely, even though he would scream: "She's got you all fooled!" They all knew me, and supported me.
(Not that I need to explain myself here, but I can say with confidence that no man has a photo of my nude body. No one. It's a major self-conscious thing about me. I don't send nudes, never have, never will. My husband doesn't even have any. So that in and of itself was an obvious threat based on nothing. As for "drugs", he knew I was on an anti-depressant due to all the stress. He blew it out of proportion and called my parents to leave a message on their VM saying I was addicted to, and taking an excessive amount of this drug. It was in fact, 10mg. As for suicide. Never. Again, I'm not sure who he thought I was, but death actually freaks me out. The though of feeling bad enough to want to end things actually scares me. A lot of times, though I can sympathize with those feeling suicidal, I also just don't get it.)
Meanwhile, my imaginary man who loved me through it all was my strength. When I needed love and protection to get through these horrible times, he was there and I couldn't wait to be with him when I had quiet times to myself.
The abuse from my ex continued constantly for two years. He actually went on to date someone else, but still stalked me and berated me where he could find me online for another few years. I would say that this hadn't actually come to what I know now as a complete stop until eight years went by.
Approximately three years after breaking up and cutting all contact with him, I met my husband. You see for three years I had been MDing about this actor every single day, that his face and looks were engraved on my brain. Finally one day, I saw a real life guy who resembled him, and I had to catch my breath. I had been on one track of what I found physically beautiful in a man that I filtered out all other men entirely.
When I saw this guy, I instantly felt the butterflies in my belly and felt love for him almost instantly. It was me who approached him first. When I did, he claims today that he felt love at first sight too, toward me. And that no other woman had pursued him the way I did. I confessed rather quickly that he looked like an actor I had a crush on. I showed him a picture online and he said, "Holy crap he does look like me." Yes. He did.
My husband is also the first person I ever confessed to having MD. He sat and listened and accepted. His only worry was that maybe I had negative thoughts about him - the poor dear. I said, far from it. In fact, my husband had become my MD love too. I daydreamed about us all the time. But he didn't care that I had this 'secret' of MDing, and not to worry.
How could I not love him more? I had been out of my abusive long-distance relationship for more than three years, began being loved by a normal person for once in my life, and he was extremely handsome to me. We got engaged and married shortly after.
So when I say that my ex-boyfriend had a hand in actually helping me get rid of him and finding my true love -- that's what happened. My abuse gave me no choice but to MD in order to cope, and by doing so, unwittingly found the man of my dreams.
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