Imaginary Friends/Playmates; or, The Boy from Venus

[Arch]

Hey, imaginary friends aren't supposed to do that. They are a place and a land where you go to get away from reality and mean people for a while. It is a place where you can go where you are free to live your wildest dreams and ain't no one toss you off your pink cloud, you own it, so if they are mean to you just give them this eviction papers, there's lots of imaginary friends and pets out there looking for a home in your imagination.

The therapist? Now what does he got to do with your imagination? He don't have to know unless you feel there is a reason to mention it to him.

I've never talked about my fantasy life to anyone on this forum except Nero. In fact, the only people on the planet who know about my fantasies are Nero, my therapist, my closest real-life friend, and my partner. I have characteristically been a little reserved on these boards, but I think I'm ready to open up a little.

The way I understand it, imaginary friends, in a way, insert themselves into our real world. I had that from an early age until sometime in adolescence. But when I was quite small, I also started crawling into my head, creating internal stories and peopling them with characters that I had invented. I always entered these worlds as one of the characters, not as my real-world self. I didn't know it at the time, but the characters that I played were in many ways more accurate representations of me than was my "real" self.

As a budding gay boy, I suppose it was only natural to have daddy-son fantasies. I have always been confused about my gender and sexuality, and I have always felt stuck at the age of thirteen. That's right before I started to really develop, physically, into a female instead of the boy that I thought I was. I guess my dads provided a refuge, a place where I could be the boy, have the adolescence that I had been denied, be healed of my psychological wounds, and be mentored by a loving gay father. My dads helped me to cope with being trapped on the cusp of a male adolescence that never came.

These fantasies became an actual physical need. If I didn't go into my head periodically, my mind would become sluggish and I would start having trouble functioning in the real world. Unfortunately, for the last fifteen years or so, I have relied more and more on these fantasy dads for emotional support. The fantasies kept me alive and somewhat sane, but they became a substitute for relationships with real people. They even contributed to my decision not to transition in the nineties. I had perfect worlds, perfect relationships, and the right gender and sexuality in my mind. So I kept right on living there.

When I fully came out this summer and decided to pursue therapy, that was the first step toward transition, the first step toward my hypothetical fourteenth birthday. I hadn't "seen" my fantasy dads in a while and asked them where they'd been (I think of my fantasy dads as autonomous individuals, so it seemed sensible to confront them). They--that is, the part of me that governs them--clearly recognized that therapy was a way for me to move forward and become a man. They apparently believed that the I'm-a-thirteen-year-old-boy scenario would hold me back. They understood that I was in more capable hands now (I've said it before, and I'll say it again: my therapist is AWESOME). So they gave me an ultimatum. They told me that I could have my fantasies back (and, presumably, stay thirteen and emotionally damaged and physically female forever), or I could continue seeing my therapist (and start moving forward with my life). As I said earlier, I chose to move forward.

Because this was a momentous decision--no matter how silly it might sound--of course I told my therapist everything. And he's helping me come to terms with it all.

I don't know whether my dads are gone for good. I do know that they were giving me a chance to live my life and fully become myself. And I also know that, at least for now, I have cut myself off from the ability to create new fantasies, even if they're not built on the same kinds of stories and characters that I've always relied on.

I have mostly lived a lonely life, no matter how many people have been around me. But I've never been so lonely in my life as when my three gay fathers cut me off. I'm still grieving for them as if they were real people. To me, they are.

I spoke to my main dad, the patriarch and my favorite, one last time before he went away. He told me that he would always love me--and that now I needed to go out and find my peace. My life is still filled with more emotional turmoil than I ever thought possible, but I'm trying to find my way. I know that my dads are with me in spirit, even if I can't see them or talk to them. I know that they're a part of me and that I can find their best qualities in myself. I know that someday I'll incorporate them into the gay man that I am becoming.

Still, occasionally, I find my eyes searching for my favorite dad here in the real world. But I know that he's not here where I can see him. He's inside me. I constantly have to remind myself of something that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once wrote: "What's essential is invisible to the eye."

[cindybc]

Hi Arch geeee, so sorry, I guess I never thought that living even part time in imagination can mean problems for some. I pray that some day you will fins a beloved like I have, no one deserved to live alone. I was alone for a lot of years before I met my beloved. I kept myself occupied with my work and other outside interests. Actually I was using reality to try to establish my credibility as a real person in the world. I always thrived for attention for as far back as memory can reach. I loved doing the clown act and get people to laugh, I still do.

Now this brings us to about twelve years ago, when GID reared it's head to where it ran rampant out of control if you know what I mean. It was  around that time I began my first tentative steps into the real world in the female gender roll. But my using imagination as a way to escape from reality and live as myself in imagination helped me to find who the inner-self was. I decided to move to the little town where my kids lived, at least got to spend three years with them, my son lived with me for a year and my two daughters left town for college, haven't seen them since. My son got killed a year later in a car accident and for a time I lived mostly in fantasy trying to escape the pain until I secured employment as a social worker for mental health recipients. This job became the most important focal point for me in my life. It kept me in touch with reality

Still the loneliness would get to me when I was at home and so I spent a lot of time in imagination which also prompted me to wright fantasy stories. That was why I just had this big silly smile on my face when I stumbled over this thread, I didn't think anyone believed in fantasy and make believe anymore. But then all good thing do go their way after a time anyway huh. Where you need to shake hands with your imaginary friends and say "Bye!"

Anyway I began playing out my imaginary games in the privacy of my own home in the beginning. Like a lady wearing a beautiful fairy tale sparkly white gown and going to a ball with this aging debonaire well to do gentleman, I believe I got the gown from some thrift store. complete with the music and the fake champaign. 

Again with the same debonair gentleman, I went to a book signing, it was my own first novel. I remember I was dressed in a ladies business suit and in my mind I walking up the imaginary stage to the podium and thanked everyone and signed my book. The  all who were there began to clap hands loudly as my cheeks reddened some I curtsied and walked back off the stage to rejoin my partner.

Another time I climbed down this realy steep hill in the bush behind the apartment building where I lived and walked a short distance away to this large sand pit. I was dressed in a make shift harem type of costume, I kicked my shoes off and walked out feeling the soft cool sand under my feet. In my mind I was magically transformed int the princess of the desert, as I looked up at the canopy of a multitude of stars, I danced and kicked at the sand and then ran around giggling like a little kid out for recess.

On yet another occasion I climbed down the same steep hill I was wearing white dressy shorts and a white halter top with a shawl over my shoulders. I was walking down this trail that led down to the beach along the bay while stopping momentarily to listen to all the tiny chorus of night sounds. I leaned my head back slightly and breathed in deeply of the fragrance carried on the night air then exhaled slowly. There was a very large orangish moon coming up over the horizon as I walked out unto the beach. I untied my hair and let it fall loosely on my shoulders as I walked around the beach, then sat down on the sand and just daydreamed for a little while.

I then got up and walked back toward where the trail was Something caught my eyes and looked up towards the top of the trees , then dew in my breath in awe. This was a phenomena the likes I had never seen before. There was this spiders web that stretched between the tops of two trees, and there were all there tiny water droplets in the web that looked like tiny diamonds glittering in the silver moonlight. It truly had an appearance of being magical or something.  Anyway I played out the rest of my imaginary excursion by having my debonair partner row to the shore in a dingy then rowing back to his yacht and going for a cruise while I stood beside my him at the bow, letting the wind ruffle through my hair.

I don't remember after that how many times I would get into my car ans drive to another town and just walk around as Cindy. I also once went to a very large and popular beach on the Georgian bay in Ontario, in a girls bathing suit, I spent the entire day there with people milling all around me and was never disturbed. 

Soon after I met a woman which I became good friends with, she had three children and I love children so needless to say she had herself a built in babysitter. As time went on I went out with her to visit her friends dressed up in female mode. Shortly after I came out full time to all and at works as well. My friend had to go away for drug rehabilitation and she left her three kids in my care. Two boys and one girl. How wonderful that was, I had 9 kids go under my roof through the years but this was the first time as female. I finally could be a real mom, well at least for two years. I had a good amount of friends back in that little town but here I am accumulating a good amount of friends and of course. I still love the attention, geee, I should have been a movie star or something. But now I am getting attention from real people. But I sometimes still enjoy visiting my imaginary friends and pets.

So the moral of the story is that using imagination encouraged me to come out of the closet so to speak. I guess this imagination stuff doesn't react the same way for everyone. Sorry. Truly I am sorry if I mislead anyone with this imagination stuff.

Sorry for any spelling errors and typo's I may have missed, I beleive I am being just to emotional today, shouldn't even be on here. But I will never let my imagination die.

Cindy