Hope

I got this guy, who shall be known as Mr. Wonderful, mixed up in my head with all of my Hope for the Future.

I began to only think, with hope, for the future, when I thought about a future with him in it. I began to use the concept of him to fill in for all of the emptiness in my life.

There have a been a lot of empty holes, crevasses even, like not going to a certain college when I had the opportunity to go there on a big scholarship, not going to any other colleges I got admitted to, not finishing college a long time ago, not keeping or getting certain jobs, not having friends, not having boyfriends, not being in love with other people besides Mr. Wonderful and one person after him, and other areas....where Mr. Wonderful and the Fantasy of Him filled in the empty space.

I did not know what else to do, but fill in the empty space with something, so I took something out of my imagination and used that. I freely admit this, because I think it is only the result of normal human flaws, and that it also became more grandiose than it would have otherwise been because I have a mental illness that makes me prone to delusional thinking.

I am not saying I totally imagined Mr. Wonderful - he's real, of course. I just imagined this whole future with him in it. Really, I have done this with other people as well. I imagine a fake ridiculously impossible future with my ex-boyfriend for a while which led me to staying with him when I should have broken up with him a year ago. When I was really sick, I imagined a relationship with Anderson Cooper, who I thought (I didn't know he was gay then) was my soulmate and my "Illuminati" husband for the New World Order (this is when I was not on medication). I used to think about Andy all the time too, just like I think about Mr. Wonderful.

So I know that this distorted thinking is a problem I am prone to having, and I know that there are reasons why I have this problem. What I do not really know is how to GET RID of the problem. I have read that in people with Schizophrenia, fixed delusions can remain even when other symptoms are stabilized by medication. You just end up having to live with the delusion. I don't want to have to live like that for another eleven years.

It doesn't help matters that Mr. Wonderful is real, and not out of reach like Anderson Cooper. It doesn't help that I am used to telling him everything and sharing with him the things I don't talk about with anyone else. It doesn't help that he's like my closest confidante. These facts make it harder to rid myself of the delusion about him being a part of my future.

On occasions, Mr. Wonderful has said things that he probably just said because he was trying to be nice to me, but which ended up giving me false hopes that he would want to meet me in the future and things like that. I should have just told him directly not to mislead me with these kinds of statements, since he obviously is just saying this stuff and does not mean it. But then, deep down, I would hope....and hope got mixed up with his name and his email address. H-O-P-E.

Now, it is time for me to figure out how to have hope for the future in a future WITHOUT Mr. Wonderful in it. Because, the fact is, he has no desire to be part of my future, and pretending like he does is only doing me a lot more harm than good.

I might end up deleting this post later, but I will leave it here for now in case anybody can relate to this problem.

Thanks for coming by.