Intoxication with Magical Worlds

I was a weird kid.

And not just normal weird, but mountain weird. It’s a special kind of weird.

Part of being a weird kid included an unhealthy obsession with fantasy worlds.

Marvel Comics, pro wrestling, the Snarkout Boys, Batman, Calvin and Hobbes. That kind of stuff.

I get that this is all cool and normal for kids. I think it was one of the ways I impaired and entranced myself to avoid dealing with some things though.

I didn’t just like these fantasy worlds, they absorbed me.

I tried to find ways to bring them into my everyday world. This continued on until way to late in life.

I had a running conversation in my head with whatever thing I was into at the time. I had wrestling announcers running commentary on how I was living my life (and it was always awesome). I had this story that I started in my head to help me fall asleep when I was little, and I kept adding to it for years and years and years.

There’s nothing wrong with having an imagination or enjoying fantasy, within reason.

I think when I was younger, and into my teenage years, I chose this over people and reality. I used it to avoid dealing with things, and this always sets us up for difficulty.

I began to imprint these things over the real world, and to seek identity in them.

I saw traits that I liked in characters and tried to force them onto myself. This often came off as clunky and disingenuous. It made me awkward and hard to relate to, and led me to seek attention in the wrong ways. If I am to zero in on why I think this seemingly innocent obsession with imaginary things was detrimental to me, I would say it was because it was an outgrowth of my desire to be anyone but me. It gave me way too many ways to escape myself and avoid growing.

This is probably the most harmless of the intoxications we’ll look at in this series. I get that some people won’t understand why I am writing about it, but it is also one of the more frustrating for me. I think it stunted my maturity to some degree and contributed to a social awkwardness that really affected me when I was older.

I still like a good story though.