Though arguably less soiled than many lives, my own sculpture has been marred by intense suffering. When evil is done to one who is as sensitive and impressionable as I was, there is no successful outside comfort. Not that it wasn't available, but it wasn't adequate. No person was capable of understanding the depth of my feelings and many times my trials were inadvertantly trivialized. Thus I came to my own juvenile conclusions and massaged my own bruises. In a spark of creativity, I chose to knit a parallel, more nourishing life as insulation against the pain I was forced to endure. In that alternate world I was loved, valued, pretty and coordinated. My efforts paid off and my fears were conquered. I was cheerful, winsome and capable of affecting my circumstances - all that I was not in reality.

I have since early childhood been accused of living in a fantasy world largely due to long periods of time spent gazing into space; however my parallel life had little to do with that. My quiet, pensive nature would beget hours of contemplative thought about deep philosophical topics, even at an early age. During these untold hours, I was utterly still and lost to the world. My starry-eyed hours had no daydreams at all.

Though made on false assumptions, the assessment was more correct than most people knew. Instead of the wispy, passive daydream most presumed I had, my alternate world was an imperceptible garment I wore as I went about life in the here and now. It was woven inextricably in, under and through reality so well that it was always before me. Unless I misspoke nobody could discern its presence.

In this world, my stronger less shaken self would stand beside me and punch the taunting bullies my actual self could not stand up against in third grade. She called out and got help during my many molestations so that at least in that world I was safe and sexually pure. She was the child I wanted to be - my "alternate persona" which I call my "alt" for short. She sang when I cried, she lived the dreams which died in my real life. She took thoughts which annoyed adults or which were too hurtful to me and placed them in a magical trunk "for later." She and the world she lived in were tangible and comforting to me - and I gave little thought to how strange it was most of the time.

As peculiar as the phenomena seems, it began organically at an early age and was quite unspectacular in the beginning. I had heard someone in my head speaking my thoughts in a voice which did not seem my own. Your average preschooler would not have pondered how thoughts sounded, however being average was not within the scope of my personality even at this age. When asked about it, my father said the voice was me, and it lived in a place called my imagination and not to think about it very much. He did not elaborate further and stated he did not like a game of 20 questions. I dared not risk submitting any more questions. I may have been young, but Mama had already taught me to count so I knew I had only asked 4 of them. I deduced that he had heard the voice asking questions I had not asked yet. I carried the belief that others were privy to the information in my head for a few years.

My alt was creative and fun. She always figured out how to do things and was a very trusted mentor. I wanted to fly like the flying nun on television and my alt noticed that birds would take flight from branches high in the trees so we climbed as far as we could go. I looked down at the roof of my home before we jumped. She flew as I knew she would, I did not and landed in the yard, miraculously covered only in sap and bruises. My mother laughed at my imaginary friend as she cleaned me off. Similarly she was amused when I ate laundry soap because my alt was seeking to protect me from punishment. I had spoken one of those dirty words only angry adult men were allowed to say when I hurt myself playing. While the only consequence for that was a bad case of loose bowels, the reaction, paired with many similar ones eventually convinced me that nobody other than me could have contact with the sights and sounds which existed in my head. Additionally, I concluded that my experiences were aberrant - which was not a good thing in my family.

If I ever considered leaving this second life behind at this young age, the thought was fleeting as I can not recall any attempt until adulthood. At the preschool stage, my fantastical escapades were not too far off from the norm, but that was going to change over time as my life tapestry began to come apart around me like an old sweater being unravelled. My father's occupation required frequent moves, often just after forming close friendships. I faced ridicule from all but a significant few in every school I attended, felt unaccepted by loved ones for no tangible reason and attracted the lust of more than one paedophile. Daddy's drinking escalated until it was unbearable and my parent's marriage often seemed to teeter dangerously over some unspeakable abyss. Tears, betrayals and emotional wounds from these and other things caused me to hold the cloak of my imaginary realm tightly around me until almost a complete fusion occurred.

I always knew which was which in substance but I honestly could not see why the first one was more valuable than the second. Because of that I did not hold the real one in more esteem than the other and reserved the right to stay in my own idyllic world any time I chose to. As long as the worlds were parallel, and no one received information from the second, things went fine. Unfortunately they frequently were only shadows of each other and I was not always careful.

About third grade, my wandering military family was not what I wanted. I had become fascinated with gypsies and in my second world my family life got repainted into that of the vagabonds I was studying. When we moved one too many times, I chose to give others information from my alternate life. When the "truth" was revealed, my real life was destroyed. I was labelled a liar and a dreamer. Since I knew nobody would understand, I merely said that we moved alot, just like the gypsies did. I knew I would have to be more careful in the future and I was successful most of the time.

My own world was with me through my childhood, into college, my tour in the military and my 11 year marriage. I did try on numerous occasions to leave it behind when I matured, believing it to be a vestige of childhood which needed to be shed. The two lives had been so conjoined that it seemed impossible to function in the first without the second. My mind would race so fast I could not think and yet it made no sound. I was miserable and life in my head was insufferable. It did not matter how many books I read, how much music I listened to, how many crafts I learned and how much I wrote or drew there was the emptiness...the unnerving stillness of of a mind used to being active enough to entertain two realities being underused and unable to fill itself. There was also an unexplainable, unfathomable grief which I could not quite touch or embrace, and yet neither could I comfort or banish it. I wanted to shut that second plane of my mind off and could not. Each time I tried I resigned in frustration and decided I was mentally unstable.

Over time, the difference between the two was becoming very profound. In the wake of September 11th, I sat soul searching and becoming exceedingly discouraged. Many took stock of their lives, so it was not unusual for me to be doing so as well. However my experience was different as it was two lives I was considering. It wasn't the presence of the second which concerned me; I had resigned myself to it years before. I was experiencing an intense sense of despair as the two lives were so discordant. The second was what I wanted. My alt was who I wanted to be, and yet there were very few commonalities. How could it have gotten to this point?

God sent me a message of hope and encouragement through a friendly and intense conversation I had with one of my rental customers at work. This man seemed to grasp the depth of my pain and know exactly how to speak comfort to it. My imagination went into overdrive to the point my alt was planning a wedding and children. On my way home from work that day I was both elated at the events of the day and upset with my alt at the same time. Something inside me revolted against the idea of incorporating this fascinating gentleman into my inner world, perhaps because of the divine appointment which had been manifest that day.

In order to appease the noises in my head, I decided to allow the fantasy to play out to the end and record it in a novel (one of the many begun but never finished) in order to banish them. It was a trick I had used in the past. I was nearly successful, but I made a critical error in judgement by speaking of the initial event which existed in both worlds as truth. I merely wanted to share how I had been blessed with some close friends over the internet. I recalled the events of the day with my usual literary flourish and everyone was totally thrilled. They also seemed to sense my infatuation with the person and began asking leading questions, mostly in a teasing manner. They wanted what was in my fantasy and so did I. I gave my next move next to no thought, even though I knew better.

I gathered my friends and took them on an unscheduled and unauthorised romp into my fantasy world - neglecting of course to advise them of where we were going. With few notable exceptions, I have managed to govern similar escapades fairly well. When information crossed, it was always an accident but it was not one I could not handle. If I did not wish it to continue I would betray myself and allow people to believe I was a pathological liar and go on with my life. If it was too tempting, instead I would allow it to continue as long as I felt I could control it. When I tired of the trip, or if it looked unstable, I either wrote a good ending for the fantasy or a good exit for myself from the situation, thus ending it for everyone before the reality surfaced. As the second reality was as real to me as the first I never regarded it as being dishonest though I understood why others would think I was.

This time, though, I lost control of things badly. I knew it and I was trying to engineer the ending when a close friend managed to see behind the curtain and called me out. Fallout from this was brutal and I lost the respect and friendship of many that I regarded as friends. Even with the appropriate apologies and explanations, I never felt equal to those who tried to remain friends with me and the relationships died.

Because of this experience, I decided I needed to banish my fantasy life one more time or at least try again. In the past, I had sought professional help while I attempted on a few occasions, notably in high school, college and just before my divorce. During the last instance it was believed that if my depression left so would the second life and I was given medication which was ineffective and gave me headaches.

This time, I asked my pastor. He agreed with my friends that I had been dishonest, though I could tell he was pained to say so. He seemed understanding as to why I had not considered it to be so and why it happened and I cherished his compassion. I felt relieved to let the information out. He then suggested that I fill my time and mind with spiritual things in order to head off the temptation to do it again. Unfortunately that advice did little to address the issues I faced. What do you do with a mind which is used to running two lives while you read scripture with only one of them? If you pretend to read scripture or sing Christian songs in your second life is it still wrong to have it? What do you do with that vague sense of pain you can neither find nor throw away which pokes at you while you are praying?

The unemployed part of my brain was still empty and hungry and I had no way of dealing with it. As I read, prayed, wrote and listened to Christian music, I felt I was going to lose what little sanity I felt I had. I invited my alt and her world back to their hallowed place beside mine. If I was a dishonest person for allowing this, I had no hope of being anything else. I was a failure and I needed to concentrate on what I could do in other areas. At least that is what I thought.

The necessary instrument to unchain my second life from my first resides in the basement of my soul. There is a large, ornately carved trunk filled with unbearable sorrows, undreamed dreams, uncried tears, fears and unspeakable anger. My alt had made it when I was very young and filled it with things I could not face throughout my life. I knew it was there but never dared to open it, I could choke from the ugliness in there. The depth of the significance of the hidden things was never realised until I began working through some of my inner turmoil in an attempt to lose some unwanted weight.

According to what I learned under Dr Phil's weight loss challenge, I had used weight as a filter to prevent people from getting close enough to hurt me. Something clicked inside as I thought about it over and over again. My weight was not the only tool I was using to deal with pain. I was also using my alt and her world.

While I felt my reality trapped by my second life, I realised that part of my true self was trapped there inside my fantasy. Just as my father said, the strong, beautiful person in my head is me. My alt and my current person are two bookends who were separated by life. I have to unite them once more. I could not banish my second life without losing that part of myself and that is why it would not go away.

Now that I am enlightened you might think healing would just flow. But when it comes to those types of things, it is never that simple. I can not completely integrate her as long as all of my unlived garbage remains locked away. Her separate presence managed and controlled the contents lest they all come bursting forth when I was unprepared and unable to cope with them.

While not completely fused, we work as one now. We come to the trunk deliberately and whatever comes to the surface, she allows me to face it rather than hiding it from me. I cry what was uncried. I feel the anger and do what I need to forgive it. I see a dream and determine if it is still attainable and dream it or mourn the loss and let it die. I embrace my sadness, the dark, my fears and my bleeding heart - but it's still only a little at a time. It will not happen overnight, it is a journey. But it is a reachable journey and one I face with confidence. I also love the fact that I look and act more and more like my other self with each passing season. It's obvious now that if we live long enough, we will one day be the same, singular person.

I am not going to lie and say I do not take flights of fancy. I do and I enjoy them very much. The significance has changed for me, but I probably still spend more time doing that than most people will, since I have trained my mind over the years to be constantly thinking up something. I am most likely the only person who can chat online, watch television, talk to my family, write poetry and plan our family's next outing at the same time. I also am known for reading with the television on, being able to concentrate on both of them or writing an essay while role playing with our family. But as I do the work necessary to become what I should be, sometimes I will find myself sitting in traffic with a favourite song or the words to an unwritten novel running through the second plane of my mind instead of a second life. No, it is not all gone, but it is going and I am happy with that right now.

I no longer want that part of my mind to shut off. I want my active imagination to help me heal. I want it to create something to give away, something which reflects my talents and insight from life. And for entertainment, I want it to help me think of things which are fun and beautiful for no other reason than to do so.

All of this has lead me to the conclusion that I can love and value not just who I wish to be, but who I am. I can embrace the fact I am wounded and limp emotionally. And if I can do that, it ceases to be a tool you can use to hurt me. That pleases me well...in both areas of my soul.

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