Spring 17 Psychology in Poetry Maladaptive Daydreamer By Danielle Fraser A Journey of Trauma and Healing Symptom I Trauma Stigma Symptom II Creating Life More Alive than Life Daydreamer Symptom III Ashes Phoenix Never Alone Symptom IV Dying Gasp A Roar Symptom V $7.99lb Thunder in the Spotlight Symptom VI Journey Daydreaming is an everyday occurrence experienced by almost everyone. When these daydreams interfere with academics, occupation, or interpersonal relationships, however, it becomes maladaptive daydreaming. Maladaptive daydreaming is a common coping mechanism among those who suffer abuse or trauma. Maladaptive daydreaming is not classified as a disorder in the DSM-V. When I daydream, it isn't the brief flashes of thought other people have. When I daydream, there's actually a plot to what I'm thinking of. There are real, fully fleshed out characters involved. In fact, most of the characters I write about when writing fiction start out in my daydreams. Being pulled back into reality for me is the same as placing a bookmark in a book. I return to reality, complete the tasks needed, and then slip right back into the daydream right where I left off. I can build on the same daydream for months or even years at a time, shift to another one, and then shift back to the first one. I actually kind of become the characters, to the point where I have felt the same emotions they're feeling during the daydream. One very common thing that the daydreams of maladaptive daydreamers almost all seem to share is the fact that the 'characters' in the daydream experience great emotional, or sometimes physical, torture. For me, that torture is just about entirely emotional. When I said that I've felt the same emotions as the characters in my daydreams, I mean that I've actually gotten so deep into the daydreams and into being that character that I have found myself physically crying in response to those emotions. Many of the people who experience maladaptive daydreaming find that it rules their lives like an addiction. In fact, that's where the condition gets it's name. However, it isn't always like that. I was in the third grade when I first started losing myself to daydreams instead of trying to cope with reality, and I spent so much time daydreaming that year that I actually ended up failing the third grade. As the years passed, I've gained the ability to control when I daydream. I've actually managed to harness them and use them to become a skilled writer. The chapbook that is being sent along with this email is a look back at how the abuse I experienced as a small child has shaped my life and how I've managed to turn that horrible experience into something positive within my adult life. The poems in the chapbook are fairly dark for the most part, but it isn't very easy to write about a dark subject matter in light, flowery terms. Though there are some spots where I've managed to do it. Ohio State Lima’s Project: Positivity Psychology Club Symptom I (Uncontrollable Daydreaming) Starry eyed images flutter like jeweled birds trapped in your mind. Ideas build, a nest taking shape. The wide-open sky sits, ready for your maddened flight to erupt. Gravity’s iron chains are really made of wax. Break them like a person removing their spent, corrupted white candle from the holder. Each melodious twitter promises a break from a world without flight. Each whispered note attempts to pull you away from the here and the now. Each song is a path into a world you can’t wait to enter. Some days you think those birds are more real than the cold night air that surrounds you. Moments among others turn to flight. Some days you think those ideas are stronger than the metal surrounding you as you race down the road. Moments in your car turn to flight. Some days you think that nest is more real than the cotton-soft fluff you sleep on each night. Moments spent waiting for Hypnos to sweep you away turn to flight. Reality doesn’t hold you like it does others. Flights of fancy, fleeting for others, are all that you live for. Trauma What would you say, if I told you I remember? If I told you I remember the sound that a human body makes when slammed against accordion-fold closet doors in the middle of the night? If I told you I remember the sound that a lonesome ambulance siren makes as it echoes off the foothills as it rushes the battered mother of a two-year-old girl to the hospital? You wouldn’t say anything, because you don’t remember that night. You don’t remember mixing those pills with the rancid contents of that can. What would you say, if I told you I remember? If I told you I remember the night you first told her, you were leaving? If I told you I remember rushing from my room, being swung into your arms, as you threatened to take me away? Ohio State Lima’s Project: Positivity Psychology Club If I told you that after you put me down and I wandered back to my room, I snuggled into the pile of stuffed animals on my bed and whispered for them not to be afraid because yelling can’t hurt anyone? You wouldn’t say anything, because a four-year-old couldn’t have had that kind of clarity. What would you say, if I told you I remember? If I told you I remember the night you kicked that cop in the shin because he stopped your drunken rage? If I told you I remember the day the corrections officer told my mom that, because the fight was just as much her fault as it was yours, she and I couldn’t see you? You wouldn’t say anything, because nothing can heal the wound of a five-year-old girl, Daddy’s little girl, whose world has been shattered over and over again. What would you say, if I told you I remember? If I told you I remember the last night I called the cops because you broke into the house that was never yours in the first place? If I told you I remember the moment I stopped being Daddy’s Little Girl, because the scabs can only be pulled off half- healed wounds so many times before a scar forms on her very soul? You wouldn’t say anything, because every single time you said I couldn’t be your daughter because I wasn’t good enough, you killed another little part of my baby- bird spirit. And there are no words that can soothe that pain. What would you say, if I told you that the greatest lesson you ever taught me was not that you could kill a man by slamming the palm of your open hand into his nose at an angle? You’re not supposed to teach an eight-year-old that, by the way. What would you say, if I told you that the greatest lesson you ever taught me was not that I was worth more than anything else in the world? What would you say, if I told you that the greatest lesson you ever taught me was that there was nothing I could do that would ever make myself worth as much as the liquid poison that comes in a can labeled “Steel Reserve”? Stigma Stigma is a word with just six letters. It is the reason people don’t look at depression the same way they do a cough. Stigma is a word with just two syllables. It is the reason that sick people get called attention whores. Stigma is a word that’s been around for hundreds of years. It is the reason that people would rather suffer in silence than get help. Stigma is a word that can break hearts. It is the reason that people feel alone in among 7 billion. You can’t understand how much pain is not physical. Ohio State Lima’s Project: Positivity Psychology Club I can’t understand how you think you know my heart. You can’t understand why I think the world looks so dark. I can’t understand how you can’t see the darkness I stare into each day. You can’t understand why I feel so cold in the face of your fire. I can’t understand why you don’t burn to a crisp at the center of the blaze. Symptom II (Research Makes Daydreams Realistic) You type away, finding paths of knowledge like glittering pebbles of the mind. Anything to take blurred edges and make them into a polished crystal pendant. Information is mined golden geodes. Dumped into a smelter, ready to be formed into stories no one can read. Your keyboard is a path of rocks turned priceless; your browser history is a mystery. You’re the only one anyone knows who looks up baby names, how to pierce someone’s nose, and the stats for a machine that never even existed all at one time. Your idle treasure trove of knowledge has no purpose; it’s not a currency anyone else can take. But your dreams can’t be complete without it. You’re not content with having your characters do something, you have to know how to do it too. Creating Life More Alive than Life Voices tumbling in gentle pirouettes, Bringing life to barren emptiness.