Those who know me have undoubtedly heard me uttering cynical phrases that annoy my husband such as "My life is a farce!", and things of that nature. Recently my family attended the Renaissance Festival, and several of my sisters and I were locked up in a mock jail, we laughed over a sign that read, "This is a game. Please play along." I declared that I was going to steal the sign and hang it on the front door of my home. I am not ashamed to let everyone know that my best coping mechanism is to fall into a world of make-believe and deny that any of my issues are real.
I pride myself in being a great story-teller, and the stories I tell are my true life experiences. I always tell too much; I am not ashamed to air my dirty laundry in public. The reason behind this is because I feel I am actually telling someone else's story. I am talking about a different life, not my own. I can be speak frankly about the death of my father and things that hit very close to home, because I pretend they are not real to me. I can talk about my feelings and emotions openly, as they are not really my feelings and emotions. They belong to Jessica.....and I am somebody else. It works. It's a little weird, but it works.
This is how I dealt with my son running home from kindergarten with the principal chasing him down the street. This is how I dealt with my Dad dying, and the aftermath of that situation. This is how I dealt with receiving a letter from Sam Bernstein in regards to a lawsuit brought on my dog. On some level, it works for me. I sit back and pretend that I am watching a movie of someone else's life, not my own. It's my alternate reality.
So, as everyone should understand, I was very disturbed when my 6-year-old son arrived home from school one day and proudly announced, "Mom, you are non-fiction." Obviously, this is something he was taught at school. Who would arm a child with this type of destructive language?! It cut me to the bone. In an instant, my alternate reality came crashing down over me. He ruined my little happy place. I wanted to scream, "NOOOOO!!!! I AM fiction! It is not real!" My eyes bulged out of my head, and I began to hyperventilate. I pictured myself melting like the wicked witch on the Wizard of Oz. "What a world, what a world!" How can I go on? And then, proud of his new vocabulary, he waltzed by me looking for an afterschool snack with absolutely no realization that he destroyed my psyche. I paused for a moment, enveiled myself in my cloak of disassociation, and continued on in my own little world.....because that just happened to Jessica, not me.
I pride myself in being a great story-teller, and the stories I tell are my true life experiences. I always tell too much; I am not ashamed to air my dirty laundry in public. The reason behind this is because I feel I am actually telling someone else's story. I am talking about a different life, not my own. I can be speak frankly about the death of my father and things that hit very close to home, because I pretend they are not real to me. I can talk about my feelings and emotions openly, as they are not really my feelings and emotions. They belong to Jessica.....and I am somebody else. It works. It's a little weird, but it works.
This is how I dealt with my son running home from kindergarten with the principal chasing him down the street. This is how I dealt with my Dad dying, and the aftermath of that situation. This is how I dealt with receiving a letter from Sam Bernstein in regards to a lawsuit brought on my dog. On some level, it works for me. I sit back and pretend that I am watching a movie of someone else's life, not my own. It's my alternate reality.
So, as everyone should understand, I was very disturbed when my 6-year-old son arrived home from school one day and proudly announced, "Mom, you are non-fiction." Obviously, this is something he was taught at school. Who would arm a child with this type of destructive language?! It cut me to the bone. In an instant, my alternate reality came crashing down over me. He ruined my little happy place. I wanted to scream, "NOOOOO!!!! I AM fiction! It is not real!" My eyes bulged out of my head, and I began to hyperventilate. I pictured myself melting like the wicked witch on the Wizard of Oz. "What a world, what a world!" How can I go on? And then, proud of his new vocabulary, he waltzed by me looking for an afterschool snack with absolutely no realization that he destroyed my psyche. I paused for a moment, enveiled myself in my cloak of disassociation, and continued on in my own little world.....because that just happened to Jessica, not me.
