Yes, my SM has kept me locked away from people my whole life. Interacting with people in real life exhausts me, but in the imaginary world I really enjoy interacting with others. I also form strong emotional attachments to all the characters. In real life, though? I feel like an alien on a foreign planet, surrounded by these creatures (people) that I have no clue how to behave around!! My psychiatrist can't begin to understand what that's like.

I'm really jumpy around people and if someone approaches me or talks to me, I kind of move away. I don't mean actually taking steps, I mean slightly rocking back on my heels as far away as I can get. I also always, without even thinking about it, move to the opposite side of my parents to get away from people. We'll be going down an aisle and if someone is coming toward us I veer off to the side of my parents that nobody's on. Sometimes I'll do this in such a panic that I'll almost knock products off a wall if somebody suddenly comes from a side aisle or a blind spot and catches me off guard. It's like that rush of panic people feel when a very loud alarm goes off right next to their head.

Nobody understands it, they file it away by saying things like "She's shy." A common one when I was little was "She'll outgrow it." That turned out well... I'm 23 and I act the same way I acted as a little kid, minus the hiding under tables or growling and barking at people. I still get the urge to do that though, as horribly embarrassing as that is to say. I did that until my teenage years, then forced myself to stop, but it's definitely still there. I think I developed that weird defense mechanism when I was a little girl in kindergarten, playing house with the other kids. I always had to be the dog, because I didn't have to talk. I guess the habit stuck. I actually had a panic attack in eighth grade where I hid in a corner growling at my teachers, even baring my teeth at them. It was all because I was scared to death of going to gym that day. SM wouldn't allow me to talk, so I growled. The school called my mom who came and took me home, and she was terribly embarrassed.

In my daydreams, my character doesn't have SM or anything else. It's just sad that I can't really be her. I honestly think I have something besides just SM. I had a therapist who also told me that, but my dad's insurance started refusing to cover the costs of going to see her, so we had to stop. That still enrages me, because she seemed really willing to help. She also never came after us about the payments, even though the insurance never paid her, and that was 2012 I think.