I don't really know how this begins, since the tale to this point is so incomplete.

I have checked myself in again for mental therapy. It has been three years since my last visit to a mental therapist, and when things seemed to really be getting somewhere, my sessions expired. I am allowed 16 sessions per school year and I used all of them up seeing a therapist who was actually an intern. I only touched on the surface of my mental problems during these visits. Now, even in the preliminary stages of my new visits I have come to some realizations about myself.

One realization is: I'm going to have to let go of my past, and in doing so, must let go of the past of others. I have to forgive the childhood provided to me by my parents, my grandparents, and others who influenced who I am. I need to accept that I am a smart person with misplaced motivation and ambition. I need to rein in these driving factors and figure my path out in this world--my contribution, if you will--before I lose my chance. To do this I must forgive my past and work on focusing on the present. I have to put one foot forward and learn how to walk again. I'm tired of being able to stand up and balance myself but unable to figure out how to walk from my starting point to my destination.

There was a point in my life where I had a semblance of who I was, at least who I wanted to be projected in this fantasy image of myself. I touched on this person earlier in my writings. His name is Draven. In a way, he was the projection of my grandfathers, the ideal form of my father, and more importantly, who I wanted to be. He was as close to a male role model in my life as any of the actual male's in reality were and then exceeded those expectations. I was able to encounter confrontation without worry, and conclude things about romantic interludes that I am unable to recreate outside of his realm. Draven was a gentleman; a chivalrous man with ambition and drive. He knew how to say all the right things to melt the hearts of women, and to inspire his own military force to draw steel and risk their lives. He was everything I wanted to be; he is everything I still want to be.

Outside of this fantasy realm I created for myself, I feel like I am unable to channel the person I was writing about. It's like I am hollow and there Draven sits, atop his throne in a fantasy world, an empty shell as I cast him aside in my mind and writing. The only thing I can do is give him life, and fail to know how to possess my own body to be active, engaging, and a part of the reality in front of me.

Who is this ideal man? I can barely picture him. His picture is blurry because I don't know the end of the story. I don't know his purpose, I can't determine his age. His image is a myriad of young and old, handsome and torn, driven and lost, and all of these visible identities twist in my head. I remember when I created Draven, I had a sense of purpose. I knew I needed a strong, young and able warrior to combat the evil of the realm. As he grew into his skin, he created his own organization, retook his throne, and found a new purpose. He was a leader, an inspiration, a husband, and a father adding to his already established titles based on the outcome of war. Then he lost his purpose. I sent Draven on a hiatus from his rule, he went incognito and travelled to the mountains in the eastern region of his realm. He sought a continuation of his own story, and offline, I was searching for a purpose of my own. I struggled through high school as a funny, at times annoying, boy who hardly had any idea of who he was. I could not relate any of this online world to the people in front of me because it made no sense to anyone living in normal social circumstances.

I was alone again. Draven was alone. He wandered the hills in search of identity when I needed it most in my own life. No more the romantic, chivalrous warrior-king, he was a lost soul, graying and dying slowly in search of his fleeting purpose. Is this the path of the story of my own life, or is this a projection of the goals I feel are so far away that I cannot reach them? Why can't I be the romantic "man" that I've written about a majority of my youth? I knew how to be that person. I can still remember the details of being this person in explicit detail.

Did this alternate reality perverse my ability to focus on the present? I've spent too much time trying to find out what makes me who I am rather than living the life right in front of me. I've been told several times that I am a "bystander" in my own life, watching things unfold around me and I feel completely out of control. Some days I am too nervous to take hold of the things I want to do, too afraid of confrontation and hurt feelings that I step aside of my true goal and appease the other person. When does that end? How can I take charge? I don't want to have to escape from my own life with fantasy visions.