Vivid Imagination

The Chet and Andy Show

My life became focused on creating characters and plots that were very important to me as if I needed them to guide me through life. I learned a lot about people skills and as I developed their personalities and how they interacted with me and the environment I was in, it gave me a knowledge of understanding behavior patterns of people. This is one of the positive gifts that maladaptive daydreaming has given to me which has been useful in my everyday of my life. I literally learned to experience walking in someone's shoes. Most kids naturally develop this with interacting with other kids such as their siblings; I did it with my parents and any other adults I could find. There was the occasional kid my age in the neighborhood that I would friend but even to this day I have a need for a bit of control in all my relationships. I need to feel secure, trust and the feeling that they need me. This has brought me down some very interesting and life changing roads for sure, and yet I still in the back of my mind seek after people in my life that are co dependant. Codependency is very dangerous and leads to a lot more insecurities and problems which I will get into later. In any relationship being friends, family, lovers, and even enemies, there is a sense of codependency in just about everyone; a trade off of being used for using.

Because I was given up by my mother at a young age, I had a threat of abandonment and a fear of not knowing where I stood in any relationship. If I felt I did not have control or their behavior was different than what I thought it should be I was on alert. This meant I pulled away, getting my feelings hurt by showing them that I don't need you and I'm already moving on before you. I always had to be one step ahead. Most times, I was a bit dramatic but my intuition usually never failed me. I never could understand why people did this to me over and over. I learned many years later that it was me attracting this in my life, allowing this to be a cycle of negative patterns. I would get frustrated with life because of my what seemed unfair events and not being in control .
When I was introduced to a boy about my age who lived across the street I was about 10 years old. I didn't have any friends my age so this was different for me. Michael was very smart, loved math and being a boy playing outside, riding bikes and climbing trees. I remember riding bikes and wanting him to follow me and he always let me take control. He always asked me what I wanted to do, so I always took the wheel and he never questioned it. I hung out with him more and more, and I noticed that the more time I spent doing things with him or outside my immediate world, my other life (my fantasy) was on pause. Michael and I would get bored very fast and our imaginations would run wild. It started with a simple 'lets pretend' to 'imagine if" kind of my recess time back with the girls at school. I got excited about a new opportunity to start this again so i began moving in that direction.
One fall, brisk day Michael and I were lightly swinging back and forth on the swing set that sat in my back yard. It was a big yard with a red wooden fence around it separating it from woods beyond that so there were many trees. There were four gates that led out of each side of the yard, as the it always reminded me of a house plan. With the front door and back with the trees breaking it all up into different rooms.
"Jonathan, I can tell you are thinking about something really hard, you are never this quiet." Michael said .
" Oh, I am just thinking about what we should do." I said in a convincing way. Then it happened, I didn't have to think anymore because the idea beat me to the plate.
"Well, let's pretend we are on a tv show and this yard is our house, we are ummm let's see, how about brothers and this is our first taping."
What was going to happen after that was one of the most incredible ingenious things that to this day has gone untalked about, and lost in the past of now two adult men.
"Ok, we are brothers, and we live in this huge house the size of a whole town. Ok so we are actors but playing brothers who are rich and this is our set and we are going to film our first episode. My name is going to be Andy and what is yours going to be?" As I of coarse took the wheel and Michael always let me.
"My name is Chet and how about we name it 'The Chet and Andy Show'?" Michael added.
Michael and I gave life to these characters for over 5 years, we had season premiers, season finales, we introduced many new colorful characters in and many real life situations that we both learned from. While most ten year old boys were riding their bikes looking for trouble, we were literally writing the script for a television series that was along the lines of genius that would have been up there with 'Friends' and lasted many years. Our characters grew up with us and we engineered these story lines around real life situations, but giving the story some unbelievable reality that made the whole thing fresh and addictive. Michael and I never really talked about how awesome our stories were and never sat there and reflected back to some reruns as it was just an obvious fact that I held the whole thing closer to my heart then he did. His was just a creative awakening while mine was a complex mental disorder. I created my character 'Andy' by filling in the blanks about who I was. I wanted to be this person no doubt, and took his character home with me to my real life. I had become this Andy person day in and day out, on and off the stage; where as Michael left Chet in his dressing room and went home everyday as Michael.