Quote from Deleted user on August 2020, 3:39 pm

What needs to be healed in my life is the fantasy of loving a man who is a television character. Parasocial relationships expand my social network in a way that negates the chance of rejection and empowers me to model and identify with an actor, which elicits an empathic response, which is a relief from strained relationships in my real life.

I was six years old when I had my first parasocial relationship with a character on the television show “Tales of Texas Rangers,” trauma took me out of my body and into an imaginary world where I existed in a narrative of my making. The story did not have to be cheerful or uplifting, it often was emotionally violent, like the fights my parents had. I just needed to feel in control, since children cannot control their worlds, I retreated from it.

I’ve had a handful of sexual encounters, but no intimacy nor relationship with men. I am a serial parasocial lover. I like detectives and must thank PBS for providing me with several characters I purloin into my imagination and obsessively develop a fully-realized life. I spent twelve years with one character, then saw a picture of him with his real wife and family and had to end the fantasy immediately.  It hurt!

I haven’t ever lived without an ongoing storyline parallel with my real daily life. These stories provide me with stability and comfort. At night standing at the foot of the bed, I feel a sense of relief knowing that waiting for me is a dream lover who provides for my emotional wellbeing even if the narrative is about a failing marriage; I am in relationship, even if it is only an invention.

On the Seekers Forum Zoom meeting in response to a comment I put in the chatbox, Mark gave me a prompt, “I am no longer a little girl.” I lit up when he said that for I am frozen in the trauma that occurred over sixty-three years ago when I was saved emotionally by a television character from the show Tales of Texas Rangers.

Recently I heard a famous, eighty-nine-year-old, poet who had been married for six months; he and his wife celebrate their anniversary every month and are delighted to have found each other.  Perhaps healing lies ahead for me!