For four years, I hid in my own imagination. Never setting foot, not once, outside the bounds of the world inside my head. I read book after book - fantastical - building castles and skyscrapers, slaying dragons and casting spells, all the while hiding.

I walked around in a world of dreams. The air shimmered. People did not speak to me, and I responded in kind. It seemed like my only reality was fantasy.

I hid behind my routine. I went to school. I read books. I went to work. I went home. I slept.

Every day I would hide behind my computer, burying myself in torrents of TV shows and avalanches of torrents, and piles and piles of books.

Until the age of 16, I truly believed I was not of this world. I thought I was a child who had fallen through from another reality. I had 7 friends, psychologist included.

My parents were happy. They thought I was doing fairly well, that I was just going through a phase, that I just needed to work harder in school.

“We know you are brilliant,” they would say. “You just need to take your medication, sit down and do your work.”

I hid behind that, too.

I hid my brain in a Ritalin bottle, one that someone else gave me. A way out, a way to the real world. It would be technically correct to say I was high as a kite almost every moment of every day for four years. I have very little actual memory of those times- such is a side effect of the medication.

I hid my growing depression from everyone, while I watched those around me make friends, have parties, have sex, laugh, cry, and feel. I felt nothing but despair. I was numb.

I hid from my ultimate conclusion; that I was a terrible person, that I was stupid, dull, mean, annoying, cruel, unsocial, that I had no future. That I had sinned in a past life. That life was just evil. That I should die.

I hid my suicide attempts.

I hid my hatred of myself for not being able to cut my wrists.

One day in October, I forgot to take my meds. With nowhere left to go, I came out of hiding. My parents were happy. The air shimmered. I fell through into their reality.