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When I was young (maybe 12-15?) I became convinced that I had an otherworldly protector and friend whose name I was certain was, well, let’s call him “Will” here (for some reason I feel compelled not to write out the name here). He had distinct (and very handsome) physical characteristics that as an adult I now believe I must have seen on t.v. and just projected onto this imaginary friend. For a few years I imagined him stroking my hair and hand when I couldn’t sleep, keeping me company when I felt lonely or upset.
During this time some strange things were going on in our home – items such as my bus pass or house keys would go missing. Frustrated I would ask “Will” to give these back and they would show up in obvious places where I had already looked, or unexplainable ones such as the aquarium floor in my bedroom. My mother complained that fruit in our crisper had bites taken out of it and dirty handprints on the upper walls and ceiling.
In 9th grade while this was still going on, I tutored a boy from my class who suffered from learning difficulties. He told to me that he saw “angels”, as did his aunt and grandmother. I was a bit perturbed by this declaration that our classroom was buzzing with spirits sitting walking around, even sitting on our teacher’s desk. I remember whispering for “Will”, and the boy said an “angel” from the back of the room came to stand behind me. I was so shaken by this experience that I walked to my best friend’s home and confided in her about all of the strange events and my imaginary friend “Will”. Her reaction wasn’t a very warm one and I’m pretty sure that from that day on I didn’t mention it again to anyone for years. I wrote short stories for school and for leisure, all of them featuring an incarnation of “Will”, but left it at that.
At 16-17 I had my first major heartbreak when my boyfriend of over a year called it quits. I took the breakup badly and struggled with chronic depression. I was put on antidepressants. One night, while saying my nightly prayers (I was a semi-practicing Catholic at the time) I decided to address “Will”. I told him that I needed him now, that I was ready to see him, willed him to show himself to me. I woke up in the middle of the night to an increasingly bright light next to my dresser. As the light became larger and brighter, a figure materialized in the centre of it. I panicked, completely frightened, and hid under my covers while shrieking for my mother. She came into my room, attempted to calm me down. She was concerned that I was now seeing things and a few weeks later I was sent to a sleep-study clinic where I spent the night hooked up to wires. They determined that I never reached deep sleep and therefore was not dreaming at night, but rather hallucinating, which would explain whatever being I had claimed to see in my room. I felt terribly guilty to have bothered everyone, and I never talked about it, any of it, again. Until now, I guess. I feel the need to talk about “Will”, or perhaps my difficulty coping with adolescence, or whatever it was that propelled those events. I love my husband, but I know he wouldn’t understand, and would chalk up the whole experience to teenage hormones and my colorful imagination. Which, I have to say, is both a fair and reasonable interpretation, one that I share, most of the time. But there are other times when, and I know how crazy this sounds, I wonder if “Will” feels that I betrayed him or abandoned him somehow. If he’s still around, or if I will ever see him again.
Has anyone experienced something similar? Do you, as an adult, still believe in the conclusion you drew as a teen? Have you reached a point where you feel peace with what happened and are able to leave it behind you?
Thanks a million for your time, I really appreciate it.
Which of course now just sounds like the most outrageous way to justify a misplaced item! Anyway, I'd forgotten about this until now, thanks for the memory jog!
