My fantasy life kicks into action when I experience panic attacks, something that afflicts many of us with BPD. I imagine being with R.E.M. on tour or with Michael at his restaurant in Athens, Georgia, eating tofu burgers together and talking "about the weather", etc. There is nothing sexual involved,as I have many hang-ups in that area, but when I am walking down the street and suddenly paralyzed with a deadly fit of anxiety, I really listen to the wods being sung in my Walkman (currently the tape is R.E.M.'s "New Adventures In Hi-Fi".

The tape, with its thought-provoking lyrics, the even and strong beat that runs throughout it, help to settle my wild heartbeat and get my breathing under control.

I picture one of the songs, say, "So Fast, So Numb" (one of my very favourites) and try to envision what kind of screenplay I would write for such a song. Would it be about the deadly legacy of drug abuse or something more subtle, like a young man racing for "yuppie success".

As each song can be interpreted a number of ways, and considering that I own everything R.E.M. has ever recorded, including (and I hope the R.C.M.P. isn't reading this), a plethora of bootlegs.

So what do YOU do to escape without using drugs, alchol or sex---just imagination? Is it solely the domain of the writer to weave elaborate fantasies when under stress or after getting bad news that is difficult to process?

Borderline Personality Disorder is a complex illness with many off-shoots, such as Bi-Polar Affective Disorder, Schizo-Affective Disorder and Multiple Personality Disorder. A person can have one or more of these conditions in conjunction with the BPD diagnosis and that is why we are often so difficult to treat. We, more often as not, end up on a veritable cocktail of medications to quell the extenuating illnesses and the results can be unpleasant: Nausea and vomitting, restlessness, fatique and lack of appetite, to name a few.

So we NEED our fantasies to function day to day. I think anyone reading this who doesn't have a mental illnes will find it difficult to postulate how letting one's imagination run wild can actually be of benefit.

Well, you know the title of that film, "Reality Bites"? Well, quite often it does and moreso for the borderline patient, who perceives the world as a cold, frightening and often excrutiatingly painful place in which to live. That is the crux of being borderline: Seeing the world and many in it as something to be avoided at all costs, whether it be via cutting, starving, vomitting, shoplifting, as well as alcohol and drug abuse.

Forunately, I have, for the time being, anywy, quelled those negative actions in favour of creating wonderful scenes for someone like Michael Stipe and I to act out. As a budding screenwriter, I am well aware of his film production company, "Single Cell Productions" and am actually working on a treatment for an "art film" that might cath Michael's eye someday.

So you see, your fantasy life can and often does spur you on to actually DOING things. It is not good to just languish in bed and let your mind weave intricate stories---the secret is to put these fantasies to good use.

Even if you are not any kind of a writer, you can fantasize about anything at all; anything you are good at, whether it be art, music, reading, even going to the movies. There, you can imagine yourself up onstage with either Tom Cruise or Mira Sorvino (two particular favourites of mine), and "forget about life for awhile", as the song goes.

Fantasies are fine unless you actually begin to believe them to be true. So should unstable borderline patients take a chance with letting their imaginations go wild? Yes and no. It is very, very important that we have a "safe place in our heads" where we can retreat in times of crisis. But no, to fantasize constantly and have your imagination soaring to such unbelievably high heights that you become psychotic, is not beneficial; rather it does more harm than good.

It is up to the individual. But for a group of people like we are, who see the world often through "dark coloured glasses", a bit of an imagined rainbow shining in it now and again is something very good indeed.