Imaginary Real Friends

Travis shares the creation of his make-believe world in response to the harsh reality mental illness has dealt him. Travis forms imaginary friendships with real people that are semily famous or with news anchors he sees on television. He talks of his imaginary friendships with real people like the Huntington North girls basketball team and Nicole Briscoe from ESPN Sports Center on the television.

Travis lives in a world where he has constant visual and auditory hallucinations regularly. He uses the creation of a make-believe world with imaginary friendships with real people to help him fight off the voices and hallucinations on a daily basis. Travis also has his best friend that is a real person that helps him fight off his hallucinations as often as possible. He explains that having imaginary friendships with real people has helped change his life and made it so he did not have to hurt or punish himself at the command of the voices he hears from having schizophrenia.

Travis has many health issues going on in his life. Currently he is awaiting an appointment with a neurosurgeon to see if they might be able to improve some of his mental and social health symptoms by using a shunt to help drain water off of the brain. He describes how his long-term memory is much better than his short-term memory. He describes a time in which he remembered drawing up plays for the Huntington North girls basketball team to take the last shot and win the game. He can remember the exact details of the play but he often can't remember what he had for dinner last week.

In this book you will get a personal experience of what it is like to try living with a mental illness and coming up with coping strategies that include using real people to create imaginary friendships to help cope with the mental illness. Travis hopes to one day meet Nicole Briscoe and the 1995-96 Huntington North girls basketball team to thank them for being his friends and helping him through some very difficult times. This book will give the reader valuable insight into what life with Schizophrenia is like.