I discovered a place in the mountains, a place where I could call my private home. I never had my own thing except the cave. I remember the first time that I discovered the cave, I was really shocked at what my eyes were seeing in front of me. As little kid I had a mental illness till I was ten years old. I used to love to spend time alone by myself or spending time at home with my mom. By the age of ten, I started to go out by myself alone. I loved the mountain and whenever I climbed one to the top I felt safe.

I gave the cave the name dreamland. It was the land that gave me hope and I got the name from my favorite  TV show. The cave was three miles from my house and a mile into the mountains. It had two openings: the first one is from the front, the second is from the left side, and they were both hard to enter from. And the walls above are 50 feet from the ground and they look dusty and they always look wet. The sound of the water draining from the giant stalactites on the back ceiling is the only sound you hear or my footsteps when I walked. The front of the cave has the best view that I experienced in my entire life until now I still haven’t seen anything beautiful thing like it. The whole town was under me everything looked a hundred times smaller than it was, and I liked how I saw my house clear from up there. I get to feel like a leader of the town.

I was homeschooled but I started going to school in fifth grade when I was twelve. My dad thought that was good for me if I want to normal school where I could learn more and have friends. The first semester was the worst: it was like nightmare. I didn’t like school. But the next semester I  started to like school and had my first friend from a different family other than mine; All the friends that I  have are related to my family except him. His name was Ali; he was nice and a good friend to me. He was the second one that knew about the cave. I remember the look on his face when I took him for the first to the cave he was surprised that none knew about the dreamland. He never said a word when we went to the cave and he was always thinking about I don’t know what.  But my mom was the first one to know but she never went to the mountain. She doesn’t like them, but she always asked me: “How does it feel to be in the cave? What do you do there alone?” 

I have my own iPad that I have put my music and so when I'm in the cave I could listen to music. It was a gift from my brother. He gave it to me; I don’t remember why, but he gave it to me. When he first gave it to me I didn’t use it. But when I started going to the cave, I used it everyday. The cave was like therapy for me. I build a bed, and place to sit made of cardboard and I put on the top of the cardboard old clothes of mine. One thing that weird is the weather. Whenever it’s hot outside the cave felt cold inside and the same when it’s cold outside the cave felt warm. The cave is my therapy. The cave helped me with the my psychiatric treatment.