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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
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    'Maladaptive Daydreaming'?

    It's something I've done since I was child but only recently did I realise there's actually a name for it! How relieved am I!

    Basically people who have it excessively/compulsively daydream/fantasize stories or alternative realities in their minds. They completely immerse themselves in it.

    It's quite hard to explain but if you Google it, you'll find more information. But it's something that's only recently even been named!

    When I was little I would bop around my room immersed in some weird mental fantasy which was like a tv programme or film. I would have characters & a very vivid physical place for these characters, people/places from my own life or that I'd made up. I also used to scatter my Disney VHS's along my bed & take all the characters from the films & create a mental story/fantasy with them. Weird right?

    It carried on on & off throughout my childhood but unfortunately when I hit my teens it became a daily thing, I was severely suffering from SAD & used these fantasies to distract me from my own fears & life, it was like an escape. I used to mainly fantasize about myself as a person I'd love to be & how I desperately wanted my life to be. But I was completely aware it all was not real (thankfully). It became an addiction when I just couldn't face reality, I switched off & withdrew from the world.

    & It carries on till today. I think my little world inside my head has kept me sane for all these years I've suffered from SAD & panic attacks, it's kept me from dying of boredom or thinking of other more serious thoughts whilst being cooped up in my room day in day out. It's mainly all fantasies/alternative realities of how I'd like my life to be or just me creating people & stories. I also react situations that's happened in my daily life. It's similar to when a writer writes a script - just all in my mind & played out in my mind, very vividly, like a film. I would also emote what I was thinking occasionally.

    But it's still an addiction/OCD type thing, I also have a thing where I'm constantly looking at other people's lives from where I live on FB & acting little scenarios out in my little mental world. I think it's also kept me from being completely detached from the world, by seeing what 'normal' people were doing, talking about etc. I've always been in the loop regardless of how alienated I made myself.
    I read other people's experiences on the internet & someone referred to it as a 'coping mechanism' definitely agree there. I think once I start being truly happy & more social in my normal life I'll hopefully stop doing it, I'll actually be happy with my life & not want to fantasize anymore.

    Can anyone else relate? Or Am I the only one...? I feel like such a freak sharing this...
    Last edited by Charlotteee89; 12-02-14 at 22:40.

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