Maladaptive daydreaming

Post Reply New Topic

I like to daydream a lot, having two children means I don't get much opportunity, so I will often lay and daydream when I go to bed before I sleep.

Before I had children I would spend a lot of time daydreaming, even at work, I would be doing my job but half my brain would be daydreaming. Lucky I wasn't a surgeon!

I definately have Maladaptive Daydreaming. In fact, it was one of the reasons I was diagnosed with Asperger's in the first place. I used to pace and rock back and forth in Kindergarten, and just imagined myself with all my favorite fictional characters at the time. I usually get very distracted when doing my homework because of this, but I am very certain that it's something I will learn to live with over time

First let me say, if there is another hospital in your area, go to them. My belief is that a psych hospital shouldn't discharge someone just because they can't figure out how to help them. As a family member/caregiver to a patient I have had lots of dealing with psych hospitals and your son's experience doesn't sit right with me. In lieu of that, there is hopefully a psychiatrist and a therapist in your area who will work with Dan on an outpatient basis.

I have strongly suspected ASD (as suggested by a psychologist) and like Dan I believe I have empathic abilities which make it difficult for me to be around people. I'm almost 40 and have spent a lot of time and energy trying to shield myself from other people's energies or build an ability to ignore what I sense. However, I am not conscious of empathic sensations effecting my life to the extent Dan's do. I have only spoken about my empathy to one person whom I knew had similar experiences.

My intuition is wondering whether Dan is picking up on real signals from people, and by real I mean the kind anyone could pick up on, but is unable to determine in his own mind what it was about a given person that gave him a certain expression. I wonder if he would benefit from training about facial expressions and body language that would help him know which of the impressions he gets from people are from mundane sources, and help him to more accurately assess those mundane sources (face, body).

Yes! I don't think it's particularly maldaptive, but it's more of an addictive coping mechanism. I guess we're just lucky since our 'fix' doesn't hurt us too much. I go through cycles where I hate it, and then there are the times where I'm happy with being who I am.

Forgive me for rambling, sorry, but this will be a long, disorganized post.

It helps me, when I'm feeling upset, I just talk the issues over with my characters. A few times, they've helped me give up on some of my more crazy goals, which is kind of ironic. Imaginary friends bringing someone back to the real world?

The daydreams are usually focused around my special interest at the time (usually a videogame character or universe) and they can be really vivid, especially in the morning just after I've woken up. These daydreams will leave me trying to get the same feeling for days afterwards, replaying the dream event over and over.

I really want to teach some of my friends how to do the same thing as me to help them cope with their disorder, but I don't think it will work. Besides, it's not really the easiest thing to explain. I also want to learn as much about the worlds as I can. It's really interesting, now that I'm not the only one, to think that there are so many different daydream worlds out there, with their own stories and characters and everything... I really want to learn more.

I've found a few other Dreamers in the last year, but they've all been bullied lots in the past, and I haven't at all. They also have more advanced worlds, with maturer writing. My world is like a fairytale compared to theirs, it's kind of embarrassing.
It's just a coping mechanism overall, but it's not like I've had anything major to cope with. Maybe it's just for extra security? No one can take my daydreams away from me.

Knowing that it isn't real is the only thing that keeps us from being shut up in some institution, really. I worry about it sometimes.

I do this, and now I have a name for this.

I'm not sure how to feel about this.

But I do know I'm never going to give it up.