Maladaptive Daydreaming: My Personal Experience

Maladaptive (adj.)— not providing adequate or appropriate adjustment to the environment or situation.

Daydreaming (verb)— to indulge in daydreams.

Two completely different words that have come together to create the term "Maladaptive Daydreaming" (MD). Maladaptive Daydream's official definition is "an extensive daydream that replaces human interaction with extensive fantasies that people envision in their own minds (Bachai, 2013)."

Although it is not a medically recognized term yet, Dr. Eli Somer—the same doctor who coined the term—is going through the process to make it so.

That's all I can say about the formal definition of the term Maladaptive Daydreaming because, like most, if not all mental illnesses, it is different for everyone. So, this is my experience:

Ever since I was young, I had an incredible imagination. Small details such as a color, a sound, etc., could trigger it to go to full blast and put me in my head to live whatever I imagined. For example, climbing up a tree could turn into an adventure to climb up an enemy's wall and spy on their meetings. It was entertaining and made my life much more interesting than it really was.

As I grew up, I couldn't do any of the actions while imagining all these adventures anymore, so I turned to daydreaming; simply just zoning out while doing something I'd consider boring, looking out the window on a long drive, or even just aimlessly walking around. It was normal—almost everyone daydreams. But as time went by and several events happened to me, my daydreams went too far.

In high school, my life went downhill. Well, actually, my mental health did. I got diagnosed with depression and anxiety. This isn't about that, but it is connected. Basically, almost every night, I would suddenly get this strong feeling of fear, start to sob, then just tire myself out to sleep. It began to force itself into my daily routine. At first, I tried just taking sleeping pills, but one of my family members took them in fear that I would misuse them. Then, I tried to just sleep earlier than usual, but I started school again and had to stay up to do work, so I was forced to stay up. With my depression, I just lost interest in everything I used to love. I put on this facade that I was still as jolly as I usually am, and was empty.

I had no escape from my evening anxiety attacks and depression. I just tried to distract myself. I watched videos, read books, found something to look forward to, and listened to music. As I got into all those creative things, I would imagine me in this ideal world; collaborating with the YouTube creators I watched, fighting side-by-side with my favorite characters, being rich with famous friends. It was wonderful. I felt special and content.

I didn't notice that I was daydreaming whenever I could, from just a few seconds to hours and hours of it. I felt to be alone more excessively now. I used music to "set the mood" for my daydreams, I walked in circles, etc...I even had these withdrawal symptoms. I would be extremely annoyed at everyone if I didn't have enough time alone to daydream, which pushed me even further into my own little hole. Daydreams were seen as "normal" in society, so I thought that everything that I was doing was "normal."

I then used my daydreams to help my anxiety. I imagined my favorite people—famous, not famous, book characters, etc.—comforting me. It could be an old teacher of mine to someone like Andrew Scott. And it worked. Whenever I felt the intense fear, someone I grew to love appeared in front of me, told me to calm down, drink water, and rest. It was amazing and helped me a lot, but then my eyes opened and my life, once again, went downhill.

One day, while an anxiety attack was happening to me, I suddenly had this realization that there was really no one there. I was actually just comforting myself and it hurt to realize that. I broke down. It was like all the warmth I was given suddenly froze me over. I was screaming and losing my breath. All that I knew was a lie. My perfect life was a lie. The rocks in my life were just my imagination. Nothing was real.

Maladaptive Daydreaming gave this false sense of security and just let me fall with the realization that everything was fake and that I was ultimately alone. I was so sucked into my ideal life that I didn't even notice that my real life was passing me by. I am currently trying to lessen my daydreaming with some help and finally getting my life back.

So, as the saying goes: "Too much of anything is bad."