Maladaptive Daydreaming Disorder

Hi there,

I recently stumbled across this condition, or "disorder" by accident but I was completely shocked by how much I related to it and others with it as I did more research. I've lived in a daydream for longer than I can remember. I'm not sure when it started or why, I have crippling anxiety and I think maybe it's a coping mechanism. I always figured I would grow out of it, I'm nearly 20 now and I feel it's worse than it's ever been. But it's great to start to understand it and realize it's not just me, this is something others struggle with and understand. I now find myself struggling with not wanting to stop, I had never really thought about it before. It's the only way I've spent every free second of my life for as long as I remember and it's very distressing to think about stopping. I just wondered if others felt this way too. I'd love to hear any stories or tips anyone has.

-Haleigh

Wow.. So there is a forum for us. I don't know what I'm expecting to see here but as long as there's a conversation going on about MD, I'm glad. I was so relieved to know there's a name to my condition. There's so much not known about it, though. Hope more research is carried out and people get help.

One important point, though - I hope people understand that there's a difference between regular daydreaming and maladaptive daydreaming. (And not all MDs have it pleasant.) I'm not sure even the experts know yet where the line between the two lies but for the most part people can see the difference. I'm not very sure I can post links here, so I'm refraining from doing so but a couple of websites have a list of symptoms. So people can 'self-diagnose' (I don't suggest they do) themselves. Because it's a latest discovery I think it's important Maladaptive Daydreaming is differentiated well from the regular daydreaming that a lot of people experience.

I'm no expert, neither is my English very good but I wanted to share my view.

Hope everyone get all the help they need, and all the love and respect they deserve. Especially from self.

Love, Abigail.

I'm very confused. I know 100% I have this without seeing a doctor. I do this all the time there is no break. It's from the moment I wake up to the moment I got to sleep. I talk to my characters in my everyday life. They are always around me even joining in on real-life situations but I can tell the difference between real life and daydream. I honestly thought everyone did this.

Im SO happy that I found out about this condition! I honestly thought I was just a complete freak and that no one else experienced this. I am on the autistic spectrum too so I wondered if the cause of my visions and emersive daydreaming was due to my autism. I see that it is common in this condition though. Ive never met anyone who I thought would be able to relate to this behaviour. Im so happy I found out about this condition. So much has been answered for me!

Im SO happy that I found out about this condition! I honestly thought I was just a complete freak and that no one else experienced this. I am on the autistic spectrum too so I wondered if the cause of my visions and emersive daydreaming was due to my autism. I see that it is common in this condition though. Ive never met anyone who I thought would be able to relate to this behaviour. Im so happy I found out about this condition. So much has been answered for me!

Im SO happy that I found out about this condition! I honestly thought I was just a complete freak and that no one else experienced this. I am on the autistic spectrum too so I wondered if the cause of my visions and emersive daydreaming was due to my autism. I see that it is common in this condition though. Ive never met anyone who I thought would be able to relate to this behaviour. Im so happy I found out about this condition. So much has been answered for me!

I'm so sure I have this. I've been doing this since I was in elementary school and I always thought it was just me. I sent an article to one of my close friends and told her I was pretty sure I have it but she completley dismissed me by saying its pretty normal and everyone daydreams. I've probably spent over half of my life in my room daydreaming. It made me really upset how she dismissed it and thinks I'm just trying to give myself something when all I wanted was to talk about it to someone.

Hey everyone,

I just stumbled upon this thread after a google search and it's strangely comforting to hear from so many others who do this!

I just want to tell my story for anyone who can relate. It might also help me to actually write all of this down for the first time!

They say maladaptive daydreaming is born from trauma and I think that's at least somewhat true for me. My dad died when I was eight years old and I was raised by a very loving but sometimes emotionally erratic mother. Both of my parents are/were very high-achieving professionals who placed a strong emphasis on education and academic prestige. Since middle school, I dreamt of going to an elite college and eventually earning my MD or PhD. In high school, I would spend hours obsessing over college admissions statistics, perusing websites and even looking online for t-shirts with the college's logo, imagining myself in them. I would do this obsessively, either: 1. to procrastinate, 2. to fill downtime, or 3. to escape from reality after an exhausting fight with my mom.

Well, I eventually got into a pretty prestigious school and was ecstatic about it. I thought that would be the end of the daydreaming, at least for a while, because I was away from home, loving life and immersed in my studies.

But after a while, the fantasizing came back. I would go online and compulsively calculate which schools I could've gotten into if my GPA was just a little bit higher, my test scores were just a little better, etc. I would even do the calculations in class. Then I would go online and look at the dorms of other schools and imagine myself in them. I didn't even know why I was doing it, because most of them time, I was perfectly happy with my environment. But I couldn't stop.

Eventually, the fantasy-planning went beyond school. I started going online to real estate websites, finding houses I liked and imagining I grew up in them instead of in my real home.

I eventually started imagining that my dad was still alive, calculated what salary he would be earning (with inflation, of course), imagining we lived together with my mom, usually in a different state. I would spend hours online finding the perfect location, the perfect house, the perfect place for my parents to work, the perfect high school I would attend. I would even go to car websites and decide which cars my parents would drive. Usually these are all real places and things I find online, but sometimes they're unrealistically altered.

I still do this everyday. I plan everything down to the smallest detail imaginable. The fantasy changes slightly each time, but usually involves me growing up in a beautiful city with both of my parents (happily married and employed), then going to an ultra-elite school and making plenty of money afterward. Often, the fantasy extends into the future, where I imagine that I'm a prominent doctor or professor with plenty of money and a lovely wife. Again, I go online to find the perfect house to live in (I calculate this realistically based on my expected salary, income taxes for a certain state etc.).

I'm desperate to stop doing this because it exarcebates my depression and makes it incredibly hard to concentrate on anything for very long. I'm perfectly aware that the fantasizing is unproductive and even sometimes harmful, but it's the first place my mind goes when I'm bored, sad, anxious etc. I've considered seeing a clinical psychologist. I've been diagnosed with OCD and ADHD (the OCD is defintiely accurate, for many other reasons) but maladaptive daydreaming is something I've never discussed with a professional.

Any and all advice is welcome!

Hi, so Im not quite sure where exactly to start off so Ill just go with what comes to mind first. Today I have finally found the answer to a question I have had all my life for as long as I could remember. Ive always paced back and fourth while daydreaming since I was very young. Although it has always felt so natural for me and in a way, something that has relieved anxiety and stress, I knew that it wasabnormal. My family caught onto it and were concerened from time to time about if I had a mental illness that should be addressed. However I believe that they too have gotten used to it. I prefer doing it in the privacy of an empty home or in my room preferably with headphones in playing music. Although this has been happening for so long and my family has picked up on the fact that I paced a lot, no one has actually asked me what goes on in my head while doing that. I believe that maybe they just think its pacing and that it is something that calms my anxiety. I know this part is true but I never thought that anyone else daydreams while doing so. I always thought it was something so personal and a very touchy subject even when Id try to rationalize it to myself. I thought I was the only person on this entire planet that experienced this. I was so scared to actually explain what went on in my mind mainly because I didnt think anything like this existed anywhere else but within my mind. I felt like this was something Id keep a secret till the day I die: my own little world i fantasize about. I didnt like thinking about it too much or bothered researching much about it because I thought it would lead to me finding out that I am truly not normal and in some cases I feared that if I told anyone exactly what happened in my mind that I would be the next freak show or scientific discovery in articles. Today I was researching up about other mental illnesses that I suspect I have such as ADHD and I decided to start searching up pasting and day dreaming. When I found an article that completely describes everything I did I felt surprisingly happy, almost excited to have now become aware of a part of me. To know others experience the same things as me suddenly doesnt make me feel like my now as I know MD isnt some dark, strange, out of this world abnormal secret I must hide. Im so happy to have discovered this. Now I feel like I can take a step I never thought was possible; I mean how can you treat something you think no one on this planet has? The answer to this is you cant unless you go to well known psychiatrists and tell them youve got something new for them to make sense of. I can finally take the step of trying to control it. I have many triggers and the amount of times I daydream depends on the kind of day Im having. I like it and I dont necessarily think its a bad thing especially if it calms you down if you have anxiety (I wont lie I think it has also kept me in shape) but it has also caused me to procrastinate a lot. Sometimes Im late to things because of the daydreaming. It does take a tole on my daily life in negative ways. I have acknowledged both the pros and cons of it. I would like to learn how to somewhat control it so I can enjoy it in a healthy way without it impacting my life in ways where it makes things less convenient for me. It is additive after all. Please if anyone has MD feel free to contact me, not just for support but to generally talk to someone who experiences the same thing and gain a better understanding. I know the discovery of MD is still fairly new and not many people are aware of it or like me were thinking they were the only one who has it. This finding for me will change my life from here on out. I finally know, I have gained a better understanding of myself. I also apologize if my grammar is off, I am writing this on my phone and its 5:00 am. Anyways just felt like I should put this out there!

Hi, so Im not quite sure where exactly to start off so Ill just go with what comes to mind first. Today I have finally found the answer to a question I have had all my life for as long as I could remember. Ive always paced back and fourth while daydreaming since I was very young. Although it has always felt so natural for me and in a way, something that has relieved anxiety and stress, I knew that it wasabnormal. My family caught onto it and were concerened from time to time about if I had a mental illness that should be addressed. However I believe that they too have gotten used to it. I prefer doing it in the privacy of an empty home or in my room preferably with headphones in playing music. Although this has been happening for so long and my family has picked up on the fact that I paced a lot, no one has actually asked me what goes on in my head while doing that. I believe that maybe they just think its pacing and that it is something that calms my anxiety. I know this part is true but I never thought that anyone else daydreams while doing so. I always thought it was something so personal and a very touchy subject even when Id try to rationalize it to myself. I thought I was the only person on this entire planet that experienced this. I was so scared to actually explain what went on in my mind mainly because I didnt think anything like this existed anywhere else but within my mind. I felt like this was something Id keep a secret till the day I die: my own little world i fantasize about. I didnt like thinking about it too much or bothered researching much about it because I thought it would lead to me finding out that I am truly not normal and in some cases I feared that if I told anyone exactly what happened in my mind that I would be the next freak show or scientific discovery in articles. Today I was researching up about other mental illnesses that I suspect I have such as ADHD and I decided to start searching up pasting and day dreaming. When I found an article that completely describes everything I did I felt surprisingly happy, almost excited to have now become aware of a part of me. To know others experience the same things as me suddenly doesnt make me feel like my now as I know MD isnt some dark, strange, out of this world abnormal secret I must hide. Im so happy to have discovered this. Now I feel like I can take a step I never thought was possible; I mean how can you treat something you think no one on this planet has? The answer to this is you cant unless you go to well known psychiatrists and tell them youve got something new for them to make sense of. I can finally take the step of trying to control it. I have many triggers and the amount of times I daydream depends on the kind of day Im having. I like it and I dont necessarily think its a bad thing especially if it calms you down if you have anxiety (I wont lie I think it has also kept me in shape) but it has also caused me to procrastinate a lot. Sometimes Im late to things because of the daydreaming. It does take a tole on my daily life in negative ways. I have acknowledged both the pros and cons of it. I would like to learn how to somewhat control it so I can enjoy it in a healthy way without it impacting my life in ways where it makes things less convenient for me. It is additive after all. Please if anyone has MD feel free to contact me, not just for support but to generally talk to someone who experiences the same thing and gain a better understanding. I know the discovery of MD is still fairly new and not many people are aware of it or like me were thinking they were the only one who has it. This finding for me will change my life from here on out. I finally know, I have gained a better understanding of myself. I also apologize if my grammar is off, I am writing this on my phone and its 5:00 am. Anyways just felt like I should put this out there!