Maladaptive daydreaming...hm. I call it head trippin. For me, that is a form of escape. I get stressed, discontent with life, something that is not ok, and I put on some headphones, kick back on my couch and throw myself into some other reality that I have created in my head. I might daydream about the past and right the perceived wrongs. I might concoct some thing that never happened so I can live some thing I feel I lack in the here and now (ie: a world where people give a damn about me and I am some competent human being). Whatever the daydream is, it is always one of the same ones over and over, with slight adjustments. I have a handful of them i do over and over. At my worst i do that for hours a day, reality outside my head is gone, and this can go on for months depending on how bad I am feeling in my life at the time. It's kinda like an addiction to me when I am at my worst with it. That is when it becomes maladaptive for me. Other times it is just a way for me to take pause and decompress and then I get up and can deal with life again feeling almost refreshed. For me it's a fine line because it is easy for me to get sucked up in that stuff.

It's not the same as dissociating for me. I choose to do that stuff. I pick the topic at hand and roll with it. I sometimes get confused about if it was a dream or real, but for me it's only because I can drop so much time into it, v/s living and engaging actual life that it kinda makes sense that i would, you know. Like, of course it would be my knee jerk reaction to wanna talk about that stuff if someone asks me what's going on, because that not reality is what I have going on. Had I been living life instead of living a dream, I would want to talk about life... if that makes any sense at all. But still, I know it's all in my head because I make it be there. I have no doubt my dissociative stuff makes it easier for me to hole up in my head and do that, but the two are different for me.

The dissociative stuff, I have no say in that, the things in my head just happen to me... they are not pleasant, not things I really want to be thinking about, there is no happy ending, no picking and choosing what makes me cry or angry. That stuff lives me. That stuff chooses me.

I said a lot and have zero clue if any of it made sense or was helpful. Sorry. Whatever it is that you have going on with you, I hope it gets figured out soon and that you can get to feeling better quickly.

-Avery