[Sypu]

Hi everyone,

I’m not a native English speaker but I will try not to make mistakes. I even don’t know where to begin. I’ve been daydreaming since I am around 9, turned 24 recently. I’m going to try to analyze the different parts of my life when the daydreaming changed, so I can get some help.

CHILDHOOD: Began to daydream at the age of 9, I lived a perfect childhood, beloved by my family, a lot of friends, great grades at school. I was just a very creative child, so I used to daydream maybe 1h/ a day. I was imagining fictional characters, animals, and created stories, poems, comics about them. It was cool and didn’t affect my daily life at all.

JUNIOR HIGH: At the age of 12, I began to undergo massive school harassment for no reason at all. We moved out to another town, I had no friends and couldn’t find new ones. I got totally fed up by school and stop studying. At this moment the content of my daydream changed, I began daydreaming like 2 hours/a day, began to imagine my life with my past friends, how I could become popular through.

HIGH SCHOOL: I met my first (and only) ex-boyfriend, who had mentally disorders such as mythomania, depression, perverse syndrome… He totally saved me from my school harassment since I was thinking about committing suicide just a few days before I met him. We had a (horrible) relation for a few months, he was always lying to me and I think he didn’t love me but just manipulated me but yeah, can’t control my feelings. During this few months I didn’t daydream at all, or about “rational” things such as our projects or so. Then he broke up. From this moment I started to daydream for 3h/day minimum, imagining how my life would be if we were still together, how he would come back if I had that quality…

UNIVERSITY: The WORST part when daydreaming became a real problem. One of my best friend had a friend I totally fell in love with, but he never knew it. Some of our friends would say we would be great together and so, but I never met him, he is very active on social networks, so I could “stalk” him on twitch, twitter and so on and see how, indeed, he was my kind of guy, but too shy, too scared thinking of a new love deception, I spent the last 6 years daydreaming for hours (sometimes more than 7h/ a day!) About how my life would be with him, how I would be happy with him, all the projects we could have (and how my ex would be jealous). I know it’s totally irrational and I always knew it was fiction, but I could not help.

HOWEVER: It became a real problem, since I began to have trouble studying, I’m now living in Asia and spent the past months imaging my life with him here, and for 6 years I was imaging my life with his friends, mine, our families and so on. I always knew it was fake and kept on saying so to myself, but the fact that some of our friends found we would be great together and all the things we have in common (scholar harassment, social anxiety, same favorite bands, movies and so on) made me think he was my soulmate (which is totally insane since I’ve never met him in real life, just talked to him a bit on social networks, and I don’t believe in “soul sister” stuff normally).

I GOT DEPRESSION for a few weeks (according to the doctor) and one of the reason is that I discovered he got married recently. Even if I always knew my thoughts were fake, it totally broke me, and I’m facing severe depression right now. I think, even if I knew it, I realized that all my life, or at least the 6 past years, all my life was about how I could please him, how I could get his attention. All my hobbies, everything. I made great studies abroad just to become an interesting person to everyone else. I just realized I spent all my life from my 12s not acting for myself, but for others. I chose some difficult class at school to please my mom who was criticizing me, I chose my studies (even if I like them) to impress the people who harassed me at school, saying I was retarded and to impress my ex-boyfriend. And even if I like the boy I’ve talked about before, I’m even wondering if in the end I didn’t want to be with this guy specially to make my ex jealous.

I spent all my life just to please others, and I just realized it. I went abroad to impress others. Got a great scholarship to impress others. Studying for a PHD to impress others. When I am watching films or playing games, it’s always to impress others or became a more interesting person. Even if I like it, I’m always thinking “great, one more thing I will be able to talk about to other people to seem interesting”. I’m obsessed with love of others towards me and I have not realized it at all.

I just realized I lived my past 6 years in a kind of dual-life, one part fantasy where my life would be perfect, a good guy struggling like me, able to do all I would like to do, great friends able to understand my feelings, and the other part, my real life, where yes, I had friends but where I was struggling at studying because of daydreaming too much, and hoping to meet the people I wanted to meet but didn’t do anything to do so, too scared of another deception, too scared of being uninteresting.

Now, I am 24. I moved out in Asia hoping for a new life here, to meet new people and “cure” my social anxiety which is due to scholar harassment, I guess, but it’s horrible. I cannot socialize, too scared of people, I couldn’t forget the guy, and worst, I don’t even know if I’m enjoying my studies in the end, since I realized I made it to impress others.

But I don’t know what to do. All my life from junior high, my hobbies, my studies, I liked, enjoyed, even loved everything but I was ALWAYS thinking “it will impress others” “they will realize they were wrong”. I decided to go back to my country, but I don’t know what I will do. I can’t imagine a life without living for others acknowledgment. I don’t know how it feels. But I absolutely want to stop daydreaming because even if I knew it was fake from the beginning, it caused me a lot of trouble. I couldn’t find another boyfriend for 10 years (feeling extremely lonely since at the age 24, I’ve never experienced “real” love), I became so obsessed with being friends with this people specifically that I ignored others. And now, all my close friends moved out very far away from me.

Conclusion, I am very lonely, realizing I spent 6 years imagining a perfect life but did nothing to make it happen when it was possible because I was too scared of deception. Now it’s too late. I don’t want to live that anymore.

I know I need a therapy, I’m going through one when I come back to my country in a few months. However, I cannot talk about the daydreaming or at least, cannot talk about the details of it, I am too ashamed, and I looked on the internet, nothing about the daydreaming disorder in my country, I’m scared the psychologist think I’m insane. My parents are not very tolerant about that too, I’m scared of their reaction, I don’t want them to know.

As a conclusion, contrary to most of the stories I read on the subject, I was not inventing a life with characters like a movie, no, I was just dreaming of a perfect life, but awaking is extremely difficult, I feel extremely empty right now.

Thank you for reading

[Skeezyks]

Hello Sypu: I see this is your first post here on PC. So... welcome to PsychCentral! I hope you find PC to be of benefit.

I'm sorry you are struggling with this. I understand how you feel about disclosing your concerns to a therapist or psychologist. But really... there's nothing to be embarrassed about here. Believe me... assuming the therapist you see is at all experienced, she or he will have heard of much, more difficult struggles many times over! The thing is... just don't go into therapy with the idea you have to spill everything all at once. Just go in & talk about things a little bit at a time. Give yourself time to feel comfortable with your therapist or psychologist & with the therapy process itself. And gradually you'll make progress & achieve what you want to achieve.

If the first therapist or psychologist you see turns out to be one you don't feel comfortable with, then try another one. And keep trying until you find the right one for you. (Not every therapist, or psychologist, works well with every client.) It's important to talk through what you are struggling with. Keeping all of this to yourself & allowing it to "rattle around in your brain", so to speak, is a prescription for ongoing unhappiness and confusion.

Another forum, here on PC, that may be of interest to you would be the coping with emotions forum. Here's a link:

https://forums.psychcentral.com/coping-emotions/

And then, here are links to some articles, from PsychCentral's archives, onn the subject of what to do when you just feel empty:

https://psychcentral.com/blog/when-y...-what-to-do-2/

https://psychcentral.com/blog/when-y...dium=popular17

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/child...t-angry-empty/

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/sext-...eling-nothing/

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/child...n-a-full-life/

My best wishes to you...

P.S. I noticed you list yourself as being in China. One of my interests is reading classical Chinese poetry (from the Tang & Song dynasties.) I'm also fond of the poetry of the late, contemporary poet Hai Zi. I don't have the ability to read Chinese though. So I just read it in English translation. One of my favorite translators is Red Pine (Bill Porter) who I believe is quite well known in China... perhaps better known there than he is here in the U.S.