I was 6 when fantasy and imagination quickly started to consume my day-to-day life. The catalyst a simple scene a kid's show that sparked something inside of me! From then on it became a ritual; weaving together stories from beloved TV shows and movies into wild fantasies. It almost felt like being granted the power of make believe –– magical experiences created simply by letting go with your mind!
I became so obsessed with the ongoing story that was playing out in my head that I couldn't focus on much else. The more I daydreamed, the more entrenched I became in the fantasy world inside my head.
The fantasies were an escape from reality. They allowed me to forget about the problems and stresses of everyday life, even if it was just for a little while. And as time went on, I grew increasingly reliant on those fantasy worlds to process life.
Eventually TV stopped being a catalyst, it ended up being more about a way to process life, somewhere along the way I developed some pretty deep personalities to star in my make belive world and when I had to face up to some pretty heavy stuff fo a kid to deal with in my real life they helped me process the experiences.
Anyone who knew me at that age may well try to attribute it to a particularly messy divorce I was watching my parents go through. They might be right. And they might not. I don't really think it matters, some other kid might have reacted to the same scenario by acting out and rebelling. They will do them, I will do me. My response was to withdraw to my own rich inner world. Had it not been for this particular stressor, I believe I am so susceptible to a daydreaming mindset that it no doubt would have been something else.
At first, maladaptive daydreaming was just an escape for me, not that I recognized that as a child, but over time it began to take over my life. The line between reality and fiction started to blur. My days revolved around my ever-growing collection of imaginary friends and the adventures we went on together. Life outside of my head ceased to matter anymore.
And yet, for a kid wrapped up in a fantasy world, I functioned pretty well in the real world. Good grades in school. Good relationships with my family. Now as an adult I have an education, a career, an income, and a solid stable relationship. The daydreaming, however, became a complex activity lighting a fire inside me that propelled me forward and held me back.
Notice I never said good relationships with friends.
There were no friends; making friends is something other people can do, not me.
It could be worse, and I've made peace with the fact. Whose life is actually perfect anyway?
I choose to be grateful for what I do have.
Was the daydreaming to blame for poor friendship skills, perhaps? Maybe if I had been a little more present, I could have spotted opportunities when surely others in my classes and workplaces tried to befriend me. I don't think I was disliked but also I don't think I was accepted. I was just the weird kid. Bullies tried to bully me but I was too wrapped up in my imaginary worlds to care - and they seemed to give up. Perhaps if I had been a little more present, I would have been more vulnerable to the pain and a more satisfying target.
One thing that my daydreaming did spark was my creativity; driven by a desire to record the stories of my daydreams, I would write, draw, and create anything that helped me get it out of my head and into a real-world thing I could hold and look at and hold in my hands. It pushed me to gain skills and practice my art. Anything from illustration to complex 3D Models to creative writing from graphic novel to prose. The sims 4, for a while even became a vessel for storytelling and setting up scenes, and as a result, my lot of building skills developed.
The sacrifice however was my time practicing building social skills leaving me rather inept and out of touch in normal everyday conversations.
Meanwhile, anything that happened in real life was filtered through a lens of how would a particular character react to this moment. And if a particular character were interested in a subject, well, in the real world, I would research the heck out of it.
Is this much different from a typical author of a novel I wonder? Arn't all writers a bit weird and eccentric until they validate themselves with a best-selling novel?
I could never quite stomach the idea of sharing the actual output of my storytelling, perhaps it's because it's actually who I am, and if it is rejected, how would I separate it from the sense that I am being rejected?
On the upside, all the skill-building did guide me down a creative path. From my choice in education to my career, would I have been successful in them had it not been for the daydreaming pushing me to build skills? Who knows.
These days I don't daydream so much. But I don't think I would be who I am today had it not been for maladaptive daydreaming.
