All my life I’ve been a daydreamer, more so than other people. Only recently did I learn that my daydreaming was not normal. I found out from TikTok, to be honest, through a user spreading awareness for this mental health issue called Maladaptive Daydreaming. Basically, Maladaptive Daydreaming is when someone experiences daydreaming at an intense level that can be distracting. A daydreamer creates intense stories or daydreams in their head and it can prevent them from doing everyday activities.
Personally, I’m not sure when the maladaptive daydreaming started for me. Potentially my 8th grade year or freshman year of high school. My daydreaming started because of anxiety and it’s helped me cope in certain situations. In a sense, daydreaming helps me to be able to do things.I create stories from tv shows or movies and connect them in a single world. I start daydreaming when I wake up in the morning. Music helps the most with anxiety because it’s the soundtrack to life. I will play a single song on repeat because my mind is trying to figure out the best way the story line should play out. While I’m alone I act out scenes in a way to cope with being bored or anxious from something I just did,am about to do, or wondering if I made the right decision in past actions. I’m always wearing headphones or earbuds to escape the real world. Although in my case I can do daily tasks and hard tasks while daydreaming because it eases my anxiety instead of increasing it. I’m doing amazing in college even though I always have daydreams in the back of my mind. They last all day, but I don’t let them get in the way of my life. It’s a more comforting world to me knowing that I can escape.In a sense, even if I’m alone I’ll always have someone with me.
So yes, I may be a Maladaptive Daydreamer and it may cause me to be more introverted around people I do not know, but it helps me continually be happy and live my life.