Hi. I found out what maladaptive daydreaming was today, just a few hours ago. I tought on telling my family or my friends the situation I am in but I ended up trusting nobody, so I am writing here all the symptoms I got, please help me make my mind up. My mother says she used to tell me stories since she learned she was pregnant. I have vids that I "read" books when I am like 3 and turned out I didn't just say random words, I committed every single word of them to my memory because I made my ~
My mom read them over and over. She says I was a really weird child, I could have fun with so simple things for so long- like a wallet or a pen. I just looked at them. Just looking made me happy somehow. Then I got myself imaginary friends. one of them was an owl and the other was a ghost and I always imagined they left me by saying "we have to go now and look after other children , you have grown. Never forget us" when I was 5 and I still remember that day, I never talked with them again. ~
Then I grew up, like to 3rd grade or something. And I started using the school bus. God, I can't tell you how happy that made me. I loved sitting by the window. I imagined myself running by the road as the bus moved. I jumped through the trees, the buildings. I got excited every time I got on that bus. And I talked to myself all the time. Like ALL THE TIME. That scared my parents sometimes but I never thought it was weird. Then in 6th grade we started having writing lessons. I remember my~
Teacher reading my paper and then coming up to me and saying "you are going to be a writer, you know that? You have an extraordinary imagination" I always was the one who handed the paper lastly in writing. I couldn't stop(I still can't as you can see). And in 7th grade, things got weirder. My study desk in home was near a mirror. And when I looked up I saw myself. I started making up ideas, and they turned into daydreams. I had several scenarios that I was the main character in. I lipsynced~
The things I had to say in these scenarios. I sometimes stopped studying completely and daydreaming looking at the mirror. That started happening more frequently. And I now was not just daydreaming in my room, I did that everywhere I could, in the shower in school by a window, everywhere. But unlike most maladaptive daydreamers, I don't walk or do a certain thing, I most of the time just look at the mirror or look outside by a window. That is what makes me question if Im maladaptive or not.
Definitely seems like maladaptive daydreaming to me, but the main question to ask yourself is does your daydreaming have an acute impact on your day to day life? It sounds like it, but only you can answer that.
-L