TL;DR: armchair diagnose me please, or slap some sense into me. either works. alternatively, share your experience with maladaptive daydreaming and what you think it's caused by in your case, if there is a cause. -- So, I was recently on a Wiki Binge when I came across a (sadly short) article regarding maladaptive daydreaming, and something just... clicked for me. Breaking it down bit by bit: Considering I daydream at work while putting out stock (To the point where one of my managers has commented that I don't always seem like I'm all there, and those are the days that I haven't self-medicated on marijuana in a while), and am content to do it for hours, I would consider it excessive. Could not tell you how long I've done it. Since middle school, at least. I don't have any known triggers for this behavior. That's not to say that I don't link music to certain dreams and thoughts (and hearing said music brings me right back to it, leading to either enjoying it again or spinning it in a new direction and seeing what my brain likes more, but the daydreaming came first). Yes. Yes. /God/ yes. Over a hundred detailed characters, and that's from when I'm not imagining myself in some way, shape or form. Not repetitive, but impulsive motions? Like, if there's a high energy or dramatic moment, I just... I need to stand or jerk my head or something. Lots of facial expressions, lots of snickering. See the first comment on how I can and will spend hours daydreaming. It's worse at home, because I can close my eyes and relax and really focus on it? But I always considered the neglecting basic functions to daydream as more of a depression thing. So, looking at all this (And going down a rabbit hole after thinking about even making this thread), I backtracked to the pages that brought me there. Schizoid and Avoidant Personality Disorders. Welp. I'm not going to go through the criteria for each right now because I feel like this post is already plenty long with me dissecting one brain weird and how it applies to me, but the only reason that my main account has more messages than my not main is because of a recent and concentrated effort to be social. I've always been okay with dealing with random strangers that I'll probably never see again (like customers), but dealing with people that I'm inhabiting a social circle with? It's a lot of psyching myself up and making great efforts to do small things. Even if I'm in a comfortable circle, if there's a great influx of people, or even just one person that seems to be doing what I can do (but better), I'm immediately back to square one. Which fuels a self-defeating and depressive spiral. I'm always happy when I see people that I introduce to a group flourishing, even if I'm just kind of. Watching from the sidelines because I don't even know the group that well and now the person I knew is part of Group. On the other hand, more personal, smaller scale emotions don't hit me until the next day. I had to force myself to cry when my ex told me that he started dating someone two days after he split things off with me (due to me feeling overscrutinized and like I was pressured to just 'get better'), despite that he was still in a Skype call with me and flirting with me every night until that point. Why? Because that's... what you're supposed to do. Or when an older coworker heard me talking about medicinal marijuana and how it can help people with several physical and mental illnesses, and asked 'What, are you on it? Do they just expect you to get high all day so you don't feel it?' The immediate emotional response was defensiveness and damage control, so that she wouldn't see me in a different light and that she hopefully wouldn't gossip about it. It took until the next day that I felt offended about the entire thing, as it's my business between my doctor and myself what medications I'm using and for what reasons. I don't know where I'm going with this anymore, so I'll end it here and point to the TL;DR above.
Well....shit. I didn't know "a lot of daydreaming" could be a bad thing, but I guess it seems obvious. Me being some flavor of avoidant DOES explain some shit, though.... I wish I had some comfort or advice to give but all I can say is "same." And witnessed.
Huh. I totally talk to myself and laugh and make facial expressions and sometimes cry while daydreaming. I didn't realize that was unusual. I don't really have anything useful to say. Your imagination sounds enviable. I'm sorry it's bringing you trouble instead of (or in addition to?) joy. Witnessed.
So I may or may not qualify for maladaptive daydreaming here, but I read that list and a lot of it made me go "same hat." What I can say is: I daydream a lot, not excessively enough that it interferes with my life right now, but it has in the past. I have an extremely vivid mental landscape, and have a lot of different daydreams going on at any given time and am liable to switch between them, depending on my current interests. Right now, it's largely for of entertainment? Like, if I'm bored, it's something for my mind to do and keeps my occupied, which is great when I'm home for the holidays but everyone else in my family still has work and school. When it's been dialed up to 11, though, it was a form of self-soothing and largely in response to stress (and I still use it to destress too). In my case, I'd say it was caused by a combo of developing a vivid daydream capability and needing to escape my present life. Whenever I feel most strongly that my life is terrible and I need to escape it, I either get suicidal or I start daydreaming to an extent that impairs me form actually doing things in my life. Which is why I can definitely link my excessive daydreaming to periods of my life where I was majorly depressed, or stressed out, or rapid cycling. If you want an armchair diagnosis, I'd guess that you probably are daydreaming instead of participating in things you don't want to do (for whatever reason). I don't really have a solution to that, though, because I don't know how it's impacting and interfering with your life specifically. As for the rest, witnessed.
How did you get into my head and steal my symptoms. Tell me! Uh, I mean, same hat? So, I am not a doctor, but I *am* diagnosed AVPD, and your stuff sounds a lot like my stuff. Excessive daydreaming, superficially social, but difficulty with deep friendships. Tendancy to withdraw into fantasy when emotions get tough to deal with. Yeah, might want to talk to an actual therapist about this?
