So young, but this is so old
Posted by Comman_Anomaly | Posted in | Posted on Saturday, March 20, 2010
I remember this first happening when I was ten, the obsession of my fantasy was so all-consuming that I felt like screaming, my head throbbed & I wondered if I'd go mad. When no matter how much I thought about & played it out, it fell short. What that satisfaction I am looking for I don't know, it's something & I'm not getting it. This feeling always passes & I am able to feel normal again. My obsession is with certain people, certain people usually that are on a show on TV, but my obsession is not with them in the real world it is with my creation of them in mine.
It gets so tiring thinking about them & my character, I want the real thing so bad & can imagine as hard as I can & I still feel empty. I'm bored. I want the thrill, the excitement, the emotional rush, the feeling. But I'm bored. It's not clicking, it all is so fake! I try to "think about something else, maybe it'd be exciting if I thought about that person in the real world, like everyone else instead of make-believe version of them. I can't be myself, that is the most boring, unfufilling thing there is. I am just tired, tired & burnt out on every one of my (fantasy) people.
I miss the fun, the new world I was creating when I was nine. The freshness, the happy colors in my head & around myself. It was new, I hadn't a clue in the world what this was although I figured it was probably some mental disorder but I didn't care. I have no life without it, I don't know how much longer I can keep from going insane.
How do you enter a twelve-step program for an eating disorder & begin to recover, move forward in every direction instead of this one? That is what scares me the most, that until this comes out I am trapped in this desolate land, that this secret will keep me from any progress on any plane of my mind. They say you're as sick as your secrets, oh crap.
I read this the other day, it is me so much it hurt to read, it scared me.
THE SELF-DESERTING AVOIDANT
A clear example of the influence of different personality domains is found in this lasts subtype of avoidant patterns. Self-deserting avoidants combine the social (interpersonal) retreating of the avoidant with the ruminative (cognitive) self-devaluation of the depressive personality. These individuals immerse themselves in a surrogate fantasy existence to avoid the discomfort of having to relate to others. They are not, however, unaware of their use of these tactics (unless, for example, they are concurrently experiencing a major depressive episode with psychosis), and this makes them painfully aware of their perceived inadequacies. Fantasy gradually becomes less effective, and their thoughts center more and more on the misery of their lives and the anguish of past experiences.Waking dreams are displaced by painful ruminations. Thus totally interiorized, the feelings that motivated their initial withdrawal reverberate unremittingly. More and more, they cannot tolerate being themselves and seek to completely withdraw from their own conscious awareness, an existential abnegation of selfhood. Some become increasingly neglectful psychologically and physically, even to the point of neglecting basic hygiene. Some plunge into despair and are driven toward suicide, abandoning life as a means of ridding themselves of inner anguish and horror of their own identities. Others regress into a state of emotional numbness in which they are completely disconnected from themselves. In particularly severe cases,the structure of consciousness itself may split or fragment, leaving a regressive disorganization reminiscent of the schizotypal personality. As this process proceeds, self deserting avoidants become outside spectators, observing from without the drama of their frightening transformation.
This may sound bad, but I sometimes wish I were psychotic or schizophrenic because they see their imaginary friends. It is real to them.
I think about telling my therapist, what I'd say, how I'd say it. I've been working on every issue under the sun for over a year now & have made some major progress. But I hold a huge secret about myself, I don't know how I'd be able to make her comprehend it.
So anyway, I had to spill. Everything has been so well lately, but then I'm reminded that I have this. Then here comes that feeling again.
It gets so tiring thinking about them & my character, I want the real thing so bad & can imagine as hard as I can & I still feel empty. I'm bored. I want the thrill, the excitement, the emotional rush, the feeling. But I'm bored. It's not clicking, it all is so fake! I try to "think about something else, maybe it'd be exciting if I thought about that person in the real world, like everyone else instead of make-believe version of them. I can't be myself, that is the most boring, unfufilling thing there is. I am just tired, tired & burnt out on every one of my (fantasy) people.
I miss the fun, the new world I was creating when I was nine. The freshness, the happy colors in my head & around myself. It was new, I hadn't a clue in the world what this was although I figured it was probably some mental disorder but I didn't care. I have no life without it, I don't know how much longer I can keep from going insane.
How do you enter a twelve-step program for an eating disorder & begin to recover, move forward in every direction instead of this one? That is what scares me the most, that until this comes out I am trapped in this desolate land, that this secret will keep me from any progress on any plane of my mind. They say you're as sick as your secrets, oh crap.
I read this the other day, it is me so much it hurt to read, it scared me.
THE SELF-DESERTING AVOIDANT
A clear example of the influence of different personality domains is found in this lasts subtype of avoidant patterns. Self-deserting avoidants combine the social (interpersonal) retreating of the avoidant with the ruminative (cognitive) self-devaluation of the depressive personality. These individuals immerse themselves in a surrogate fantasy existence to avoid the discomfort of having to relate to others. They are not, however, unaware of their use of these tactics (unless, for example, they are concurrently experiencing a major depressive episode with psychosis), and this makes them painfully aware of their perceived inadequacies. Fantasy gradually becomes less effective, and their thoughts center more and more on the misery of their lives and the anguish of past experiences.Waking dreams are displaced by painful ruminations. Thus totally interiorized, the feelings that motivated their initial withdrawal reverberate unremittingly. More and more, they cannot tolerate being themselves and seek to completely withdraw from their own conscious awareness, an existential abnegation of selfhood. Some become increasingly neglectful psychologically and physically, even to the point of neglecting basic hygiene. Some plunge into despair and are driven toward suicide, abandoning life as a means of ridding themselves of inner anguish and horror of their own identities. Others regress into a state of emotional numbness in which they are completely disconnected from themselves. In particularly severe cases,the structure of consciousness itself may split or fragment, leaving a regressive disorganization reminiscent of the schizotypal personality. As this process proceeds, self deserting avoidants become outside spectators, observing from without the drama of their frightening transformation.
This may sound bad, but I sometimes wish I were psychotic or schizophrenic because they see their imaginary friends. It is real to them.
I think about telling my therapist, what I'd say, how I'd say it. I've been working on every issue under the sun for over a year now & have made some major progress. But I hold a huge secret about myself, I don't know how I'd be able to make her comprehend it.
So anyway, I had to spill. Everything has been so well lately, but then I'm reminded that I have this. Then here comes that feeling again.
You really need to get laid.
My psychiatrist diagnosed me as a self-deserting avoidant about an year ago. It was a long road to convince her I wasn't schizo or psychotic, that I could tell reality from daydream and how much that was a horrifying realization when real life hit. I don't think she ever heard of Maladaptive Daydreaming though, which seems like a lighter case of self-deserting, and it's more like my case. I found your blog searching for it today.
Funny how you seem to remember what were you daydreams at certain ages. I can't draw a timeline, but I noticed a pattern of 6-8 months for the sceneries to change. They were, and are, always of a violent nature though, independent of age. Epic battles, hostile planets, post apocalyptic ages, war zones. I always fight or survive exquisite ordeals at some point. This need for thrill combined with the numbness of real life keep fueling it further. And not even an actual thrill measures up to it. I tried hoping onto the biggest, fastest wooden roller coaster in the country and even then I didn't snap out.
I've been trying to fuse the daydreaming to what I'm living as much as possible, to try and bridge in the two, or at least not waste my whole day inside my head. It's been working somewhat fine with my studies, but with people... well, they sure seem to push the envelope on the boredom issue.
Nomad, I have such a hard time descriging the scope of what I do.
It is way beyond daydreaming, not even calling them fantasies is enough. I can only describe it as my World with a capital 'W'
This blog was an attempt to get out of my World, somewhere where I am not even a little bit in It.
But it's very hard to step outside & look because the last time I did that I got very depressed, for a long time.
Ugh..... gloom & doom huh?
And anonymous, I agree. XD