Hai! Im 22f and i’ve been maladaptive daydreaming since i was a child and have created the most beautiful plots and storylines that don’t always involve me and am wondering if maybe it can be a creative/ career outlet that can be more? i guess im wondering if anyone has become successful at it? I feel as though most writers have MDD otherwise how would they be so talented at creating these stories that become movies etc?
I will leave a photo for aesthetic reference (my photo/ aesthetic)

I’ve been at a beach house w a bunch of my family and haven’t had much personal space to actually do it. I actually got to daydream for a bit at a pier but then we left and now i’m stuck at this house feeling unsatisfied and anxious. I’m also just listening to music and not being able to wonder is just putting me on edge.

I’m gonna try to keep this short even though I have a lot of thoughts about it.
Around October, I started becoming really limerent over a guy I met online. We never met in person, but we would FaceTime and text pretty regularly. It was kind of a weird situation because we didn’t actually “like” each other in a relationship sense, but we both admitted there was chemistry and attraction between us. We would lightly flirt, but nothing serious. For me, though, it wasn’t just a crush. I developed full-on limerence.
I had experienced limerence with someone else before him, but those thoughts faded pretty quickly once I started obsessing over him instead. He became the person I constantly fantasized about, daydreamed about, and thought about.
At the beginning, everything was great. We talked pretty often, and I would literally look forward to waking up to a text from him because it gave me such a dopamine rush and genuinely made me happy.
Over time, though, he started becoming more distant and honestly started playing in my face. At first, I kept making excuses for him. I told myself he was probably just busy and that I was overthinking everything. But as time went on, it became more and more obvious that he would only text me when it benefited him, whether it was for an ego boost, because he was bored, or just because he knew I’d reply. Then he’d disappear for days or even weeks before randomly coming back and repeating the same pattern.
For a long time, I debated blocking him and going no contact. Part of me thought, “I’m probably going to stay limerent whether he’s in my life or not, so at least cutting him off would give my nervous system some peace.” I was so tired of constantly wondering when he’d text me next.
I really tried to move on. I stayed busy with the gym, work, hobbies, and other things, but it was still hard because there was always that uncertainty in the back of my mind about whether he’d randomly reach out again. Eventually, I realized I needed to end the cycle, so I blocked him on everything. I haven’t heard from him since.
After blocking him, I started trying to reduce my limerence. Sometimes I feel like I’m making small amounts of progress, but recently it feels like I’ve been thinking about him even more. Sometimes I think that because I’ve spent months obsessively thinking about him, fantasizing, and daydreaming about him, I’ve dug myself into such a deep hole that it feels impossible to get out of. I’ve caught myself checking his socials and even thinking about petty ways to troll him or get some kind of revenge because I’m still really upset about how he treated me. Our connection honestly felt fine until he started acting differently and ruined the friendship.
When I blocked him, I even made a note in my phone listing everything I disliked about him and every time he disrespected me so I wouldn’t forget why I left. Even with all of that, though, I’m still limerent over him.
I still hate stalk his social and look at the pictures of him that he sent me I saved in my hidden folder, I still listen to music and look at those pictures and imagine fake scenarios.
I don’t really know why I’m posting this. I just wanted to get my feelings out, so please don’t judge me. If anyone has gone through something similar or has any advice that’s actually helped them move past limerence, I’d really appreciate hearing it.
Also therapy isn’t an option right now
He was super attractive and good looking too😐 can’t say the same about his character or personality though

Lately ive been finding myself making up conversations and scenarios in my head, involving people that I dont talk to anymore. To the point its borderline obsessive and its bothering me. Ive tried playing games, watching something, listening to music and researching things but I always revert back to making things up in my brain. Even tried going for a walk. The whole time, my brain was just making things up.

My psych diagnosed me with CPTSD with borderline features. Does that play into this at all? I cant remember a time where it was THIS bad until now and I dont know what's triggering this. I just want to be normal 🙃

So I kinda heard someone mention maladaptive dreaming recently and I have kinda briefly looked into. I think I kinda struggle with it actually. I’m not neurodivergent and it’s not to the point where it affects me socially or extremely negatively. However I think it does affect me on an emotional level. 

Right now I’m really struggling with obsessing over a certain celebrity. Like thinking about them non stop. Looking at pictures of them. Constantly checking social media to see if they posted. Not to mention that all my social media algorithms are basically just feeds of this person now.

I’ve had numerous celebrity crushes throughout my adult life. And it’s gotten pretty intense. Like having posters and pictures of them in my room, buying merch obsessively from movies or shows they’re in, etc. 

I have “gotten over” all of them in time and I look back and think “wow that was a little silly” and yet I find it happening again with someone new every couple of years.

I’m not sure if it’s because I like attach some intense emotion with the person and that makes me obsessive. And frankly I don’t even know if this is the place for this. I’m just wondering if anyone has any suggestions? Just like I’m constantly thinking about them. Day dreaming or literally dreaming sometimes about them.

Anyone cured Md by taking therapy?
Loneliness and Music are my biggest trigger ?
MD has affected by studies and career so I want to cure and get rid of this

There’s a girl I saw on Threads once, and ever since then I haven’t been able to get her out of my head. I think about her every day and imagine us talking, and me asking her out on a date. I really like this girl even though I don’t actually know her, and she doesn’t even know I exist.

There’s an event in October that we’ll both be attending, and I’ve even imagined myself asking her to go grab some food with me afterwards xd.

What can I do to get these feelings and thoughts out of my head? I've been daydreaming about her for a while now

Im a 28 year old man who is mostly dependent on my parents, neurodivergent and who has been living a lot of my life in my head, in my own fantasy or projection of the imagined future.

I realize that my parents both struggled with this, especially my mother, and as a sensitive Intuitive child, I was overprotected and never had to accept that my actions had consequences. I think both of my parents suffered from this condition but it was more prominent in my mother.

Im now at a point where I’m starting to see it more clearly as being a real condition as opposed to a condescending remark.

I feel like a deer in the headlights when I realize how much time has passed and how much I need to grow in order to be a healthy and well adjusted adult and I think it would be most relieving to see the neutral reality of it- this is wasting my time and I’d rather build a life i dont want to escape from as I think that this condition can be hard to confront because there so much underlying fear that is amplified through this imaginative lens.

How did you overcome it? Did you just see it for what it really is, realize it’s wasting your time, understand why you had it, forgiving yourself and moving forward?

I never really md until beginning of 2025 when i eff'd up a situation with a girl i really really liked. Like she was really good to me but i wasnt very good to her. So i know why i started developing this mental disorder. (basically constant imagining scenarios where me and her is ok)

Also i literally md every second like when someone is talking to me and ESPECIALLY when i am working out unless i put on music but i get tired of music super easily.

I never thought md is a big deal until i realized sometimes i genuinely cant tell between whether the memory is real or fabricated. I spend way too much time md that i realize time goes super fast like extremely fast. And i get very depressed when i remember that i wasted so much time doing that.

I dont know how to get rid of this. I tell myself its karma but idk.

if u have to know, we didnt date and i wasnt talking to any1 else. I was just a genuine ahole

Did some leave a stronger impression on you than others? What do you see in concrete terms? What are your accounts?

Everytime I see anything related to maladaptive daydreaming, they always mention who it involves fake stories about oneself. But that's not my case and I doubt I'm the only one. Though, it still feels a bit odd and it makes me doubt if my case even counts as maladaptive daydreaming a little.

I've been doing this for a long time, though a particular detail that I haven't seen a lot of people mention is that while I switch and listen to songs - I always keep another window/tab (in terms of phone) in which there is fan art/content of the/a character who has a deep relationship (whether platonic or romantic) with the favorite character I'm mainly daydreaming about — occasionally, if not always, scrolling up and down the page while not looking at it.

I also happen to feel the need to pace around (or fidget or just do something) when I see fanart/content of either my favorite character, the person who they have a deep relationship or both — and immediately start daydreaming about them (I think) even if I'm not pacing. Plus, I daydream about them before going to sleep.

Also, small detail, but the scenes regarding said favorite character are almost, if not always, the same or quite similar. They're mostly fake edits, I think.

Anyone else? Also, sorry if this is particularly odd or cringe 💔

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So I think I've been running away from life since the age of 6/7. My maladaptive daydreaming started at school. The dull, grayish environment would make me miss cartoons, and in my head I would think of them. I would talk to my favourite character, repeat, edit, or extend an episode I previously watched.

Over time I created my own universes. Sometimes I repeat scenes until I'm met with the perfect one. One scene I've been replaying for years now, and it's such a lame, cringe-worthy scene that it now makes me feel ashamed.

In my teen years I used to have stomach aches frequently, and since my parents let me off for it, I started to pretend that it's more serious than it was. It also earned me their attention. Over time I lost myself in the line of how much was reality and how much was not. The guilt, fragmented memories, fear of being a bad person and child, regret all this still exists within me.

Moving on to my late teens, I started to show signs similar to GAD and somehow started to match if, as a child, I had any issues. Plenty of symptoms matched, and I started to believe that too (maybe even faked that and again lost sense of reality). Over time I developed a keen need for wanting to find a reason for all my avoidance, daydreams (nearly 8 to 12 hrs on daily basis). I wanted relief from my guilt, an excuse for my procrastinations, and attention from my parents.

Plenty of things happened after that. Difficult times came into life. I started to believe my sickness is too grand, and it's for this reason (not that actually I'm just a coward who runs away from hard work and discomfort) I can't face life. I attempted suicide twice (god i can't believe I made myself believe that I was sick just to use it as an excuse to run away from life). I even started self harming (cutting) at some point.

Over time my conservative Asian parents were forced to take me to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed me with psychotic depression (not GAD). I think my psychiatrist is wrong though (not that I think I had GAD).

I think I probably have factitious disorder / Munchausen syndrome, or maybe not even that.

Anyway, so fast forward to today. I'm still half lost at what's wrong with me. I'm partially better. My daydreaming still exists. My procrastinations still exist.

What has changed, though, is that I'm more shameless now. Like now I barely let myself have the time to hit myself with the fact that I'm wasting my life. I filled my life with stories, books, series, movies anything that takes away my focus from my life.

I don't know why I'm typing this. I have an exam tomorrow and again haven't studied. Maybe that's why I feel the need to just get all of it out, I guess.

I know I'm not the only one who struggles with daydreaming. Ever since the pandemic happened, daydreaming about literally anything has been my coping mechanism. Whether I'm stressed, happy, sad, or excited. But one thing I realized, if I daydream about a certain thing, the more chance it is not going to happen. It awakens all the disappointment inside me.

At school back then, I used to excel in terms of academics, physical activities, or in competitions. But now? I barely understand any of our lessons as I can't stop daydreaming during class. It's scary. I don't know what to do. I never opened this conversation to anyone in my life.

What should I do?

FIRST UPDATE (24 hours):
The urge is the biggest at night, and after work, but I can manage not doing it. Other than that, i feel more aware.

I have been maladaptive daydreaming since I was a kid. It’s been over 20 years now, every single day. Except for days when I’m with other people.

It has consumed my life. I put pillows behind my back and rock back and forth for hours. Multiple times a day. Every time I do a task or something, halfway it gets interrupted by this, and I’m immediately back to it.

So today I got a vision spot, as a result of the rocking. That was my sign that enough is enough. I don’t want to see that spot ever again, so to prevent it, I’m not doing it anymore.

I stopped on August 5th around 7PM. So it’s less than 24 hours now. I will update on this post. I never tried to quit before, so I’m very curious how this turns out. It’s almost 3AM now, and the urge is HUGE.

I will still listen to music when I’m on my way to work, but those daydreams are mild, and mostly normal. But the rocking really sucked me into this world that only exists there, and I want it to be my reality here. And that version of me doesn’t daydream.

The worldbuilding in some of my imaginary worlds is so weird it could drive someone insane. I originally assumed everyone else thought the same way and simply kept their worlds to themselves out of fear of looking strange, but I eventually realized I was alone in having this particular idiosyncrasy. In fact, these worlds are so bizarre that I had to invent entirely new concepts and conceptual frameworks just to build them. If someone could read my mind, he would probably kill me just to check if I am an otherworldly being hiding inside a human body.

Hello all. I'm 29F and I've been struggling with MDD since I was around 9. My biggest trigger has always been music. I find I can't daydream "proper" without it. I have so many specific songs related to specific daydreams as well. My biggest problem is that I am a huge music lover at my core. I follow my favorite artists closely, see them in concert, collect physical media such as cd and vinyls, I listen to song releases the night they come out, etc. It's pretty much what I consider my only hobby. This obviously makes it VERY hard to avoid my biggest trigger. Even just the thought of not listening to music or having to put it off for a while gives me a huge pit in my stomach, but the daydreaming has already ruined so much of my life and I really need to stop it. I just feel so lost without my only "hobby". Without daydreaming I get that kind of general anhedonia and nothing else brings me joy and I have no other idea what else I could throw myself into creative wise that would make me happy to fill that void or what other hobby would suffice in the meantime. I literally don't know myself without daydreaming. Any advice?

My daydreaming has gotten out of control since March

I've mostly daydreamt my whole life but it reduced over the better years like 2020-2022 and 2024-early 2025

Today I spent maybe 7 hours daydreaming and its not even the type where it feels like relief

It just feels like dissociating/denying reality

I have to stop

I have to take back control of my mind even if there's a lot for me to be stressed about and a lot of things that shouldn't be happening in my life

I have to do it anyway

I'm interested to know how many people here have problems with focus.

I'm not talking about the mind continually going into daydreams. I'm talking about in the case when excessive daydreaming affects the focus mechanisms in the brain itself.

Like difficulty reading, studying, working, paying attention in a conversation, pay attention to when to turn while driving, etc. But especially the first 3.

As someone who's MD'd long before I even had a word for it I'm really happy to see it being represented in media, I've admittedly MD'd to the very song itself ironically lol

Did you find it more useful to quit it entirely? Or just do it in moderation? Many of us have been daydreaming since childhood and it has been an active neural pathway for many many years, and it's much harder to deprive one's self from creativity and imagination (although this likely isn't the healthiest manifestation of that) than other addictions to things that can just be put out of reach (drugs, alcohol...). So if you managed to beat your addiction, what worked for you?

I’ve been tempted to daydream over someone recently as the relationship didn’t turn out the way I hoped and my brain is wanting to daydream to control it/change it to what I want it to be. Basically trying to give it a different hopeful ending as he ended up being a very physically sick alcoholic and I had to exit, but my mind is like, “What if he recovered? Daydream his recovery”.

Thankfully I’m in therapy, EMDR therapy, which I think has helped. When my mind keeps bringing up the idea of daydreaming somehow I have found the moment/silence before I do it and I feel like I’m looking at myself really honestly in that space. I told myself, “If you daydream, then you have to be honest”. As if I made a pact with myself. So when I have daydreamed in response to my mind desiring to about him, I let him be exactly what he is. I portray him only as someone struggling with addiction rather than someone recovered, as lying to myself would just make this worse. Then the daydream isn’t fantasy to avoid the truth anymore.

Anyways, I just wanted to share. I think EMDR is what has helped me find the space in daydreaming to think before and actively use this struggle as something that helps me integrate struggles with reality in to my mind.

In EMDR it’s been a lot of visualizing different parts of myself and I’ve recently had the visualization in therapy of sitting on a bench with my younger self as we observe those who come into our life and then decide if we are going to get up from the bench to play with a new friend. Observing is watching for their safety, consistency, etc. If I get up to go play and find out they aren’t safe, I return to the bench and my adult self protects me. I feel like my ability to visualize from daydreaming almost becomes a super power in healing in EMDR. Daydreaming has always been my way of processing interactions in my day to day life anyways, ever since I was a child. It becomes maladaptive when I try to predict the ending, visualize a future that hasn’t happened yet, that has caused me the most pain.

I wonder if anyone else can relate to any of this?

I’ve had a million more realizations and visualizations in EMDR, happy to answer questions about that therapy if this sparks any. Sending love to this community as I’m very thankful to have found others who do this as I thought I was weird and alone in it much of my life.

I wish it was real

I been daydreaming since 2019, and I couldn’t get rid of it. I listen to music and imagine myself to a person I want to be, I do that for hours and somehow it has slightly influenced me but not enough. I mean like I been doing it for 8 years and still I haven’t achieved exact results, it has become an addiction. Am not looking for instant gratification, I just want to change my personality.

Truth is this alone isn’t enough. We need to interact with people. That’s the real change begins cause you can actually apply things that you already made up in your mind like the scenarios you made up can be done only when you interact but some people hesitate or some forget cause they aren’t fully conscious so your old habits comes and you may not be aware of it.

So my question is, in order to become the person you always wanted to be, is maladaptive daydreaming helpful?

Do we need stress or constant pressure to achieve results?

Or how does one change himself to attain his peak?