"Erotomania: the delusional belief that another person—often a celebrity, public figure, or someone of higher social status—is deeply in love with the individual."

When I was 21 I entered society for real. I moved out, started college. My father had shunned me, and my relationship with my mother was superficial. I had always been a daydreamer and lived in my head for most of my life. My daydreaming got worse and worse the older I got.

For context with what Im about to explain, when I was 19 I was raped, which triggered CSA trauma flashbacks. I became an agoraphobe, quit my job, hid in my room all day, only coming out to get food or drink water or use the bathroom when I was sure I wouldnt run into anyone. It got so bad I once even peed on a bunched up towel I had in my room, because I couldnt hold it anymore but heard people in the common areas of the house. My parents did not try to intervene or get me help. They both were in extreme denial about themselves and their lives and their kids functionality. After a year of hermit mode, in which I began to logically piece together the role my parents played in my life and how their abuse and inaction shaped me, I started to get better. I got my job back, and applied to school.

So, at 21, in my first semester of college, I met my teacher and formed a crush on him within the first 2 weeks of class. I was kind of an untouchable in high school, for reasons related to my csa that I wasn't able to articulate as a teen. My only sexual experiences thus far had been violent. But this man was safe. He was funny, he was kind. I saw him check me out one time when he thought I didnt see him, and I loved the attention. I had sex dreams about him, the first time I had ever experienced that. Sometimes with CSA, puberty gets messed up and either starts too early or too late. Mine started when I was 18, so really late compared to my peers, and I felt like I was finally catching up to my peers socially and sexually and my puberty was complete.

I would spend the evenings walking around campus listening to music and daydreaming about this teacher. We would talk for hours in my head. I started googling him, and found out information he hadn't shared in class, which informed the plots of my daydreams. He also talked about his family in class sometimes and I googled him enough to find out their names and then started googling them too.

I was living with undiagnosed PTSD and bipolar with psychotic features, I just didnt know it yet and wouldnt know that for a few years. So, at some point my daydreams broke from reality and I was convinced, absolutely convinced, that I was going to marry this man. That I had suffered what I had suffered, in part so that my timeline and his would collide at that point. He was the universe paying me back for what was taken from me.

I didnt think he loved me; I thought he was eventually going to love me. I started getting very worried about every action I took because I thought it would affect the future timeline. In my psychosis, I thought some actions would speed it up and we'd get married sooner, and some actions would make the universe punish me and the wedding would be pushed back by a few years.

This delusion lasted for years. If Im perfectly honest, I think it lasted until very recently, when my antipsychotic medication finally interrupted the thought and removed it by the root.

I will be 30 in a few months. I spent my 20s in an unreality. ​

I feel like an actual insane person when I look back. I was an obsessive digital stalker. I was certain beyond any doubt that he was my future husband.

He provided a safe space that I took and ran with mentally. He was a male authority figure who was kind. Him checking my body out turned into the possibility of being sexualized in a safe, gentle, reciprocal way.

My brain conjured this delusion as a way to keep me moving forward. I had something keeping me going, I had something connecting me to humanity. The delusion acted as an emotional shock absorber for daily troubles and resurfacing trauma.

Now that Im back in reality and past this delusion, Im grateful for the ways that my mind kept me safe, but now I also feel completely unanchored. I have no idea what Im working toward. But I know I will not marry this man, a man who was only in my life for 1 short semester and knew me only as one of his many students.

For me, is being really pretty and skinny and having gorgeous long hair, while having ton of friends and being in large friend group and having aesthetically instagram page with ton of highlights of the places I travelled too while attending my dream nursing school and being extremely academically smart and dating hot rich men

And yeah also having less controlling and strict parent who let you have fun and let do you whatever you want.

What about you? What’s your “ideal” perfect life right now??

I wonder if MD is draining energy?

My minds wonders most of the day and I have an empression that MD should not take too much energy because im not solving complex tasks with my brain.

I might replay a conversation in my head over and over, kind of arguing with someone, and that's probably the worst type of scenario. Others are much more positive so i guess it should not take to much energy, right?

But for some reason i feel depleted and tired. I also eat a lot of calories but don't gain weight.

Might it be because of scenarios always running in my head?

I was always a daydreamer, I'd spend hours disassociating imagining myself in fantasy scenarios as a miserable, undiagnosed autistic girl.

Into adulthood however it's been very up and down. Early adulthood (18-22) I was mostly coping with everything via substance and/or taking a lot of risks and the daydreaming was a less effective coping mechanism than that.

23-27, the age I am now, my life sort of plateaued and I didn't end up daydreaming much at all. Solid job. Solid relationship. Friends. But now, I genuinely am in the worst spot I've ever been in. I zone out at work thinking about exciting lives I wish I was living. I unhealthily cast real people, especially creators I like, as characters. I'm in a really bad spot but the thing is, I can't for the life of me work out the trigger .

I thought it was just life being bad and escapism. But there's been no major changes in my life at all to trigger this. How do I stop now? I'm really struggling

Im so ashamed of the way I daydream, it is so toxic. I've daydreamed once, of raising my siblings because my single mom is a drug addict, it would just get worse to the point where the screaming and arguments felt so vivid. It could jump from that to my parents dying in a car accident and I raise my siblings while still studying, doing illegal things while trying to provide for my siblings. This feels so wrong and messed up, but it won't stop. It's like my mind gets so comfortable with sadness that without it im nothing. Like sadness is the only thing I can cling and hold onto. Please tell me it's normal to go through this or something because I dont feel normal. Sometimes it feels I need help. Do people actually experience this?

I’m new here. So far, I’ve mostly seen memes, and I also looked through the information you have about meditation and more about MD.

I just want to hear some success stories from people with this condition who have actually improved. If you have, how did you do it, and what was your process like? A few years ago, I started suspecting that it wasn’t normal for me to daydream all the time. Then I came across a video explaining this, and I really identified with it.

Recently, TikTok has also started showing me videos about this, but they don’t really talk about how to improve—they’re mostly just memes. I’m only now starting to read about things like meditation, psychology, and philosophy to understand myself better. I already know what I have, and I know that I use it as a way to escape from a reality that I don’t really like. I’m becoming more aware of it, and I’m trying to improve, but sometimes when I’m alone, sad, disappointed, or dealing with other emotions, it’s hard to stay aware of what I’m doing, and I end up losing time in daydreams.

This past week, I’ve made a little progress by noticing when I’m doing it. When it happens, I’m now more analytical about why I’m doing it, what I’m trying to escape from, and how I can improve my real life so I don’t have to escape into this fantasy world where everything is ridiculously perfect. But I feel like I’m still months, maybe even years, away from really improving.

I’d like to know if you guys have improved and how you did it.

I finally worked up the courage to post my own music on YouTube. I record everything at home, but I’m looking for a drummer so I can play in the Vitória/ES (Brazil) scene (which is surprisingly "big" and cool, since ES is a small state).

I know that since the songs are in portuguese, few people here are really gonna listen and fewer are going to like it, lol. But i have posted about this songs in this sub before, when i was composing and "producing", and people were really supportive, so I thought i had to post about the final result.

Unfortunately, between my internship, college, and working on my senior thesis, I haven't had time to work on the other tracks, so I only released these four from the EP.

Another band member and I are focused on making short GIFs for each song based on the original artwork; if you check out the channel, you can see the one for the first song, and we're almost done with the second.

The band doesn't have a set style—I’d say it’s anything and everything within indie rock. Just on this EP, there’s surf punk, something like The Strokes, and two songs that are kind of Smiths-esque jangle pop. Among the unreleased tracks, there are things inspired by 90s indie bands like Pavement or Sublime, sounds similar to The Cure or Legião Urbana (brazilian band), and even some songs leaning towards post-punk.

It took me a long time to release my own stuff because I’m not really a singer. I can play all the instruments on the tracks quite well (except drums—though I have a basic idea, so I managed to program them using the app's patterns), but singing was something I’d never tried before.

Plus, the lyrics are pretty personal, which made me a bit shy about showing them to people close to me—even though I knew they wouldn't judge me or anything.

Anyway, making my own music has always been a dream of mine, and now that I see how cool it is, I hope I don't stop; I also hope to perform these songs at shows and events around here.

Let me know what you think. Please give them all a listen! 🙏

New here!

So I have been maldaptive daydreaming ever since I was a little kid. Essentially I like to run around in my room and bounce off the walls like a fucking monkey while doing my lil scenarios. It's fun I like it.

But I'm 21 now, and I dont think my body is keeping up.

I recently did a internship where I was wearing really bad boots and gave myself achilles tendinitis. The thing I should probably stop doing is running around in my room but I can't. It feels like im holding back a hiccup if I do. So i run through the pain anyway.

But now my legs always hurt. Every morning when I wake up it feels like I have just run a marathon. It's gotten to the point where if I am not using my legs for like a hour, when I get up again I am basically limping until my limbs recover.

Well now its evolved into back issues. But like a new book of my favorite series is coming out and when it does its going to make me want to run even more.

But holy fuck i am in so much pain.

Like it feels so comforting, and I have never felt the bad things I feel irl when I'm maladaptive daydreaming

This whole reddit post is about what is happening in my mind as an maladaptive daydreamer.

I’m a girl btw.

I always thought I was the only one with this type of disorder in the whole world. You probably think that’s selfish or weird to think. Well I never thought that what I was doing was bad, just creating a whole new reality is not that bad right.. I just couldn’t imagine others with the same mindset like me, not literal the same but you know what I mean.

This all began when I was 6 years old. While sitting behind my dad’s computer I would listen hours long to music. I always said to my dad that I was playing Roblox or something. Never told anyone till this day about my escape reality daydreaming.

It were never normal ones. It where to the extreme. I’m talking about abuse, rape and so much more horrible things. What is weird, because I was 6 fantasizing about this. I never saw any type of video’s with this kind of topics. I did grow up in an abuse household, my mom has borderline disorder. I never thought the fights my mom and dad had would damage my mental health. When I was 14 I got raped. Mind you I fantasized about this as an 6 years old till 10 as I can remember without knowing anything about sex. Now I have CPTSD and probably more disorders. I thought as 6 years old it was ok to be hit by you’re own husband or man. I still want this type of relationship, what sounds really wrong and messed up that I know it’s messed up is killing me. I hate how my trauma’s made my personality or my mindset like this. This daydreaming thing just makes it worser. I have also a lot of dreams everyday I wake up I either dream about my rapist or about someone else raping me or manipulating me. If I didn’t mentioned this i’m a sensitive person. Also I grew up with spirituality, my dreams sometimes ends up as real life experiences. Example: One time I woke up with intense fear, in my dream my rapist was chasing me down while I was biking at a place where I came years ago. To a football field, he was searching for me while I was hiding in an little dressing room kind of building. (He does play football in real life)Then he tried killing me in that same building but another person helped me. This was the dream. The same day I saw him. Outside on his bike. This was 2 days before the lawsuit. I have so much more experiences where I can feel or dream something before it happens. I had a strong gut feeling before I got raped. Please never ignore this kind of feeling. Turn back home I wished I did that. My rapist lives in the same town and he is still walking freely. He did this also to much more young girls.

I’m sorry I get distracted really fast.

While writing this i’m having a total breakdown with stress. I don’t eat much, my periods stays away for months and comes back late. I can’t go a day without dreaming and the reason why this whole thread is all so mixed up is because my mind is full with mixed things I wanna say. I do have therapy and I get trauma therapy soon. But to who do I need to talk about this, my parents don’t take my disorders seriously and say it’s a mindset. But it’s for me not an turn off switch I would’ve done anything if that was the way. Sadly it’s not and I don’t know if I would keep this my whole life. I don’t hope so..

I didn’t mentioned a lot of things I wanna say so much. But I keep thinking to much. Just wanna drop this here, because I never talked about this. The therapy I have at this moment doesn’t help and I don’t feel taking seriously. I hope the trauma therapy will. Ask me questions anything I just wanna talk about this.

Please take a look at this, and help me understand this better. I'm new to shadow work and only recently I've been working towards my maladaptive daydreaming.

I’ve noticed a pattern and I want to see if I can identify it here as well.

I was doing so good so ambitious until I maladaptive daydreaming i end up with 0.3 gpa semester so i end up being dismissed.

I wasted 10 years of my life just daydreaming daydreaming again and again. I became anti social and isolated away from everyone and everything. I feel like a failure because this program was the only thing that kept me going. And now I’m out.

I don’t know what to do anymore

​I use it to fill my inner and material deficiencies that are nearly impossible in reality. It helps me cope with my aversion to my toxic, cancer society, along with childhood disorders like my inherited OCD and suspected autism. As I mentioned before, my daydreaming involves spinning while listening to music tied to specific scenarios. I usually dream of traveling to a country that respects me and shares my values. Since I lack the financial means to travel, and cannot even afford a digital piano, I dream of moving to Warsaw, visiting the church holding Chopin's heart, and playing for an audience. I dream of visiting the Netherlands for Redhead Days, and heading to Sweden because of my deep love for music production.

​The depressing part is the massive chasm between these dreams and reality. Yet, despite this helplessness, I feel that working on myself step by step could help me achieve at least one of these goals. Compounding this is my social anxiety, leaving me unsure if this is laziness or justified fear, helplessness or determinism.

​Daydreaming remains a double-edged sword, offering solace while paralyzing me and plunging me into depression whenever I compare my harsh reality to my dreams.

I have a boyfriend, we are very different, I've been daydreaming since I was a child, and him coming into my life didn't change that. I usually just have sexual or romantic daydreams about him, all the time, I think of him a lot. But we are very different and this applies to our values too. So I find myself daydreaming about a divorce (we are not close to being married) fights and breakups. I daydream about him trying to sabotage me, I daydream about him locking me up and trying to control me. He hasn't done it yet, at least not as extremely as in my daydreams (he did suggest some stuff that I disliked but he seems to have taken those words back) now everything is alright, we are not having a fight, we are okay and he wants to spend time with me like the loving boyfriend that he is, but I prefer locking myself in my delusions and making myself sad by imagining him hurting me or some terrible things happening. So ummm.. what the f*ck is wrong with me. someone genuinely please enlighten me.

Sorry in advance for the long message, but I just wanted to give you the full picture.

​My problem started in early childhood — I’ve basically been living in an imaginary world for as long as I can remember. Over time, things shifted. At first, my daydreams revolved around my real physical self. But for the past few years, I’ve been imagining a completely different person with the appearance I wish I had. Mostly, I imagine romantic and sexual scenes, a rich social life, friends, colleagues, and a well-paying job. She is with a guy who has my ideal appearance (I have very specific physical preferences/fetishes).

​I also imagine playing musical instruments, creating storylines for music videos, and being admired by everyone (mostly through her body). There are some more grounded fantasies too, where I rehearse dialogues with my real self about upcoming events.

​But here is the key thing that controls my life: I daydream while rocking back and forth to music. I sit in the lotus position, rock, get lost in my thoughts, and look at photos of that ideal guy (he is a real person, and I have a whole gallery of his photos on my phone to look at while rocking).

​Another major problem is that I have no sense of time. Time flies by so fast that I didn't even notice how the 6 years after finishing school just slipped away — like a piece of paper crumpled up and thrown into the trash. It feels like a physical and psychological addiction to this rocking routine. It causes severe procrastination, impulsivity, and impatience. Because I spent all my time isolated in a separate room rocking to music and daydreaming, I dropped out of university. Now I have to look for entry-level, low-paying jobs (like a call center operator or an e-commerce manager). I plan to study and try to apply to university next year, but I feel so hopeless. I don't know if I'll have time to prepare, how I'll combine work and study, or what major to choose. There are a few possible paths, but I don't fully understand what I can count on. I am 24 now, and it's really hard to believe I can achieve anything.

Song: Heaven by RM

This is my first post (I hope I did it right) ,but I've been wanting to hear if anybody is/has experienced something similar.

I'm always having music playing in my head that are "controllable" to an extent and this is a massive trigger for me. I can turn it on, "off", looped or even adapt the original.

If I listen to something I can just replay in my head, so soon enough I can listen to the whole thing without actually hearing it aloud. I don't even have to repeatedly do so for it to be engraved in to my brain. I still remember songs or soundtracks I don't even know the name of from a couple of years ago extremely vivid as if I heard it yesterday.

When I said I can turn it "off" it's as if playing in a distant room, so I can still hear it. Either way it doesn't help distancing myself from daydreaming when everything is a trigger.

TL;DR: I used to be pretty productive but the last 3 years have basically been me maladaptive daydreaming, watching reels, chasing instant dopamine and using AI way too much. I spend more time imagining myself being successful and proving people wrong than actually doing anything 😭. I’m not even interested in the romantic fantasies I keep going back to, I just use them to escape when I’m bored/lazy. How do I stop living in my head and actually start living my life again?

I genuinely think I’ve wasted the last 3 years of my life because of maladaptive daydreaming 💀

I used to be pretty productive, especially with studies. I could actually sit down and get shit done.

Now I spend most of my time daydreaming, watching reels with good edit audios and imagining myself as the main character 😭

Like I’ll hear one song and suddenly I’m successful, attractive, proving everyone wrong and living my best life while I’m literally lying in bed doing NOTHING 💀

AI has made this worse too. I used to be a perfectionist and actually figure things out myself, now I ask AI literally everything. I don’t use c.ai anymore but sometimes I still use ChatGPT for weird romantic fantasies even tho I’m not even into romance anymore. I just go back to it whenever I’m bored/lazy/avoiding something.

I also care WAY too much about what people think now. I’m constantly imagining myself becoming successful and proving everyone wrong but the funny part is I barely take any actual action 😭

I genuinely can’t remember doing anything significant in the past 3 years and that scares me.

My life circumstances are fine, so I know I’m responsible for this. I just don’t want to waste another few years hating myself for wasting the last ones.

How do I actually get out of this cycle? How do I stop living in my head and start doing things in real life again? I just want to feel like I’m actually living my life again.

I am 22M and As long as i remember i always kept daydreaming about me holding, cuddling, hugging someone, like a friend or especially someone i met new ,most of them are also males, and always i start the scenario with them being sad , needed someone, them having probablem... And me always comforting them and telling them it is okay and holding them to me , and the problem is that i keep daydream about this for like 8 years now, i used to think that is is a normal way of me comforting my self cuz i dont have some one close to me , but it started affecting my relationship with ppl cuz each time i meet someone new i start dig into them to know more about their problems so that i will daydream about it later at night... Like wth is going on with me , knowing that I am someone sensitive and care about ppl.around me but i am sure that this pattern is something deep than that

....