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Maladaptive Daydreaming: Why Real Life Seems Terrifying for Daydreamers
Today, I’ll be answering this question: why is real life terrifying for most excessive dreamers? Actually, if there is one thing which most daydreamers dread the most, it’s real life. They dread real life to the point where someone consciously wants to live in that other imaginary world, let’s call it that imaginary world, and just ignore this other life completely. So, why is it scary?
Actually, there’s only one reason: it’s because of neglect. Real life is scary because, as a daydreamer, you’ve neglected this real life for so long. Yes, you might have neglected this real life unconsciously without you knowing, but consciously, you know that you’ve neglected your real life. You’ve neglected taking care of yourself, your mental health, your studies, and working on yourself or your dreams.
You’ve preferred the dreams in this imaginary world. So when you really, really neglected things in your life and in this other life, which is imaginary, you’ve built things — you’ve built relationships, you’ve built connections. Of course, there will always be a very, very huge contrast between the actual life you’re supposed to live and the life of your own creation and the life of your own imagination.
That’s why you will really feel terrified of coming back because it’s like going back to your home, which you’ve not cleaned for five years, and now you’re coming back from this place which is sparkling clean — everything is sorted, you have good relationships, good food, good movies, good everything. And then now you have to go back to your place, which is a mess, full of rats, full of everything, full of spiders, full of all those things you’ve got to clean up. Of course, it will be terrifying. Yeah, so it is terrifying because you’ve neglected it. It can be unconsciously because of your past, but you’ve also consciously neglected it. You don’t want to face it.
You don’t want to face the reality that, “Hey, this world I’m creating is imaginary, and ultimately I have to come back to the other world.” So, the more you neglect it, the more it becomes terrifying.
Here’s the thing: even if you keep living in that imaginary world, ultimately you’ll snap back to reality. Because this other one you’re building in your head, you can build anything. Focus on this other one, which is more challenging, not this one, which offers the path of least resistance, the easy path. No, focus on building it, and each day you ignore it, the contrast becomes bigger.
Like if you ignore brushing your teeth today or if you ignore working on those stresses or looking for that job, saving the money, of course it means that it will keep getting messier and messier. Like if you don’t clean that house today, it will keep getting dirty. So, if there’s one thing or one piece of advice you can take from this, it’s to start taking control of your real life today. That’s how you can deal with a terrifying real life.
Note from the Author
If you’re ready and you’d like my help with overcoming and managing maladaptive daydreaming without spending years in therapy, then you can book a FREE BREAKTHROUGH CALL with me HERE. Happy healing 💙💙. Feel free to share and comment! Use this information with caution, it comes from my own thoughts & bias, experiences and research😊.