Mind and Go-through, my elaborate childhood imaginary friends, and maladaptive daydreaming.
I had two elaborate imaginary friends when I was a child.
My relationship with my imaginary friends started at around the age of 7 and wouldn't stop until I was 11. One of them was called "Mind" and one was "Go-through". Mind looked exactly like Danny Devito, he sat on a wooden stool in a suit against a black background in my head, and "Go-through" looked sorta like a boy me but mostly I interacted with him verbally and just "knew" he was seeing exactly what I was seeing/experiencing exactly what I was experiencing.
Mind offered wisdom to me and Go-through as we awkwardly fumbled through childhood and into adolescence. And since I had no real friends, Go-through, offered me solidarity. We would discuss our day, troubles, trauma, everything and we bonded over how we both lived the exact same life. He was in a different parallel universe living my exact life. I talked to Mind and Go-through every day, all day, until the age of 11.
Then I hit puberty and realized Go-through couldn't "go-through" everything I did.
I started my period and started dealing with things that only girls do. I started to realize me and Go-through couldn't relate on everything anymore. He couldn't understand what I was going through anymore. I tried to still talk to them but it wasn't the same. Why I created "Go-through" as a male I am not entirely sure. I can speculate that maybe it was because girls at school picked on me and boys played with me.
Slowly, over the few months after puberty, my "relationship" with Mind and Go-through faded. I would occasionally check in with them for about another year, trying to connect in a way I once had but not only did it not make sense logistically to relate to Go-through, but I was no longer able to believe they existed. It was clear to me now that they were just imaginary and had been my coping mechanism.
I had always known this would happen though so I did plan for it.
I talked to Mind about how one day I wouldn't believe in them anymore. And I talked about how much I would miss them. He assured me that even though one day I would no longer believe in him I would still be reunited with him and Go-through when I die. Regardless of if I stop believing in their existence. I guess that's about the only type of religion I could commit to.
I continued to "maladaptive daydream" from childhood to adulthood even after dropping my "friends".
I did throughout my childhood and for most of my adult life create a fantasy world that I went to for many hours every night. The difference being even though it is very real and very intense --people dying in this fantasy world literally made me cry-- while I am doing it, I know it is not real and is simply a fantasy. Even so, this activity started taking up 2-5 hours of my time, every night. It started to get in the way of me staying in touch with reality and it started to warp my expectations of reality and life outside of my fantasy.
I learned this is called "maladaptive daydreaming". I read up on it and am pretty sure it started when I was a child as a way to cope with/escape from the abuse I was enduring. It is commonly believed by psychologists to start as a result of trauma. It carried into adulthood until about a year ago when I started learning about it and realizing how much is was affecting me and making me lose my grasp on life outside of my fantasy. I forced myself to stop using this coping mechanism and get back in touch with reality. It was hard to even fall asleep for many months after I stopped maladaptive daydreaming and I often didn't know what to do with myself, but eventually I broke myself of the life-long habit.
Photos:
Life in the minds of children
Wikimedia commons
Author: Mehdinom
Girl in despair - Alyssa L Miller
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssafilmmaker/
Information on maladaptive daydreaming:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maladaptive_daydreaming
There is much debate on whether or not maladaptive daydreaming should be considered a mental illness or simply a product of a creative mind. In many cases, it may not be detrimental but psychologists do think it can result from childhood trauma and become harmful. In my case this is exactly what happened.
This was interesting and well written. Thank you.
It is your first post that I have actually upvoted, although I have read many. I look forward to what you will be doing next. A positive attitude really helps.
I tried to step it up with this one and also dug deep to try to find something I didn't generally talk about/something interested. Thank you. :)
👍nice sharing @lauralemons very interesting
Good girl! That's Laura. Laura can be good and do good here in steemit.
Now you begin to see how Robbian Community Curation Works,
We work smart! We Get Shit Done:
https://steemit.com/lauralemons/@earnest/community-curation-lauralemons-is-making-actual-content-yes#@gunpower/community-curation-lauralemons-is-making-actual-content-yes
Thanks for sharing this with us.
Thanks for writing this article @lauralemons. It is indeed something that most people are not aware of it. Great sharing! Happy Steeming!
thanks for being here. i'm not alone.
Hi lauralemons,
I think you may like this article I just wrote on a book. I’ve posted it 10 min ago ;)
It had a great impact in my life and I really wanted to share it with this community. I’ll let a few comments on posts about life, yoga and spirituality. Enjoy ;)
https://steemit.com/life/@glitterfart/the-key-to-happiness-and-the-purpose-of-life-is-not-in-religions-it-s-in-this-beautiful-book
What is it like sharing such a great story of your imagination even though it is still quite personal revealing?
It was honestly a bit scary because I haven't ever told anyone but like 2 friends about this and I didn't even go into much detail. But I also enjoyed it and feel it is one of my best articles because I dug deep. :)
Sounds to me like you have the material of a trilogy and movie deal. I am very interested in an imagination like that and would be so cool to read what we kind of book it would write! Thank you for sharing!
hmm.....I will ponder on this. :)
Ponder on sister, Pondering things pays,
and it makes you a better girl.
Ponder on
I think you should, the world is very short on original content, and an imagination like that would be all originality!!
he's trolling you, believe me I know of this subject...
Stop trolling her, she's my protegee now, get lost
You have done nothing except shame her and call her names in the past , are you finally realizing that being a dick to people hits your reputation like a truck ?
your post saying "Mission accomplished" , is pathetic, and is a blatant attempt to make people believe you had anything to do with @lauralemons writing original content (which she always did) , you just got triggered and accused her of being fake , and stalker her .
Get a life earnest
this is good Laura, this is good content, keep going with this line,
yeah, I know, but you have the chance here to make a good income making good content,
this is in the right direction
Many have this! I also
Good to know. I didn't know that it was something many people have until about a year ago. I now try to tell people about it so anyone else hiding it and feeling ashamed can realize what it is and maybe get help with it if they see it as a hindrance.
Even though I chose to stop maladaptive daydreaming because it was getting in the way of my life in a large way I still think it was very helpful with my art and imagination and I don't regret it.
Keep up the great work @lauralemons
Upvoted
Keep up the great work @lauralemons
Upvoted