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Maladaptive Daydreaming???

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Awso070
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18 Dec 2025, 3:27 am

Hey guys, I was scrolling through my Instagram and I found this: Instagram post

Seeing this, REALLY struck home for me. I do EXACTLY this all the time. Envisioning scenarios that happened years ago, or haven't even happened yet, and imagining them going EXACTLY as planned.

Does anyone else ever do this? Seeing this post, it really just AMAZED me. I mean, I've been doing this for YEARS, and telling myself I'm overthinking it.

And now, I find out there's a reason. And that I'm NOT the only one who does this.


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Edna3362
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18 Dec 2025, 4:49 am

I struggled with the same thing.
And figured that an actual maladaptive daydreaming was my own mind's defense and coping mechanism.
I did not chose that, it made my executive function crappier, got me constantly distracted, actually made my life harder than it should've. It wasn't "me", it's this weird adaptation over whatever unprocessed crap when I was younger.
... And I hate it. It made me feel like I'm in the wrong body.


Also it was distinct from the autistic's constant mental spinning.
Which is more rooted by the need and want for certainty -- by attempting to be preemptive about everything.
It's not particularly distressful for me. It can be annoying if it's starts prospecting.
I'm very aware that this could be what made autistics prone to higher intellect and mental health issues -- but I had figured mine out relatively well. And I tend to treat it no different than a form of impulse.


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18 Dec 2025, 5:02 am

Doesn't everybody do this?


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babybird
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18 Dec 2025, 5:07 am

What does maladaptive mean


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Edna3362
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18 Dec 2025, 5:14 am

MaxE wrote:
Doesn't everybody do this?

If you mean executive functions, whether to set intent and visualize possible predictions, processing thoughts and feelings, on weighing pros and cons, on recollection and reinforcement of thoughts? Yes.

But if you mean it's to a point it's very distracting and spending basically several hours a day in some imaginary world in one's own head, neglecting one's own needs and responsibilities, and having to have to fight it in order to focus at external matters that even the most basic of physical tasks is hard because of not pulling hard enough from their own not-in-the-moment nor in-the-present mind? No.


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