Slip back to reality

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I have been having a problem for a few years now (about 4). When I get stressed out or I get sick of my life the way it is, I find myself fantisizing about alternate realities. I tend to merge to the shakspearean realm or the mystical realm when I do this. I find that I spend a large part of my time re-living in my head either films I have seen or stories I've heard. I fantasize about living in another country and I completely submerge my time with travel shows or books on the particular place. While I guess it is just an extention of my over-active imagination I have had since I was a kid and my tendency to "check-out" rather than flip out, It is beginning to interfere with daily activities. I would rather sit on the couch and watch movies of my interests than live in the pretty great life I have. My kids get the short end of the stick when I do this and I want to learn to balance my imagination with reality better. Is this my aspergers, ocd, adhd or other? What can I do? When I try and ignore my fatasies, I have a serious feeling of loss like I had to move across the country from my best friend and I miss them terribly. I guess a form of depression. Eventually I get over it, but I want tobe able to connect the reality when the time is needed without these side effects. How can I do this without feeling gyped? Any ideas?

Write down your fantasies - or at least an outline - in a third-person perspective. Thi9s means referring to yourself as someone else, perhaps with an entirely different name and backstory.

Eventually, some of those fantasies could become short stories ... publishable short stories ... the kind that you get paid to write.

this sounds like me a lot. I got diagnosed with ADD based on this, among other symptomps.

I eventually stopped doing them very much, because I got to doing them so much at one point that people thought I really believed them (I didn't, but I wasn't able to let them know that). Although I still do some, just for writing purposes though.

Maybe you need to look at moving (in reality) to another location, another country, whatever. If that's your fantasy, it is do-able.

yeah that worked pretty well for me. I actually ended up moving from country to country every few years just to keep my focus on the reality around me. still do and it's a lot of fun

I have a very well developed fantasy world or parallel universe,
and I was born that way. It's a gift. It's so big I couldn't write something like
Star Wars or Lord Of The Rings ... the only way I could share it is if I made
a videogame out of it. I think my avatar reflects the power of my imagination.

My fantasy world has been useful for inventing things, since all I need to do
is copy my "finished" inventions from my imagination to the material world.
(In other words, "reconstruct them out of real matter".)

I have taken to writing stories mainly for my kids to eleviate some of the excess energy. I get so wrapped up in wanting to step into the other life that I get depressed when I come to my reality and realize that it isn't what I was dreaming about. Don't get me wrong, my life is good. I have a great husband and wonderful children. I also have a lot of negative things trying to disrupt that harmony and my brain just hits the "cross over" switch. I don't mean to. It is like I see a special on Europe during a stressful time and all of a sudden it is all I think about. I begin to search for movies, books, shows, anything that has even a european accent to satisfy the craving. Almost like a drug. Once I get enough of the fix I get back to real life with an ok attitude, but in the mean time I check out from my family and it hurts them. They don't understand it because they are children and they sometimes think that I am mad at them or not feeling well because I am aloof and not making eye contact a lot. I only realize that I have been doing this after we have a really bad day of them needing me and I kind of get my senses back.

I have had a lot of hard times in my life, more than some, less than some. It was always my respose to fall back on my imagination to make my world sane and balanced. As a kid I could enter and leave at will. It never took over me. As an adult, it has a mind of it's own and I want to get control over it. I do cherish an active imagination, but there had to be a transition that allows me to feel real life without regret. I never had regret even though life was painful before. My imagination saw to that. It is almost like my imagination has turned on me, now. I feel such loss when real life is presented, even though it is not a bad life at that.

I like the idea of writing in the third person to de-personlize it. I will try it. Who knows. Maybe it will turn out to be my thing that I am good at. Never had one of those before. I have always dreamed of being a published writer. As for traveling, it is not an option for me, but it is a wonderful thing to look foward to in my retirement, I suppose. Thanks.

I'm the same as you. I believe it's depression that causes it. I have indeed written some of the fantasies. I love writing.

Here the same... we could share our universes... real life sucks sometimes (most of time). Please invite me to visit your universe buddy