- Hey, everybody, I'm Katie Morton,
a licensed marriage and family therapist.
And today I'm going to explain
what maladaptive daydreaming is, why it happens,
and six ways to better manage it.
So make sure to stick around until the end
to see how to best manage maladaptive daydreaming.
Let's get right into it.
(gentle music)
Maladaptive daydreaming is a form of dissociation
and it's when we have very detailed and structured daydreams
or fantasies that we struggle to manage.
We can enjoy our daydream life better than our regular one,
and as a result, we can find ourselves
spending hours on end in this daydream.
It can get in the way of us doing our work
or engaging with people that we love
and make our life hard to manage.
One member of our community shared
that maladaptive day- (blows raspberry).
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Okay. Back into maladaptive daydreaming.
When asked to describe maladaptive daydreaming,
one member of our community shared that,
"It's a joy and an escape from the mundane of life.
Yet, if you don't keep an eye on it,
it takes over your life."
Maladaptive daydreaming isn't a diagnosable mental illness.
It isn't in the ICD or the DSM
but it is, in my opinion, one form of dissociation.
Now, the reason I believe this is
because dissociation occurs
when what's happening in our real life is just too much
to process or deal with in the moment.
So our brain sort of pulls the rip cord on reality
and pulls us out of the overwhelming situation for a bit.
It allows us to mentally take a break
from reality and maladaptive daydreaming is no different,
which is why we can hide out in our daydream
when we feel stressed or overwhelmed,
and get into the habit of jumping into it quickly
when our life gets difficult.
Another viewer shares,
"It's a huge life I created to escape the horrible one
that I was in as a teen. It was a feeling of relief."
(gentle music)
Some of the most common symptoms
of maladaptive daydreaming are, number one,
spending multiple hours a day in the daydream or fantasy.
Number two, not being able to stop ourselves
from going into the daydream.
Number three, we're unable
to pull ourselves out of it when we want.
Number four, we have a very detailed daydream
with real storylines, plots and characters
and could even be very similar to our real life,
just maybe better or less stressful.
And number five, we prefer to be in the daydream.
And number six, if we're pulled out by someone,
like someone interrupts us or something,
we wanna return to it immediately.
And also, I read a case report on maladaptive daydreaming
and it's overlap with gaming disorder.
They found that these two issues shared a lot
of the same symptoms.
And in some cases, people struggled with both,
but I'll link the report below
if you wanna read more about it.
(gentle music)
Maladaptive day dreaming occurs
because what's going on in our life is too much
for us to manage.
This could be because we have past trauma
and the PTSD symptoms have left us on edge
and without much resilience.
Or it could be that our anxiety is so high
that any stressor pushes us outside of our ability to cope.
Really any mental health issue we're struggling with
can make us more vulnerable to dissociation as a whole.
Remember, we go into these elaborate daydreams
as a way of escaping reality.
So anything that makes our reality uncomfortable
or overwhelming could be the trigger
or potential cause of our maladaptive daydreaming.
For example, let's say we were abused when we were a child
and certain sounds, or even someone raising their voice
can overwhelm our system.
Now that overwhelm doesn't lead to a panic attack,
but instead we feel the urge to daydream,
almost like an impulse,
pulling us into a much happier, safer place.
And that urge can be so strong
that before we even know it's happening,
we're in our daydream.
And, as we kind of look around,
we may not even know how long we've been there.
Another member of our community says,
"It's like watching a movie in your head
where you can choose what happens
and it gives you a timeout."
(gentle music)
So what do we do? Right?
We didn't come here just to chat
about what it is or why it happens.
We wanna know what we can do to manage it.
Well, my first tip is to come up with some coping skills
to better manage our upsets.
These could be distractions, like going for a walk,
playing with an animal, like Roxy,
coloring, cleaning the house.
Anything that doesn't harm us, but keeps busy is wonderful.
And they could also be process based things,
like journaling, talking to a friend about how we're doing,
seeing a therapist, using an impulse log,
or anything that helps us tap into
what we're thinking and feeling.
Doing these things can help build up our resilient zone
or otherwise known as our ability
to kind of weather life's storms.
So it can be helpful in so many ways.
Now I have an older video where I offer 24 of them
and the comments are filled with other ideas.
So if you're struggling to come up with these,
you can check out that video for some ideas.
My second tip is to take care of our basic needs,
meaning that we need to get enough sleep,
take care of any illness we may have,
drink enough water, eat regularly, and connect with people.
A great acronym to remind you
of what to check in on is HALT
and it stands for hungry, angry, lonely, and tired.
If you feel yourself wanting to a slide
into that maladaptive daydream, see if you can grab a snack
or call a friend, or maybe get to bed a bit earlier tonight.
Doing those things can make us less vulnerable
to our impulses
or any emotional upset we may have to deal with.
So check in and take care of yourself first.
Third is to keep a good schedule.
Our brain and body love rituals,
because it will get used to them
and know what's coming next, so that we're more prepared.
Keeping a good routine,
like going to bed around the same time each night,
doing the same morning routine,
and unwinding around the same time each evening
can help us better manage anything unplanned
that may pop up.
It's like our brain doesn't have to worry as much
or be as vigilant
because most of our day is already set and structured.
This can help keep us present
and lower our risk of being pulled
into a maladaptive daydream.
Fourth is to have some go-to grounding techniques.
These can be things like counting colors,
where you look around the room
and count the number of items that are blue
or brown or black.
Or we can use the alphabet tool, look around our environment
for things that start with A, B, C, and so on.
Another great technique to help keep us in our bodies is
to take time during our shower to notice the water
as it hits all of our different body parts.
As it hits our head, say to yourself, that's my head
and the water feels warm or whatever you feel,
and do this for each part of your body.
And just notice how you feel in that part.
And it sounds silly, I know,
but when all we wanna do is disconnect
and pull out of ourself,
this can help keep us grounded
and connected to our real life.
Also, I know if we have trauma in our past,
this can be harder possibly even triggering to do,
but please keep trying little by little.
You could do it while you're putting lotion on
or putting your clothes on for the day
if doing it in the shower is just too difficult
or too upsetting, which moves nicely into my fifth tip,
and that is to get into therapy.
Since maladaptive daydreaming often comes from trauma,
overwhelming stress or anxiety,
and many other mental health issues,
finding someone we can talk to and get support from is key.
A therapist can help us come up with other coping skills,
process any of that past trauma,
and change our unhelpful behaviors.
They can even guide us through exposure therapy,
where we would intentionally engage with triggering things,
knowing that we have our coping skills to help us
and slowly prove to our nervous system
that those things we thought were scary,
really aren't that scary after all.
There is so much a therapist can help us with,
we just have to make sure that we like them
and we feel like they listen and understand us.
And finally, my sixth tip is for emergency use only.
If we feel ourselves wanting to daydream
or feel that familiar pull
and there's nothing we can do to stop it,
take some time quickly to set a timer
on your phone to go off in 30 minutes or one hour.
Setting time boundaries can be really helpful
as we fight back against this unhealthy coping skill.
Obviously the time can change,
depending on what we have going on,
but try not to dedicate more than one hour to the daydream
and make sure your alarm is loud enough to pull you out
or at least give you the option of leaving the daydream.
Recovery from things like this isn't ever going
to be perfect, which is why it's important to remember
that it's a process, not perfection.
Be patient with yourself
and know that you'll have another opportunity
to fight the urge again,
so we can just try another tool then.
And stick with it because with practice and patience,
it can and will get better.
Thank you so much for watching.
I hope this has helpful and I will see you next time.
(gentle music)
Against this unhealthy cop- (groans)
I don't know why I lost my tongue there.
...Iety-
(sighs) Never mind.