Maladaptive Coping - Tumblr Posts
Can astrology pinpoint the tendency to do maladaptive daydreaming?
Maladaptive daydreaming is a chronic habit of daydreaming vivid imaginary world, characters and stories. The dreamer acts out the scenes, imagines plot in head, isolates themselves, spends hours and hours replaying the scenes in their head. It is highly addictive and satisfying. The dreamer finds more excitement in daydreams than in reality. The dreamer imagines romantic partner, storylines and dialogues in their head. This is not a mental disorder yet but it can ruin a person's life by distracting them from work and school, isolating from relationships and addiction to daydreaming.
This type of maladaptive daydreaming happens as a result of childhood abuse or emotional neglect or emotional invalidation or emotional abuse or loneliness. The dreamer imagines themselves to be popular loveable well liked cool smart famous multitalented etc. Their imaginary character is everything they want to be. It is like that movie the fight club:
Why does this happen though and can we pinpoint this in astrology?
Pisces sign and 12th house are both related to daydreaming and imagination. This is where they zone out into another world. Add to it, emotional trauma and the result is maladaptive daydreaming.
In one case, the native with Saturn in pisces in the 5th house was a maladaptive daydreamer lifelong. Saturn in 5th house shows restricted childhood, confinement, not allowed freedom and independence, strict and controlling childhood. Pisces sign is again the representation of imagination and daydreaming. This shows that the native started daydreaming as a defense mechanism against childhood abuse. As life goes on, it becomes an addictive habit. Some people start writing novels from their behaviour but I dont know if it is acceptable. If it works for them then good, otherwise it is something that you must fix.
I will add more observations for this placement when I find them.
This is the problem then what is the solution?
Psychologist Eli Somer is the forerunner of studying maladaptive daydreaming. One suggestion he has is mindfulness. But it is easy to say than practice. How do you reach the point of mindfulness? By breaking yourself down to pieces. Understand your projections and the projections of those around you. Build self esteem and balanced self concept. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Learn the shit out of narcissism; your daydreams are highly narcissistic in nature. This is a guarantee. Socialize and practice new interpersonal skills. Change your environment and live in a safe normal environment free of abuse. Stay grounded in reality.
Wish you the best in healing!
what they don't tell you about maladaptive daydreaming is that every once in a while when you're imagining a convo with some therapist or your best friend or someone you care about to comfort yourself and it's working wonderfully, you get the soul crushing realization that you're alone. the words your imaginary people said were nothing more than what you wanted someone to say to you. you've been pacing round your room saying what you wanted to hear to your own self because you have no one who'll say them to you as you're crying into their chest.
ok so I am very stressed and sad atm and there are so many maladaptive coping mechanisms I reaaaaly would like to use but now that I am an adult (as opposed to being a teenager) they just seem like embarrassing??? and 100% objectively that is a good thing because SH or taking too many of my meds or punching the wall so much I break my hand are all very bad ideas and anything that makes me not do them is a good thing BUTTTT I really want to. again, ik wanting to do these things is stupid and its a very good thing that I am not going to, but ughhh I wish I was just a teen who didn't have any self preservation instincts and didn't care if I lived or died and could just do something dumb and at least feel better for a few minutes
Heyyyy i saw your post about writing your daydream to cope with maladaptive daydreaming. Do you have antimite tips that your therapist gave u ? ( cause therapy is kinda expensive for me right now)
Thanks <3
Hey, thank you for reaching out, I'm genuinely really glad you did. I'm afraid I'm not a great resource for this, honestly. Soon after that post I quit the job that provided therapy, so I don't have much more to offer. But I'll give you all of the things that I remember from therapy in case it can serve you!
(Assuming you're trying to stop disassociating,) look out for triggers. What makes you switch from being present to daydreaming?
When you initially notice you've switched to daydreaming, try to stop. This sounds obvious, but I've had to really keep it in mind, and there's usually a reason you switched to daydreaming (for me its usually anxiety or a lack of stimulation) and going back to reality isn't what your mind wants, so try to have something you are switching to. For instance, when I try to become present again, I usually start describing an object I see, and sometimes I shift to describe everything I'm experiencing, so all of the senses, things I'm seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling. And then once you're in the moment, then you can more easily switch to being actually in the moment as in conversations, etc, not just aware of reality but also a part of it. (Describing objects also helps with anxiety and spiraling, if you struggle with that)
Keeping a record of your daydreams can help if you are replaying a lot or if you have a story you are interested in building.
Setting aside time to daydream can help. It sounds counter intuitive, but if you stop yourself from daydreaming other times and say no I'm gonna daydream at 3 till 3:30, then when that time comes you daydream and then you stop yourself. This can build up self control and can break the urge to daydream whenever.
Trying to keep your mind occupied can help. If you daydream while you fold laundry, then maybe try playing music or a podcast or an audiobook and try to stay focused on it.
Doing yoga, or journaling, or something aimed at practicing awareness (physical, emotional, etc) can really help. Even stuff like spending 5 minutes describing everything I see and hear and feel can really help. A big part of getting away from MADD is just training your mind to be able to focus on the present.
Ultimately, what I've found is that maladaptive daydreaming is really just an addiction. And it's a coping mechanism. If you can find what you're coping with and can find a healthy way to deal with it, or find a way to cut it from your life, both are good options, but neither will necessarily stop the disassociation. If an addiction is narrowing activities you enjoy down to the one thing, then the way to break it is to find more outlets, more things you enjoy. If you have hobbies you don't do anymore, or things you used to be interested in, pursuing those can be good. Finding other things you enjoy doing can be super helpful.
On writing: (I didn't get this from therapy, just personal experience) it might help to write down everything from past daydreams that you remember (I personally would get really caught up in trying to remember all of the things. I had been daydreaming for about 5 years when I started writing, so I was trying to remember a lot. And I did forget a lot.) if you have a timeline, feel free to type it up. I write it down almost every time it comes up. I'll have clips of dialogue running in my head and I'll pull out my phone and type it up. Same goes for if I have a plot idea. I write it down to explore it later during the time I set aside for it. If I'm scared I'll forget it, then it runs over and over in my mind and it takes up time, and I don't want that. If I want to explore it, finish the scene, then I'm committing more time, and I don't want that. So it really helps me to cut it short by writing it down.
I'll add more to this list if I think of anything. Hopefully this helps in some way, feel free to reach out again! I tried to highlight my main ideas, sorry if it's distracting but I thought with so much text, it might be easier to skim.
<3
°•*⁀➷ INTRODUCING MYSELF ! ˘͈ᵕ˘͈
bani ☆ she/her ☆ entp 5w4 ☆ minor (𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗹𝘆 18+ 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘀 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝗺𝗲) // side blog: @ilubeau
HI GUYS !! i post daydreaming-related stuff here but it's also kind of a mix of everything, i'll also post anime related stuff, i'll never really stick to just one thing but what i CAN tell you i'll be sticking to is my centrecosm mostly (my main paracosm, i'm staying loyal to the one i've been building for the past 4 years) it's also a blanket paracosm so there's loads of subcosms inside it but at the end of the day it's linear and takes place chronologically.
i have a few paracosms here and there so that's why i call myself a paracosmist but really and all they'll never compare to my main one. ಠ_ಠ
❤︎ this is a safe place for all madders (ง'̀-'́)ง, i really wanna make friends that are passionate with opening up about their little daydreaming worlds, i'll listen to you yap about it all day long.
PLEASE DO SEND QUESTIONS ABOUT MY PARACOSM(S) OR ABOUT YOURS !! i'll always reply ^-^
MY CENTRECOSM ✧
i have 60 paras (characters). yes. you heard that right. SIXTY. i have a whole pinterest board on it and i update it regularly -
https://pin.it/4Yvd42Asm
also yeah i'm a microcelebrity on pinterest idk if you've seen me around but yeah wtvr 😭😭 ALRIGHT LEMME GIVE YOU GUYS A LIL SYNOPSIS ! (i've never done one it's kinda scary)
my paracosm consists of 50 Gods, 4 archdemons, 4 archangels and God themself (God doesn't have a gender) and 5 monotheistic Gods, my paracosm has its own lore of different mythologies. greek, norse, and egyptian mythology. fiction has no limits, so i can bend it to fit my desires, i LOOOOOVE mythologies of all kinds, so i made my own lore using the names you see on the pinterest board. all of the Gods have the same power and no ones more powerful than each other except for God and Satan. the Gods are the most beautiful, ethereal, alluring individuals in heaven. Satan made it so that whenever someone who is not a God sees a God's appearance, they physically feel like they can't say anything. this is to prevent any romantic relationships. so whenever, for example, a human who is granted permission sees them, obviously, their initial reaction would be shock and the need to compliment them. right when they're about to do that, they start to feel choked up like they can't get the words out. it'll go on like that until they give up. the gods have noticed that a lot of the time when they show their selves to other people and they start reacting like that.. they start thinking its because they're ugly or something. LMFAOO, they'll be like "damn i'm THAT ugly???" and its so ironic bc they're actually trying to tell them they're more than beautiful, but they CAN'T because of Satan. he has a lot of unreasonable rules, and the Gods just put up with it because they appointed him as the leader whilst God is gone, so they kind of did to themselves... to put it in a nutshell, the Gods have never been complimented. like. ever. so 😭 its only factual that they'd feel like they're the ugliest individual alive. Satan is currently acting as the overseer of the Gods whilst God is away, so he gets to do whatever he wants to. the Gods are the main characters, the archdemons and archangels are side characters, Satan is the antagonist, and God is... mysterious. they don't pop up. ever. so the Gods just assume they don't like them. i can go on and on about this, but i feel like i'm yapping too much ... this isn't even 0000.5% of the story. sorry, guys, this is a really bad summary, but trust me, you'll find out more about it if you follow through with my posts 🙏🏽
tags i'll use (＞﹏＜) :
#𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗱 -> posts that are not daydreaming-related
#𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗶'𝘀 𝘆𝗮𝗽 𝘀𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 -> original posts
#𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗱 𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁 -> vents about madd
#𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗯𝘆𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗶 -> art i make about my paracosm or anime and stuff
Maladaptive daydreaming is a behavior where a person spends an excessive amount of time daydreaming, often becoming immersed in their imagination.
do u guys ever just think about your old paracosms and js start to miss them a lil bit 😭 like i was such a different person during that period of time
*finally doing the thing i've been wanting to do for ages, but i kept hesitating because i couldn't do it well since i kept getting distracted*
*remembers my paracosm for 2 seconds*
well, damn....!