Pain over fantasies not being real?

[Janet Hoffman]

Hi,

I recently found this site through Cynthia Schupak's article, which was amazing to me. (God bless the power of Google.) I didn't know there were others like me, and truthfully, I never thought that deeply about my constant fantasizing until recently. I would very much like to know if any others out there share my experience, which is as follows:

1. I remember as early as seven or eight years old using the running/pacing/throwing my head around movements while I enjoyed vivid daydreams. At that time in my life, I was not particularly unhappy or depressed, and I enjoyed my daydreams. When my father told me people could see me through my bedroom window at night when the light was on, I stopped running and flailing around and took to spinning on the floor. Later, as I grew older, it became pacing. Now, I can easily fantasize with no movement at all, though I do still pace rapidly sometimes when alone and very caught up.

(Side note: my brother as a child zoned out while staring at a nub of a pencil that he shook rapidly back and forth.) We are both considered developmentally normal, and have above average IQs and verbal skills, although we're certainly neither gifted nor geniuses.)

2. I was born with a birth defect that led to a certain amount of facial disfigurement as a child before corrective surgery when I was 16. I was in an elementary class that even the  teachers considered "bad," meaning that there were a lot of bullies.  I was ostracized by my peers, some of whom were nice kids but they couldn't afford to associate with me,  and I was mistreated by one or two teachers who overly identified with their popular students. At the same time, I was realizing that my parents, especially my mother, also were not thrilled to have a child like me--I was just different enough to be found unattractive and unappealing, but not different enough to evoke compassion.

3. At an early age, probably 10 or 11, my constant fantasizing turned to romantic fantasizing (though both then and now I do occasionally save large groups of people or win major awards--it's not all romance). I think I knew I wasn't loved much at that point, and so the idea of a boy/man who would love me became central. Actually, they didn't have to love me; it could be that I would fantasize endlessly about the characters in a movie or book, but always, the boy/man desperately and sometimes secretly loved the girl/woman. These thoughts used to make me quite happy, and I believed that one day, a similar scenario would happen for me (to make up for my unhappy childhood.)

4. Unlike some in the Shupak article, I have never found that my daydreaming kept me back, at least not that I'm aware of. I did well in school, went to college, have been successful at work. I was definitely retarded socially, but I put that more to being an outcast as a child and young teen and being morbidly shy and reserved as a result (because of course people would judge me harshly; that was all I knew for years.)  Eventually, though, I did meet someone in grad school and am now married and have a child and a good circle of friends (real, live people!), so I don't feel that the fantasizing keeps me from living, but it is causing me an issue, and this is why I'm writing all of this...

5. I have a history of depression, and when I'm depressed, I find myself almost compulsively reading a book or watching a show with a love relationship as I described above, and for that brief time, while I'm watching/reading/thinking about it, the pain of life is gone...BUT...the moment I stop thinking about it, the pain I feel is actual anguish, because the scenario isn't real and can never be real. At the same time, I want to read the book/see the movie again, etc., because only while I'm in that fantasy do I feel a relief from the emptiness--and again, it's horrible when I stop and come back to reality.

The worse the depression, the worse my tendency to do this.  I feel like there is addiction and compulsion in my depressed fantasizing that isn't there in my non-depressed fantasizing. Eventually, I make myself stop reading/watching/thinking about the story, although if it's a movie, I sometimes start looking up the actors and then feel bad/depressed because their lives are so much better/interesting than mine, and they would look down on me if they knew me (not real, I know, but that's the depression.)

So if you are still reading, thank you, and again, my real question is: I feel like there is addiction and compulsion in my depressed fantasizing that isn't there in my non-depressed fantasizing. It makes it hard to separate the depression from the fantasizing. Has anyone else experienced this?  Any thoughts or ideas would be welcome.  Thanks!

[Laila]

Wow, thanks for sharing your story! Hearing about your successes in life is inspiring. Well, my daydreaming is a compulsion no matter what mood state I'm in, but they're certainly much more intense when I'm feeling upset. Characters fight, hurt each other, and get killed. Drama is so addicting. D:

[roxanne]

It would make sense that you would feel more compulsive about the activity when feeling down.  Certainly one thing we get from this activity is an endorphin reward.  It's nice any time, but would feel essential when depressed.

[Sarah]

I've never been diagnosed with any form of depression. I get a bit low sometimes though. Sometimes this coincides with obsessive daydreaming and the knowledge that I can never be in the place I'm DDing about. Sometimes it coincides with me not be able to go there at all!

What you were saying about books and TV is me exactly!

the moment I stop thinking about it, the pain I feel is actual anguish, because the scenario isn't real and can never be real. At the same time, I want to read the book/see the movie again, etc., because only while I'm in that fantasy do I feel a relief from the emptiness--and again, it's horrible when I stop and come back to reality... Eventually, I make myself stop reading/watching/thinking about the story, although if it's a movie, I sometimes start looking up the actors and then feel bad/depressed because their lives are so much better/interesting than mine, and they would look down on me if they knew me

Since I can remember I've referred to that colossal emptiness I feel when I realise some daydream or other can NEVER be as "never feeling" (not the most sophisticated terminology, but it gets to the point). It's very unsettling. I'll watch or read something over and over and over, trying to squeeze something more out of it, maybe to try to make it more real, I don't know. When I'm done with the original source (the movie, the book) I read ANYTHING connected with, however remotely. I end up reading the weirdest things.

[Janet Hoffman]

Yes, I think of it as a desperate attempt to find some reality, however remotely related to the fantasy, even though I know the actors may be as far away from the character as the moon. I've never read Twilight, but I suspect some of the teens and adults who read it are responding to it like MDs--thinking about it obsessively, focusing on the actors as if they were the characters, etc.  And I recently read an article where people who love The Last Airbender (never have seen it myself) feel "depression" because that world cannot be real. Maybe we are all hard wired to crave a better world, or maybe we come from one (some would say "God,"and I"m among them) and we unconsciously long to go back to it.  At any rate, I sometimes envy those extroverts who live in the here and now; watch a show or read a book and enjoy it, and then blithely move on.

Sarah said:

I've never been diagnosed with any form of depression. I get a bit low sometimes though. Sometimes this coincides with obsessive daydreaming and the knowledge that I can never be in the place I'm DDing about. Sometimes it coincides with me not be able to go there at all!

What you were saying about books and TV is me exactly!

the moment I stop thinking about it, the pain I feel is actual anguish, because the scenario isn't real and can never be real. At the same time, I want to read the book/see the movie again, etc., because only while I'm in that fantasy do I feel a relief from the emptiness--and again, it's horrible when I stop and come back to reality... Eventually, I make myself stop reading/watching/thinking about the story, although if it's a movie, I sometimes start looking up the actors and then feel bad/depressed because their lives are so much better/interesting than mine, and they would look down on me if they knew me

Since I can remember I've referred to that colossal emptiness I feel when I realise some daydream or other can NEVER be as "never feeling" (not the most sophisticated terminology, but it gets to the point). It's very unsettling. I'll watch or read something over and over and over, trying to squeeze something more out of it, maybe to try to make it more real, I don't know. When I'm done with the original source (the movie, the book) I read ANYTHING connected with, however remotely. I end up reading the weirdest things.

[Esmee Simone]

Janet, I really identify with what your were saying about romantic fantasizing inspired; if I'm particularly affected by a romantic scene I'll insert a characterization of myself into the same scenario. I'd daydream about these fictional scenarios for days on end,  while simultaneously experiencing emotional anguish that I didn't understand. 

In most of my fantasies my character/ alter-ego will fall in love or go on an adventure. I think I daydream about these things because I feel as if I'll never have the opportunity to live an existentially fulfilling life.

[Janet Hoffman]

I hope we all have the chance at an existentially fulfilling life, no matter how it looks/feels at any one particular moment in our lives. I have a friend who 15 years ago was sobbing on the kitchen floor, paralyzed by depression and anxiety, and asking me if I thought she should commit herself for mental evaluation.  That same person is now doing extremely well in all aspects of her life. If I had told her 15 years ago that she could be where she is now, she wouldn't have believed me.  She did, however, meet with a therapist and did some work to get where she is now.

Esmee Simone said:

Janet, I really identify with what your were saying about romantic fantasizing inspired; if I'm particularly affected by a romantic scene I'll insert a characterization of myself into the same scenario. I'd daydream about these fictional scenarios for days on end,  while simultaneously experiencing emotional anguish that I didn't understand. 

In most of my fantasies my character/ alter-ego will fall in love or go on an adventure. I think I daydream about these things because I feel as if I'll never have the opportunity to live an existentially fulfilling life.