Maladaptive daydreams specifically about one person (a real person) Does anyone else do this?

[roxy123]

Maladaptive daydreaming has been an issue of mine for a while. I can't specifically remember when i started pretty much acting out the daydreams/ speaking aloud with facial expressions and pacing, but i have daydreamed huge amounts from a very young age. I've read that a traumatic childhood can contribute to this behaviour, and i definitely had a shit childhood, so i can understand this may be the cause.

My dads a very horrible person, and often these maladaptive daydreams where i pace etc were/ are based on shouting at him and being angry at him. I recently confronted my dad about the way he behaved and gave him a choice to apologize or to stay out of my life. Being the person he is, he told me that he didn't care to apologize blah blah blah. Which is okay with me in once sense because it confirmed my thoughts on him and i'm better off without him. So now that i had fully confronted him on the issue, these maladaptive daydreams about him have toned down.

However (this is the main question part) 

I do often have maladaptive daydreams that all seem to revolve around a particular person. I feel pretty ridiculous writing it/ admitting it. But there is this person that i met around half a year ago, i don't know him that well, but i do talk to him when i see him etc (with difficulty and embarrassment), and i fancy him (excuse the cringe word) quite a lot. Ever since i started fancying him, all my maladaptive daydreams have been solely based around him. Even when they're daydreams about winning things or achievements or conversations with friends, it somehow turns into a daydream about this person finding out about it etc. 

I feel that these daydreams of conversations with him or his friends, mean that when i do actually have a conversation with this person or his friends, i can't think of anything to say that hasn't already been planed out in my head. And when i do, i go away feeling as if i've bored this person because it's not as good as some imaginary convo i have fully acted out at some point beforehand.

I really have no idea how to stop this, i've managed to tone it down by noticing when i starting doing this and trying to stop myself immediately, but other times it takes a while. However i definitely do not feel it is an option to tell this person that i'm into them. (as easy a solution that may seem)

Also- i'm very glad i read that other people have an issue with these intense daydreams (which practically turn into performances) because i noticed my dad used to do this a lot and because of the kind of person he is, it scared the shit out of me, thinking that i had some extreme mental problem.

[Alison]

Yeah, I had the same situation last year. You know my DD are very different - my own imaginary worlds, movies and computer games' plots, celebrities, people from my real life. Last year I had a crush on a guy, and I also couldn't talk to him about it. I daydreamed about him all the time and it lasted for a few months. I imagined him telling me that he was in love with me, dating him, different places we could visit together, etc. At that time I didn't even think that this daydreaming could be a problem. Then it was like 'out of sight, out of mind' - I didn't see him for some time, and my DD changed its direction again. 

[True Blue Dreamer]

I have always daydreamed about a guy I like, which probably explains why I fell for him so fast and hard and was so broken when I realized how he never felt the same way.

[Kay M]

I do too, since I started having crushes, I would daydream a lot about them.

My current daydream is about me and someone I have a crush on, married with kids.

[roxy123]

Yeah, it's kind of sucks when that happens, because I personally tend to almost make up information and personality traits that the person has in my daydream image of them, and it means i feel like i know the person a lot more than i actually do. And in another sense, this seems to make it more difficult to get rid of or at least tone down those feelings toward that person. Do you find that too?

[nic]

I've done this too. Although, every time I do, I try to remind myself that any of the conclusions I've come to about people I DD about, or any characteristics I've attached to them aren't based in reality, so I shouldn't act as if they are. DD can take one event or moment and turn it into a DD, which means you take the characteristics they expressed in one moment and think about them over and over, making it feel like you've seen them be that way 100 times. People are much more complicated than what you see in one interaction, and you need to try and remind yourself that your DDs are distorted.

Whenever I go into a conversation with a person i've DD'd about, I try to clear my mind and have nothing planned to say, I find the conversation always goes much much better when I'm just reacting instead of planning. It's also important that afterwards, you don't be hard on yourself about a thing you could've said that would have been perfect. There's no perfect thing to say, you wont be judged by any one thing you say, it's about your overall personality.

[Jennifer]

I have always had problems with obsessive crushes ever since I was a little kid: real people, celebrities, and even fictional characters. I'm the only person I know in real life that will actually get crushes on book and anime characters. LOL! Every time I get a crush on a guy in real life, I'll totally lose touch with reality and daydream about them constantly. These crushes sometimes last for years. I find them extremely painful.

My dad was a very emotionally abusive person as well- a narcissist.

There's a form of love addiction, and the addicts are known as "torch bearers." These are people who suffer from fantasy crushes. Usually they're on romantic interests who are somehow unavailable.   They even have a forum for it:

http://loveaddictionforum.proboards.com/board/99/torchbearers

[Natasha Mander]

basically my entire middle school.....