Embarrassment, Shame, Fear, Anxiety or Guilt?

[Bee]

Yesterday, someone asked why I've never told my loving and supportive husband of seven years about my MD. For the first time I realised I could not adequately describe the feeling that wells up in me when I think of being "discovered" or telling someone. It's an odd mix of all the things listed in the title.

I've been trying to pin point why I've never told anyone about my MD and when I started hiding it -all I remember is being pretty young - around 7 or 8. The sense of being "discovered" felt pretty intense - it still does...I've never had a problem telling anyone about my OCD or depression. But I've never been able to even slightly hint at my MD to a none MDer.

That last study found that 90% of the participants never told a soul either, so this seems pretty common. Could the embarrassment, shame, fear or guilt be symptom of MD and not just a quirk many of us share. 

So, do you remember when and why you started to "hide" it? Was there a reason or did that "need" just start to manifest as your MD took hold? Can you identify that feeling? 

[Sophie]

When I was a kid, I daydreamed more than others, but I didn't have any symptoms that made me stand out from other kids. I just started hiding it when I realized that I was getting too old and my favorite 'props' for daydreaming(usually toys, sticks, stuff I found) became uncool. I remember that the first time I was truly embarrassed, was the time my teacher told my parents that I couldn't focus on homework because I spent so much time "staring out the window". That's when I knew I had a problem.

I don't know when the transition from 'not telling people what I daydream because I'm a kid and running around playing, that's what we do!' became 'not telling people that I daydream, or what I daydream about, at all costs!' happened.

I have never had a problem telling people about my other problems, either. Sometimes I even make up stuff that would explain my daydreaming tics, instead of telling the truth.

It's all about being caught in the act and not being in control, though - when not feeling threatened in any way, I have told many people that I daydream and that I sometimes gets tics, usually in a way that people can't help but laugh with me. It helps that I usually begin with something like "Remmeber when you were a kid, and you could dream out the most wonderful things, and be completely lost in make-believe?" - I haven't met a single person who thought it was weird when I explained it to them this way, in fact many people tell me that they are jealous of that ability! But the content of my daydreams is strictly privat. I cannot be honest to anyone about it. 

I think the shame and embarrasment has something to do with self esteem, but I also think that maladaptive daydreaming has inherently more vulnerable content than most other coping mechanisms. Whilst we may daydream constantly about becoming rockstars who's cool to the point of actually being ridiculous, the 'average joe' could hide this desire behind just playing acoustic guitar once in a while. Maladaptive daydreaming is as fantasy, completely honest wish fulfillment - since it is all in our heads, it doesn't hold anything back, and as such, it will always be cheap, tacky, and stupid like a Twilight novel.

I have severe problems with anyone finding out about my daydreams, to the point of not even being able to write it down on paper, lest someone finds it. I have to remind myself that my desires are probably not more ridiculous than the average person. When observant, I see similar desires expressed by normals all the time! In a way, we are all hopelessly romantic, idealistic dreamers who love to feel as if though we are the awesome protagonist in a movie. Other people just have a different way of dealing with them that makes them look more normal to the outside.