What if the shell breaks?

[BlackUnicorn]

It's Christmas, a time when you're supposed to spend time with your loved ones... and it was the first time I couldn't enjoy it the way I used to. It a perfect christmas party but it didn't touch me at all. Not even my closest people could keep me focussed. I wanted to be somewhere else. And so catched myself many times looking at someone thinking "you don't know at all who I am!" They all now just my happy side. Seems like I'm an expert in hiding and roleplaying. I felt so alone...

Everything feels wrong and fake now. And it scares the hell out of me. I'm able to feel much more intense feelings towards the unreal people. More and more of my goals and desicions serve the purpose to desperately try to make impossible dreams come true. If I force myself back to reality or if I want to make a rational desicion against my dreams, I feel like bursting, my body is rebelling and sometimes I'm wondering if this is already called a panic attack what I sense.

I never dared to tell anyone and as you guys know, even if they know they don't understand.

Now I'm scared as fuck about my future. What if my priorities completely change? What if I stop feeling anything for real people. What if reality more and more feels like the dream?

and the worst: How much longer will my shell hold out? It's well known that humens get ill if they keep problems to themselves for too long. And I'm not sure how much longer I can keep it all to myself. It feels like my inner world is pressing against my surface and wants to break through... And then?

So what are your experiences? How long can we live with under so much pressure? What happens if we "burst"? Will I get completely numb towards real life and will my dreams become my only purpose?

[Source]

Everything feels wrong and fake because it probably is, in a way. Do you find that your perception is influenced by your imagination all the time? Because if so, then everything you get out of it is inevitably altered.

It seems to me you're losing control of the balance between reality and your fantasy, in favor of fantasy. You sensed this, and you likely sense that the scale will eventually tip so much to one side that it'll flip over and stop making any sense at all. The fear is natural in this sort of situation.

There must be some terrible friction between reality and your perception of it. I suspect your shell won't hold for much longer, and when it does burst open your point of view will likely change a lot. You might find that many things you took for obvious might have a completely different meaning you couldn't see before.

If and when it happens, know that it'll probably hurt a lot, potentially for a relatively long time. You'll have to reacclimate to a lot of things and it could turn out to be quite the ordeal.

As ever, I can't see into the minds of other people, so don't take my word for it. It's just what I've noticed so far.

[BlackUnicorn]

Thank you for your response Camoran. I liked your words a lot :)

Let's say my emotions are always influenced by MD. I experienced that my feelings towards  people of my daydreams can become much more intense than for real ones. So I end up spending time with my real loved ones, thinking that I rather want to spend this time with others I can't even meet.

I often saw MD as an useful tool to find out what I really want, but it makes no sense to "follow my dream" in this case.

So the friction is caused because imaginative second life leads to questioning my whole life and my feelings towards my loved ones. That's neither fair nor honest.

For now I'm able to reflect enough to see that opening up about my feelings would mean to loose or disappoint most of my friends/family. But the emotional-intuitive side keeps pushing towards an unhealthy direction and never looses hope for impossible things...

And I have no idea how to end this or at least stop the progress.... I want to enjoy my real life because it's awesome. But my imaginare life is soo precious to me. Haha you know what I mean...

[Source]

Emotional health is a critical part of mental health. Emotions are baked into how our brains function, so it follows that if you have trouble with them you'll have trouble with... well, everything. You're having such trouble right now from what I understand, but considering where you're coming from, I think opening up about your feelings to your loved ones might be jumping the gun. You may want to open up to yourself as a start. I know it sounds nonsensical or counterintuitive, but bear with me. If some inner conflict is compromising how you experience your own emotions, you won't be able to express them outwards properly. That's the kind of thing that comes to my mind when you say the way you view your life is not honest.

When it comes to MDD specifically, you are in fact questioning your life, or rather, what your life feels like to you. The details of your daydreams may be made up, but the essence of the elements you find in them are most often pointers to something that is somehow wrong with what you experience outside your imagination. People who feel powerless in their waking life might picture themselves in a godlike position, for instance, or a lonely person could dream of being surrounded by friends. If you need to feel an emotion but you can't, your brain will simulate it to try and plug the hole. Trouble is, the imitation can only be so good, and if it goes on like that for long enough it won't work anymore.