Does this make me a horrible person?

[aumo girl]

Along with the grandiose fantasies that I come up with revolving around myself (gorgeous, famous, etc.), the intricate webs that I weave around fictional characters in literature and movies, and the characters that I create in my own mind, another theme tends to occasionally creep into my head and seep into my daydreams like blood through dressing: Tragedy.   

 

This is going to sound awful and it makes me feel like a horrible person, but I sometimes create scenarios in my mind in which I am diagnoased with a terminal illness.  The entire daydream will revolve around my diagnosis, my initial reaction, other peoples' reactions, my coping mechanisms and, ultimately, my death (very rarely do I survive in these fantasies with a clean bill of health).  I imagine my funeral and of how the world goes on without me in it; people still talking about me long after I've passed away, etc.  If that's not bad enough, I actually create mental images of myself ravaged with disease; bald and wearing a beanie to cover my head, frail, etc.

 

I have always felt absolutely horrible and ashamed of these daydreams in particular.  In reality, I am terrified of being diagnosed with cancer or lupus or any other type of illness (one of my problems with anxiety is a fear of doctors, and I'm also a hypochondriac; I panic over the tiniest cough and automatically assume it's a life-threatening illness.  I refuse to go to the doctor for a simple check-up because I'm convinced he'll discover that I'm dying).  I don't ever want to be sick in that way and I don't want to die.  I've seen countless numbers of people suffer and die excruciatingly slow deaths and I would never ever want to suffer in that way.  But in my daydreams, I feel like I am allowed to imagine such things happening to myself.

 

Gosh, this really makes me feel like a bad, evil person. I haven't daydreamt anything like this in over a year (I stopped because it made me feel so freaking ashamed and evil), but I'm frightened this type of daydream will pop into my head again someday.

 

Am I the only person who has done this?

 

P.S. I apologize if I've offended anyone with this post.  It wasn't my intention, and I truly am sorry if anyone has ever personally experienced some type of horrible illness.

[Cordellia Amethyste Rose]

My character has had many illnesses over the 20+ years I've known her.  She currently has several.  She comes close to death, everyone rallies around her, cries and prays over her, takes care of her........crowds gather outside her window, singing and praying.  People around the world sing and pray......and somehow she recovers.  Not only that but she's helped her doctor find treatments for some of these rare illnesses that have since helped to heal thousands.............so no, you're not a bad person, silly!  She's also survived horrible attacks and even had a to kill a guy in self-defense once.  It wasn't pretty.  These are natural parts of the human condition.  Unless you become obsessed and really think about doing it...............who cares?  I'm sure all of us have had thoughts that aren't pretty.  You are NOT a bad person.

[Leper]

no, you're not alone. i do the same thing. i don't do it intentionally, my mind just jumps from one thought to the next, sometimes I end up thinking about the same horrible things. Scenarios of the only family that loves me dying. They are alive and well but I constantly fear the day that they will pass. I play out their deaths in my head, like they have already died, I feel every emotion a person would feel if it actually happened. Like I've already lived this scenario in a past life.

[Heidi Larson]

I've done the same thing as well. The latest dream did not involve my presence, but my coworkers gathering to learn that the baby I was pregnant with was stillborn.

 

slightly off-topic: I've never fantasized about myself being famous, but always being on the fringes of fame - a member of a film crew that has an affair and love-child with a famous actor; a good figure-skater or dancer who is watched by the object of her affection.

 

One thing that particularly disturbs me about my self-absorbed fantasies is that I have some strange urge for attention and might some day play these desires out in real life in the form of Munchhausen's or Munchhausen's by Proxy or something. Am I an attention-seeking time bomb waiting to explode?

[ThisIsNotAName]

It happens to me too..

Many of my daydreams will never happen in real life by construction. e.g., I daydream modified past events, so they can  never exist (or you can travel in time :)
in my opinion, one motivation because daydreams exists is to experiment things that you can't do.
(is common in common-people to daydream violent images when they are angry)

and i written it for you because i get easily bored:
don't fear your past dreams
they are totally useless
don't fear what they means
they are flow of consciousness.

oh i'm not a psychologist nor a medical.

[roxanne]

Reply to Heidi - Everyone is basically self-centered.  Our DD's simply allow us to express it in more creative, colorful ways.  Most people spend hours every day thinking about themselves; it's just things like ruminating about past conversations, thinking about what I'm going to wear tomorrow, etc.  How dull.  

My DD's are mostly romantic - funny, initially I assumed everyone's were - but I create really painful scenarios also - unrequited love, stillborn babies, etc.  It makes my DD's seem more real.

[roxanne]

I think Gloriana's post was spot on.  We don't know why we have certain fantasies, are attracted to certain people, types of literature, etc.  It often takes years of therapy to uncover reasons, if they exist at all.  But having fantasies of something you fear or dread might really happen - illness, for example - seems a very normal way to feel like you could survive it, and so not fear it so much.  You certainly are not bad for having these thoughts, or any others.  You sound like a very nice person.

[tavern]

no youre not horrible at all , for a very long time since i had first become suicidal when i was maybe 12 imagined finally killing myself and seeing my mother or even a lover or the people who have hurt me discover my lifeless body and then feel tremendous pain or guilt from my death and i even see myself in a casket looking beautiful(because my 'character' is always thin or me at my best) or i sometimes see myself with my family around me when im ill or ill see a made up boyfriend around me speaking to me as im unconcious , hell have tears in his eyes and say to me '' ill be better and well get married'' then i come back to.its completly odd how ive been doing this for years but i find it to be a relief that others do this too. i remeber years ago martin short the actor said on jay leno that ''i picture my own death and tear up, dont you do that sometimes? dont you imagine your own death?' and i was shocked when he said that because i had been doing that.i  , like you , tend to imagine what im afraid of the most or sometimes i have to tell myself to STOP thinking about a certain thing because it makes me scared and i have to calm down

[McNamara]

I don't feel you are a bad person in any way.  Perhaps having these DD is just a way of thinking about how you would cope in a real life scenario - as in, perhaps your brain is triggering these thoughts to help you explore your fears and reassuure you.  At the end of the day, all of us on here have relationships with families, friends, spouses - yet we daydream about another life, or other characters - the DD doesn't make you a bad person, it's what you do in your 'real' life that counts xxx

[Cheryl Calvino]

This topic reminds me of a recurring daydream I have every time a member of my family gets sick and has to go to the ER.  You see, my father died of cancer when I was fourteen and we spent a ton of time carting him back and forth to the hospital, watching his hair fall out, all that gruesome stuff... So now whenever someone gets sick, I play out in my mind what will happen if they have some sort of terminal condition.  For the most minor medical conditions, I'll begin thinking of what I'll say to them before they die, what I'll say at their funeral, how I'll go on in life, etc.  It's gotten to the point where hospitals quite literally terrify me.

 

And, for the record, I don't think you're a bad person in the slightest!  Despite my terror of hospitals, I often think of scenarios similar to the one you just described.  It makes me feel guilty, when I take into consideration the sort of pain my father must have gone through in his final days, but sometimes you just can't control what you think about.  And, as others here have said, it might be a basic process to make us less afraid of that looming possibility.  So there's no reason to be hard on yourself :)