i'm a maladaptive daydreamer

a lifetime of escapism

about a year ago i was driving to the silverlake flea market to do some shopping.

it was a gorgeous…cloudless…saturday morning in june…and (in my opinion) there is no better way to spend a beautiful sunny summer day than at a flea market.

i’m an early riser…and (especially on weekends) i love having a nice slow morning. i don’t like to rush at all…i like to take my time with getting out of bed and showering and doing my makeup and etc…so i got up around six that morning to spruce myself up.

i always listen to music when i get ready to go literally anywhere…but i do have a tendency to always listen to the same shit over and over again (to get a gist of my music taste it’s just these songs in constant rotation) mk.gee’s album two star and the dream police had been living in my spotify recommended for the longest and i (at the time) had not listened to it at all…so i saw it and was like “you know what let me give this album a listen as i get ready for a cute day at the flea”

and holy fuck...i was so wowed.

nothing beats the feeling of listening to a phenomenal album for the first time with fresh ears. song after song i was like “this man is a fucking genius literally what rock have i been living under?”

i was taking my time getting ready…listening to the album straight through (i’m one of those people who can’t listen to albums on shuffle…like i have to listen to them in order from top to bottom)…and then came track nine: alesis.

i was in the middle of doing my eyeliner when this song came on…and the second i heard the line:

“escapism so easily / when we don't have the money to be / healthily gettin' out of here”

i just froze. (for lack of a better term) that shit hit way too hard.

hearing those words felt like someone had read through my journal without my consent…it put words to something i’ve felt for so long but never knew how to say.

in those moments when life is just disrespectfully whooping my ass without my consent…my instinct is always the same: i disappear inward. it’s the only place that still feels even slightly within my control when everything else feels unmanageable.

i’m a maladaptive daydreamer.

according to cleveland clinic…maladaptive daydreaming is a mental health condition where a person becomes excessively immersed in vivid, often narrative-driven daydreams (sometimes for hours at a time) as a way to escape reality. it’s typically used as a coping mechanism, especially among people with anxiety or other mental health challenges.

i’ve always had this habit of mentally checking out when things get too heavy…i just close my eyes and retreat into somewhere i’ve already been: somewhere pretty…familiar…and far away from whatever the fuck is going on in front of me. sometimes…i feel like the only place i can comfortably survive is in the overlap between my vivid imagination and the richness of my past.

i’ve traveled a lot over the years (and write about my travels often)…so i have plenty of places i like to close my eyes and escape to. to name a few…

sometimes i’ll go back to summer 2023 when i was exploring golden gate park in san francisco.

sometimes i’ll go back a decade and find myself on a zodiac boat in antarctica.

sometimes i’ll be 21 studying abroad and disappearing into a berlin nightclub.

sometimes i go back to that treehouse i stayed in on an island by myself in british columbia.

i’m pretty self-aware (sometimes overly self-aware) and though this has been a crutch of mine for years…i know that it isn’t the healthiest thing in the world. but sometimes it’s really hard to let go of a habit that makes reality feel a little less unbearable.

i’ve been in this weird paradox because like a part of me doesn’t want to let go of this coping mechanism completely (as it has served me for years) but another part of me knows i can’t spend my life in my head! and when i do have amazing experiences in my life…i’m fully there: grounded, present, soaking it in. i’ve been realizing that finding some kind of balance between the two is the only way forward…because if i continue to use this as a crutch…what am i if i don’t allow myself to feel the full spectrum of life?

as comforting as it is to escape…i have to remind myself i can’t live in la la land forever. i need to spend less time in my imagination and more time rooted in the present…returning home to myself.

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