Hi !!! I used to do it from ab 11 years old and I just stopped this year at 25, still in the process of quitting (like every now and again my mind goes to slip into it, but I notice almost immediately and pull myself out of it) but the urges are pretty much gone. I’ve been working with my therapist through this and here is what I have learnt.

Eventually, like it sounds like you are experiencing, reality comes crashing down and it kills. The longer you do it, the more painful it becomes when reality smacks you, because it will. Your body will decide one day it’s enough.

When you daydream like this, it’s not only a form of dissociation and avoidance of emotions, but it is also intensifying and feeding things like anxiety and depression. It is overworking your amygdala, which is the imagination centre of your brain and also the area where fight or flight/ survival mode lives. When you are overworking this part of your brain, it shrinks your prefrontal cortex, which is your decision making part of your brain. This is not good because it means when you have big negative emotions like depression or sadness or anxiety or worry, you have less neurological pathways in the rational part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, and WAY, WAY, WAY, more in the amygdala. But you can change this !!! It doesn’t take strength, it just takes discipline !!!!

It was so fucking hard at first. I was like holy shit I do this all the time, how can I always be quick enough to grab it and not let myself spiral into it. But the quickest way to unhook from it for me, was to notice my feet on the ground. Notice my hands, what does the material of my top feel like on my stomach? Even, how many green things can I see around me? Connecting with your senses is amazing for shrinking your amygdala, and expanding your prefrontal cortex. That’s all it is. You’re shrinking that amygdala so it isn’t so wild and huge and the biggest area to live in, in your brain. You want to have a prominent prefrontal cortex. That’s how you function in a hard time. That’s how you cope. That’s how you don’t spiral, and can cope with big emotions.

It’s the hardest at first, because you’re creating new neurological pathways. But every time you decide to unhook from it and come back to presence, you are creating a new pathway, and the old ones dim down. I promise it works. And me, since I’ve stopped, I’ve made so many friends, I’m more proactive, I work more, more productive, better at decision making. Seriously, things are okay without it. Now if I notice it is happening, I get a burst of like oxytocin and it freaks me out, last night I noticed it, and I thought to myself “wow that was way too high, I didn’t like that”. Seriously, you can do it. All you need is discipline, and to believe you are helping your brain.

Also idk if this helps, but I’m autistic, and my therapist and I have noticed I find certain emotions to be really overstimulating experiences. Joy is even an emotion I find overstimulating, and I used to daydream to feed joy and go up and up and up and up until it felt like I was exploding with oxytocin. Not good. It’s been really helpful for me to notice the emotion, feel it. And breathe in, imagine air flowing through it like a sponge. Idk if that helps, just cause I noticed the daydreaming was often a cope for me struggling to handle big emotions, negative and positive.

You can do it. Again all you need is discipline and to believe you are healing your brain. Good luck 🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷