I had two elaborate imaginary friends when I was a child.

My relationship with my imaginary friends started at around the age of 7 and wouldn't stop until I was 11. One of them was called "Mind" and one was "Go-through". Mind looked exactly like Danny Devito, he sat on a wooden stool in a suit against a black background in my head, and "Go-through" looked sorta like a boy me but mostly I interacted with him verbally and just "knew" he was seeing exactly what I was seeing/experiencing exactly what I was experiencing.

Mind offered wisdom to me and Go-through as we awkwardly fumbled through childhood and into adolescence. And since I had no real friends, Go-through, offered me solidarity. We would discuss our day, troubles, trauma, everything and we bonded over how we both lived the exact same life. He was in a different parallel universe living my exact life. I talked to Mind and Go-through every day, all day, until the age of 11.

Then I hit puberty and realized Go-through couldn't "go-through" everything I did.

I started my period and started dealing with things that only girls do. I started to realize me and Go-through couldn't relate on everything anymore. He couldn't understand what I was going through anymore. I tried to still talk to them but it wasn't the same. Why I created "Go-through" as a male I am not entirely sure. I can speculate that maybe it was because girls at school picked on me and boys played with me.

Slowly, over the few months after puberty, my "relationship" with Mind and Go-through faded. I would occasionally check in with them for about another year, trying to connect in a way I once had but not only did it not make sense logistically to relate to Go-through, but I was no longer able to believe they existed. It was clear to me now that they were just imaginary and had been my coping mechanism.

I had always known this would happen though so I did plan for it.

I talked to Mind about how one day I wouldn't believe in them anymore. And I talked about how much I would miss them. He assured me that even though one day I would no longer believe in him I would still be reunited with him and Go-through when I die. Regardless of if I stop believing in their existence. I guess that's about the only type of religion I could commit to.

I continued to "maladaptive daydream" from childhood to adulthood even after dropping my "friends".

I did throughout my childhood and for most of my adult life create a fantasy world that I went to for many hours every night. The difference being even though it is very real and very intense --people dying in this fantasy world literally made me cry-- while I am doing it, I know it is not real and is simply a fantasy. Even so, this activity started taking up 2-5 hours of my time, every night. It started to get in the way of me staying in touch with reality and it started to warp my expectations of reality and life outside of my fantasy.

I learned this is called "maladaptive daydreaming". I read up on it and am pretty sure it started when I was a child as a way to cope with/escape from the abuse I was enduring. It is commonly believed by psychologists to start as a result of trauma. It carried into adulthood until about a year ago when I started learning about it and realizing how much is was affecting me and making me lose my grasp on life outside of my fantasy. I forced myself to stop using this coping mechanism and get back in touch with reality. It was hard to even fall asleep for many months after I stopped maladaptive daydreaming and I often didn't know what to do with myself, but eventually I broke myself of the life-long habit.

Photos:
Life in the minds of children
Wikimedia commons
Author: Mehdinom

Girl in despair - Alyssa L Miller
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssafilmmaker/

Information on maladaptive daydreaming:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maladaptive_daydreaming

There is much debate on whether or not maladaptive daydreaming should be considered a mental illness or simply a product of a creative mind. In many cases, it may not be detrimental but psychologists do think it can result from childhood trauma and become harmful. In my case this is exactly what happened.