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Maladaptive Daydreaming: Can You Give Yourself Trauma After A Bad Daydream?
Today, I’ll be addressing the question of whether you can give yourself trauma through daydreaming. Let’s say in your daydreaming, you are experiencing really negative vibes, perhaps envisioning miserable scenarios in your imaginary world. Can it give you trauma? Actually, there are two aspects to this.
Firstly, the fact that you’re engaging in maladaptive behavior means that you have some underlying issues that need to be addressed. These underlying issues could be stuck emotions or sensations you’ve never processed. In itself, it may not be trauma, but these unprocessed emotions are what may be driving your life.
When you immerse yourself in negative daydreams and then come out of it, you may feel strange, emotionally overwhelmed, or very sad. The emotion you’re feeling is more about triggering those emotions you’ve never processed. It may not give you trauma in itself, but the act of snapping out of a negative daydream triggers emotions already stuck within you, and this can be traumatizing. It’s like reliving past experiences as those unprocessed emotions come to the surface.
Secondly, if you don’t process the emotions you experience after a long daydream, and instead push them aside or keep yourself busy, they can pile up. These piled-up emotions can become complex. While it may seem like daydreaming is giving you trauma, it’s more about bringing these emotions to the surface and adding a new layer to the already unprocessed emotions. Don’t see it as giving you trauma, and don’t make associations claiming that it’s the source of your current problems. The source of your current problems is likely something you haven’t processed, leading to maladaptive behavior.
When you snap out of a daydream and feel sadness or stress, allow yourself to feel those emotions without attaching meaning to them. Avoid making associations that say, ‘It’s giving me trauma.’ By doing so, you are locking yourself into a negative thought pattern. Instead, observe the feelings without labeling them. Healing involves being an observer, not attaching yourself to the emotions or reinforcing a false identity.
Hope you find this information helpful, guys. Don’t worry too much about it. Understand that engaging in maladaptive behavior indicates underlying issues. Focus on addressing those underlying issues rather than attributing everything to daydreaming giving you trauma.
Note from the Author
If you’re ready and you’d like my help with overcoming and managing maladaptive daydreaming without spending years in therapy, then you can book a FREE BREAKTHROUGH CALL with me HERE. Happy healing 💙💙. Feel free to share and comment! Use this information with caution, it comes from my own thoughts & bias, experiences and research😊.