Is it normal to confuse daydreams with reality?

@Ben-RO

Yeah she is lol (most people call her Cinder, but for some reason it's always Selene when I'm her, btw (Selene is her real name, Cinder is her fake identity that she used to think was real, if you get what I'm saying)).

No worries, it's an awesome series 🙂

Dont worry about it mate

That is an interesting point, although I think you misunderstand what I do when I'm her, and why I become her in the first place. It's not so that I can be super brave and strong, but more like a safe place for me to retreat into when my life as me is too much.

Its more of an escape honestly. Although, that's not quite the right word. ...I don't really know how to describe it actually. It's kind of like... I don't know. I can pretend that the royal guards are protecting me, and I think that's the main reason I do it.

I'm constantly worried that's somethings going to happen to me, but isn't that kind of par for the course with an anxiety?

It was worse when I wasn't aware that they aren't really plotting against me, of course. As it is, I have to constantly remind myself that they aren't conspiring to kill me. So yeah, I do often worry that something will happen to me, although I have found ways to calm that fear down, mostly by checking or counting things over and over. ...I realise that that sounds kinda OCD, but it's not really. I mean, it's similar; imagine the most mild case of OCD you can, and that's the kind of thing I do to make myself feel less freaked out.

I bring this up because some of my checks/counts/whatever aren't optional, that is to say, I HAVE to do them, or else I freak out that they're going to come for me. But as long as I do the ones I have to do every day, and also do the ones I get random impulses for, then I feel less anxious.

One time something did happen to me that wasnt real (of course, I didn't know it wasn't real at the time). I found out online that some huntsmans are about thirty cms long, and promptly had a panic attack thinking I was going to be found and killed by a dinner plate sized spider. I then saw it crawling across my bed next to me, coming to kill me. I know now that that was a hallucination, as was the voice that entered my head during that same panic attack. The voice told me to kill myself, but I didn't want to die. It told me that I couldn't go on in a world where there are spiders EVERYWHERE.

It was a freaky experience.

Hey @Kit Kat how're you doing today?

Whoa there's a lot of answers to all the questions i asked in your post! I feel like i could write a small novel in response! Thank you for your patience with my endless questions 😛

When i read your experience with the dinner plate sized spider my thought was something along the lines of this:

Yeah it's pretty normal to be worried all the time if you're living with anxiety. It's common to develop some skills to try and protect yourself from the thoughts and the things that cause you to feel fear and some of the skills we develop can help a lot, some of them might cause mor problems than they solve!

Also, some of the things you feel like you HAVE to do, hearing a voice and seeing or thinking something that's not there are also actually pretty common. Roughly 1 in 50 people (maybe even more!) will hear voices or other things that aren't real in their life. This is often called Psychosis which is a word that a lot of people don't like because people are kind of dumb and think stuff worse than it actually is.

@Kaz-RO definitely has a point though, talking to a doctor would be a good idea. The reason i say that is because right now you can tell the difference between the real and not real stuff, but sometimes that can change and it can become hard or impossible to tell the difference, which can be really tough to deal with. I really don't want to freak you out though, it might not be something that happens to you. But learning about it now and having people who knows lots about seeing stuff that's not there will mean you can get more people on your side to help you just have a great life. There's also lots of people out there who have had the same experiences as you and who can talk to you about it from their own experiences and help you learn and decide what you want to do about yours.

Anyway, sorry, that's a pretty heavy post. I don't want to stress you out too much, but if I can I'd love to help you find someone who can make thoughts about scary as hell spiders dissapear!

Hey @Kit Kat, me again.

I'm feeling really worried about you right now. It sounds like you're living with some really intense and varied symptoms, and like your anxiety is causing you a lot of stress and really impacting your life.

I want you to know that while things aren't going so well right now, you don't have to feel this way. I'm betting you already know that, since you've done such an awesome job working with scary thoughts you know aren't true, like the spider conspiracy. That shows some amazing resilience and insight you should be very proud of.

But I am concerned that your symptoms still seem to be ramping up, and I really want you to contact your GP as soon as possible and have a chat with them about everything you've been feeling, especially the hallucinations, the fears of a spider conspiracy and how your anxiety is forcing you to become Princess Selene (sorry I got her name wrong! I've been watching way too much Sailor Moon lately). I'd also like you to get some support for the OCD symptoms you're living with right now, because they do not sound like a lot of fun to go through.

How do you feel about giving them a call? You can absolutely take someone with you for support if that seems confronting. Or you can go alone if you'd rather keep things private for now. Totally up to you.

Okay, thanks @Creativegirl12

I don't know that I would be able to talk to anyone either on the phone or otherwise, unless I were to tell my parents about my anxiety. I mean, I can't just periodically disappear.

@Creativegirl12 

Well, it's not like zoning out in that I actively do stuff when I think I'm her (for example, the thing I mentioned about researching politics). This is also often the case even when I'm doing stuff that shouldn't make sense, for example when I'm at school. Princess Selene would not be sitting in a year ten geography class, and yet I find myself taking notes on anything I think is relevant to ruling Luna, before I remember who I am. Also, unlike zoning out, I remember it afterward.

I've briefly spoken to a friend about my anxiety, but no one else because it's awkward to talk about.

Can I ask @Kit Kat, does it help your anxiety when you pretend to be Princess Luna?

Also - I don't actually know anything about Princess Luna, and I'm really interested. I'm guessing she's a really awesome character if she's your go-to for helping manage your anxiety. Can you tell me a bit more about her, and why you identify with her, or like being her?

@Kaz-RO 

I think it does, I mean, when I'm her, I'm less freaked out because I'm able to leave myself behind. (Her name is Princess Selene, btw)

Well, she's the main main character from The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer (there are nine main characters, but she's the one that most of the plot revolves around, and she's also the first one we meet and she probably has the most chapters told from her perspective). She's the Princess of Luna (the colonised moon), but she should've become the Queen when she turned thirteen, except her tyrannical Aunt murdered her when she was three by setting her nursery on fire so that she could become the Queen (Queen Levana). Except she was rescued, obviously.

She was then smuggled to Earth and everyone thought she was dead.

Because the fire burnt off a couple of her limbs and basically she was just really injured, she was turned into a cyborg. The process of healing her took eight years, in which she was kept in a comatose state (it's all set in the future, with advanced science and machinery and stuff).

Also, because she's a Lunar, she can manipulate people into saying/doing/thinking/feeling whatever she wants (but she doesn't abuse it like Levana and the Lunar aristocracy).

When she found out who she was she led a revolution on Lunar, took back her crown, saved the world, etc, etc.

I'm not really sure why I become her. Tbh, I'm pretty sure my subconscious just chose her because she's one of my favourite characters, from my favourite series.

i say my subconscious chose her because the first time I became her was by accident (there was a huntsman in my room, spiders being the object of my specific phobia anxiety, this was particularly traumatising). I was sleeping down the hall with my brother but, for lack of any word good enough to describe it, I was scared shitless.

I was so terrified it was gonna come after me and finish the job (I used to have a delusion that spiders were evil and were conspiring to kill me. I still believe this but at least I know it's not true. Not really.)

And then I just became her. I don't know how or why, it just happened.

And has happened many times since.

Not to my knowledge, @Ben-RO, it can be hard to tell with memories (especially since I forget stuff all the time), but I'm pretty confident it's all there.

It depends on the circumstances. I'm not gonna lie, I have done harmful things to myself before. Usually if it's all too overwhelming, I'll either do something harmful, withdraw completely (curl into a ball and not talk to anyone for hours or days depending on how bad it is) or lose myself in a daydream (sometimes literally, as is the case with the Selene thing).

...In retrospect, none of that sounds particularly constructive lol

That is an interesting question. I hadn't really thought about that...

Im not too sure. On the one hand, it's probably the least harmful coping method I have, but on the other, I sometimes worry that one day I won't snap out of it, and it will become a delusion of some sort.

Mainly I'm just curious about if this happens to other people I guess.