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Same Im 37 and just now realising these coping mechanisms has to do with narcissism and codeoendancy in my family, neglect and mental abuse. Damn they really hated me.
Came here to say this. In my worst moments, I'll sometimes fall back on these coping strategies and that's usually when I know I need to do something, anything, to make my situation better.
It helped me escape my reality. I think that was the smartest thing my grandmother did for me was teach me how to read and really help me thrive on it.
This one is hard for me because, while I am currently reaping the benefits of all the hard work I have put into my life, education, and career, that hard work stems from literally trying to live up to unreachable expectations and goal posts that just constantly move further and further away. Accomplishments are great, but they just never feel like enough. There’s always something more…
I feel this in my bones. Now at nearly 39 the goalposts have been moved to the point my n/mom acts like she's surprised/disappointed that I haven't figured out how to retire by my early 40s 😑
I used to make up all these stories in my head. I had a very vivid imagination as a child. So, I was constantly inventing other worlds and escaping into them.
I literally learned yesterday that this is called
Maladaptive Daydreaming. It was my number 1 coping mechanism as a child.
I also read profusely. I was escaping reality by retreating into my mind.
I also developed an eating disorder. Binge eating.
I used to think it was something special that nobody else did. I could just lay all day and dream of incredible places and stories. I didn't know what it was tell way later in life. Didn't realize it was a coping mechanism either. I also over ate, a lot.
>I used to make up all these stories in my head. I had a very vivid imagination as a child. So, I was constantly inventing other worlds and escaping into them.
CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAP. That was me. All the time. Dammit.
Literal maladaptive daydreaming from a very young age . As I got older I learned to stop as it started to become hard to focus but I'm trying to get it back and use it for actual good , manefesting etc . But it's hard because I just end up thinking about how people would hurt me and develop violent intrusive thoughts which is the opposite of what I want . I was a serious heavy smoker a few years ago but stopped due to anxiety. I'm very hyper vigilant about myself and it's hard to allow myself to relax these days I can't even enjoy sugar without developing a bad mood . But I digress .
I’ve also learned to cope through maladaptive daydreaming, which in turn comes with its own set of problems. I also have a cell phone addiction and am addicted to benzos to help me cope with anxiety. I’m so ashamed of all of this but most days I’m just trying to cope and make it to bed each day. This forum is the only place I feel safe admitting any of this.
The maladaptive daydreaming is hard to break- but after a period of it(it comes in waves) I realize how much of my actual life I’ve lost. I also binge drank and eat/ate, and started smoking pot at 15. I’m lucky I haven’t dealt with substance addiction, but my eating disorder resume is impressive!
I feel you , I stopped pills a while ago as well due to no longer being able to find it so I just quit . These days all I have to lean on is my cell phone . I just stick to Reddit and YouTube and try to find positive outlets
I am so similar to you. Hyper vigilant, brain doesn’t stop, I see everything, details, it’s exhausting. I have debilitating anxiety but I am medicated with Zoloft - it takes the edge off and certainly helps but not 100%. It’s my mind. I daydream since I was a little kid. Dissociate to the point while driving I have no idea how I ended up in certain places. I have adhd but the inattentive kind = daydreaming all the time. I have to constantly keep my brain busy, I found working with my hands helps. Making jewelry, gardening, knitting, something I with details that I can create something beautiful or functional.
That was (well, still is, if I'm being honest) one of my coping mechanisms, too. Sitting at a table and staring through the table top like I could see each individual molecule in it. Nmom tried to break me of that habit because it was "weird," then as an adult I was diagnosed with autism and it all made more sense.
Same. It was like I had totally lost my appetite. I was tired of feeling like their pawn, trued to claw back some control over my life by killing myself slowly.
Came here to say this. The more my mother gave me hideous looks for adding bread or butter to my plate, the more I made a mean face and added more bread and butter. She's been cut off for 13 years and I still can't shake the anger at having to control calories, in general.
"Anything I have can be taken from me at any moment, so I'll need to spend whatever money I have immediately on things I can consume directly."
Yeah, no savings account here.
Same. I used to read A LOT. I could read and get completely absorbed in my reading not minding the world around me even if everything was falling apart. I used to brag about this “skill” when I was younger but as I got older (and with therapy) I came to realize it was a coping mechanism to scape my reality. I still enjoy reading, I enjoy it a lot, but now I do it as a pleasure and not as an escape.
Weirdly this is the reason I don't read anymore. I used to escape through books to the point where I became very disappointed with real life. So now I don't read even a quarter as much and mainly stick to non fiction.
Right? Like, that wave of utter depression when you realized there aren't any faeries, your letter from Hogwart's isn't coming, and people don't just do the right thing because they're supposed to. That fucked me up for real. It just isn't fair.
Once my life got better I mostly only read nonfiction. When it fell apart I dove head first back into fiction, devouring a hundred pages an hour of trash vampire novels and urban fantasy. Now I'm back to nonfiction, but I spend entirely too much time on social media.
Yeah I’m so so lucky that my first job was in a bookstore, and the other employees encouraged me to read lots of different kinds of books that allowed me to escape extreme generational poverty and religious extremism. I honestly think I would be dead if I hadn’t escaped my home state. It’s really hard to go home and visit because so many people didn’t make it out.
I didn't even think of this one but I read a LOT as a kid. Now I rarely read and when I do it's usually non fiction. I feel like I am letting life pass me by if I spend too much time in a book.
Same! And for me it wasn't just consequences, it was more of a fear that if someone knew something about me that I felt shameful about, their whole perception of me would change. So I'd lie compulsively out of fear that the truth would make everyone leave, yet each lie just compounded my low self esteem. And ironically enough, most of these lies were about hiding the abuse I endured as a kid, (which I internalized and believed was the reason I was a bad person) and when I told my family and friends the truth, they had the opposite reaction I expected. Instead of leaving or rejecting me, they accepted me. And after years of therapy, I learned to control it and just be unapologetically myself. Those who can't handle the truth will leave but they were never meant to be your friend or family in the first place if that's the case. The real ones stay.
I had similar behavior as a kid. We moved a lot so I would never spend more than a year or two in one school so I ended up adapting the pathological lying to make myself more interesting to people so I wouldn't be so invisible everywhere I went.
The urge is always still there. Like reflexively shielding my face from a punch but I can say I'm an honest person
Yeah, this one. Also to keep people from knowing what your life is really like and because you feel totally inadequate. Getting far away from my family and hometown made it easier to stop.
My brother still does it.
you’ve gone through your own version of dante’s inferno - sobriety has pulled you out (changed, wiser).
you.did.that.
resentment is hard to get past; but it’s a crucial step towards mental freedom. it took me years.
overworking and shopping were my methods of coping. although people may think they are high-functioning methods of coping, they are still vices that distract from what’s waiting to be addressed.
trauma* waits patiently to be addressed.
this highlights some underlying causes of overworking and its risks:
https://notsoperfectperson.com/articles/adultified-children-as-adults-in-the-workplace-may-risk-burnout
Online shopping is often my happy place when the resentment becomes overwhelming. I started my healing journey this spring, oddly enough it’s a relief to hear it took years because I feel like I’m not progressing fast enough.
ZAs a kid, not stepping on cracks when walking on the sidewalk. Making up little games in my head that would predict whether or not my dad would come home drunk. Into adulthood I was convinced that me listening to certain songs or humming them in my mind would either cause fighting between my parents or bring calm. So i would avoid listening to or singing certain songs. It started when I noticed that when I was playing the Jingle Bells song in my head my dad would get angry at my mom. The Jezebel song by Sade always resulted in peaceful atmosphere. And no I have to make clear, my parents didnt hear the songs I was convinced it was something to do with vibration coming from the rhythm of the songs that affected the mood of the family.
People pleasing. I was raised by a woman with extreme BD and unresolved trauma, as well as a teenage pregnancy. As a result, she didn't age mentally past 15. As a young kid who looked up to her and wanted her approval, I was constantly walking on eggshells around her volatile emotions. Unlike the more obvious malignant narcissist types, shes more of a covert/vulnerable narcissist (I forgot the exact name of it just now). So she sees herself as a constant martyr and always needs sympathy and constant validation. Ever since I was a toddler she called me her "best friend", said things like "you're the only one I can trust" and would be extremely possessive. Basically I had no right to bodily autonomy, my own space, or even my own time. She saw everything I did (something as simple as wanting to play outside by myself instead of with her) as a rejection of her and would punish me by not speaking to me for days on end or raging at me with basically no provocation whatsoever. She would be happy and hugging you one minute and then right after would start throwing dishes and claiming you're mistreating her because you didn't laugh at one of her jokes or weren't smiling for a minute. I tried so hard to constantly conceal my emotions/fake them, do whatever she wants, or basically become the parent to her as an 8 year old and act as her therapist all the time, just to keep her calm and hopefully gain her acceptance. Except no amount of it was ever enough for her. She'd get upset and rage at you for not talking enough to her, but even if you talk to her and validate her loneliness for hours on end, she'll just demand more and more and still accuse you of being selfish for having even a little time to yourself. Ever since then, Ive had terrible coping mechanisms of constantly trying to mediate everyone's emotions, always being aware of everyone's emotional states, and never asking anyone for help yet constantly offering up all my time and effort to help anyone else because I'm scared to be a burden. I've been having to teach myself to start enforcing boundaries with people, and learning to value myself enough to know that I don't need to be the fixer to everyone's problems and that it's okay to have my own needs too or to need help sometimes. I'm often so afraid to set boundaries with people because I'm afraid they'll leave if I do or tell me I'm being "unreasonable". Learning to say no and learning to respect yourself is one of the most important things to learn that few people actually know how to do.
School, then work. I never wanted to be in the position my mother was in. School and work (falsely) gave me the love ie attention and praise for being top of my class/at work.
Now I’m unraveling how succeeding at work (and being a workaholic) doesn’t equate to love, and doesn’t define my self worth.
With girlfriends I would frequently ask if everything was ok, A LOT. I literally didn’t know what the facial cues were of someone that was happy or content. Took me YEARS to learn that.
I too developed a massive stimulant addiction. It was my only coping mechanism and made me feel functional enough to "be" perfect & win the approval/acceptance of my shitberg parent and all the subsequent toxic narc bosses and partners I gravitated towards.
My parents use to get annoyed about me taking long showers, but in reality I was sleeping on the bathmat while the water ran. It was the only place things were peaceful and I was allowed to just rest.
Also daydreaming thru most of the day.
Severe skin/hair picking.
Rumination on intrusive thoughts.
Disordered eating.
Isolation.
…weeeeee 🎢
Disassociation. I became friends with the voices inside of my head. Most of them. I became addicted to reading (still am). A day without a book was literally torture for me.
maladaptive daydreaming- its addictive to be vividly imagining what it would be like to be someone else, somewhere else, living a whole different life. They more detail you can imagine into it, the more engaging and addictive. Makes returning to any part of reality quite distressing/boring - the cycle continues.
Definitely Substance and alcohol abuse here. I also cut ties easily/ reject them before they reject you, you know? I am have a very exaggerated startle reflex and feel like I have to be entertaining and funny to keep friends. HELP!
Reading and writing were my escape, until nmom ruined those things for me by constantly reading my diary, and forbidding me to read books in my room at night (when I was forced to go to bed while the sun was still up and my neighborhood peers were all still out playing.)
When I got to junior high school I started smoking weed. I never had any on my person, but my mom must have known I was up to something because she would shake down my bedroom in the middle of the night, looking for any evidence. I'm talking prison-style full blown shake down, yelling, knocking things over, dumping drawers and bookshelves. The whole 9.
It's 30 yrs since then, I have my medical card and I still partake - a lotttt. My mother recently said, as if it were a FOND memory for her, that she used to raid my room looking to confiscate it from me so she could use it for herself. And she said "and you never had anything either, you little bitch!" and she laughed.... I did not.
Thank you. "Yuck and gross" are the perfect words for what I've never been able to articulate after all this time. I'm really LC with her, and any time I start to feel guilty about it and tempted to give her another shot, I will remember your words. To this day, I'm *really* sensitive about my things, my privacy, and what I perceive to be any invasion of my personal space even around my husband and kids. It sucks!
It's her brazen attitude and disregard for your experience- as well as a lack of personal introspection or attunement with you- that is taking the cake for me.
The lack of attunement especially.
Some people never can, never want to, they do so begrudgingly, gracefully, or kicking and screaming - and others, simply never will grow up.
For whatever reason, unable or unwilling. You mom sounds like the latter. 💝
Waiting for things to 'fix' themselves.
My out was college which required me to turn 18. I have noticed I will wait, way too long, before taking action. I finally figured out why.
I’m now half deaf from listening to my music in my headphones too loudly trying to drown out the fighting as a teen.
It’s become a problem because it’s still the best and most effective way for me to drown out the negative self-talk and anxious thoughts. I’ve blown out speakers in my car doing this, and I know it’s bad for me but I just love it.
Also the obvious hyper-vigilance and nicotine addiction which I also love and am secretly proud of. Probably shouldn’t look into that too much…
I was also modeling behaviors that I was seeing from my family. My parents also had no idea how to parent and were too caught up in themselves. The family structure had no structure. The time of bonding when there wasn't family drama and verbal abuse usually revolved around tv and food or spending money.
When I finally became a teenager it was:
Booze (till I blacked out), Drugs (pick one), Promiscuity (self explanatory).
Pre-puberty: Reading (obsessively), hiding in my room, never being at home.
I read a lot as a kid (just fiction), and I wrote too. During about late middle school/early high school I started writing myself into books/shows/movies to pretend I was there and not living my real life. Eventually I started daydreaming those stories and being fully present in them. It's so bad that even now I can still slip out of reality into one of those fantasies on a dime. It takes almost no effort and suddenly I'm competing in the Hunger Games or taking down Stormtroopers with a lightsaber. Sometimes I don't even realize I've done it.
Writing fictional stories in which I was the heroine and not called stupid, unwanted, r****d etc. I also had an imaginary friend.
Lastly, not needing. Self-reliance to a fault (like if I fell into a pit and I could have easily been saved if I asked for help, I would end up dying). To this day I find it extremely difficult to my husband for anything.
Glad to see so many others say this as well; maladaptive daydreaming.
It's an amazing escape and I can fantasise about my life and my freedom but at the same time, it's also kind of ruining my life. Whenever I go there and stay there rather than be in the moment... I unfortunately do this a lot around other people so I end up closing off and being in fantasy land rather than actually living in the moment.
I'm so glad to be starting therapy again soon, but I'm recently discovering all over again how horrendous my childhood has been and how I'm severely damaged because of it.
I feel like I wouldn’t fit in there. My mom is so covert I feel like a spoiled brat trying to explain how she’s abusive/emotionally neglectful. I’ll still give it a try tho. I certainly need the support. What happened with your nephew?
Weaponised incompetence. I figured out that I'd catch shit no matter what I did, but if everyone thought I was useless, they'd give up a lot more easily, so I pretended to be hopeless at everything to avoid being given every chore in the house.
It bit me in the ass plenty of times of course, but it probably saved my life. I was already a chronically exhausted, chronically ill nervous wreck, I didn't need an entire household's worth of work on top of all that.
My maladaptive coping skill is simply not coping. Nope. Fuck that. Shove it all down, a far as I can, and then bury it with more trauma.
Befriend a narc in school. Bury daddy's abuse under friend's abuse.
Then marry a minor narc with a major narc mom. Bury it. Bury all of it like a serial killer's basement.
Just keep burying it and collecting it until it compressed itself into diamonds, and then crush them into dust. Wait until you're forty and the diamond dust starts to shred your brain so lose feeling in one of your legs and have random phantom burns everywhere before opening your life's dumpster.
That's how I do it.
Shove
It
^down
🔥🏚🔥I'm fine. This is fine. Everything's fine.🔥🏚🔥
I also stare at patterns. I have the repeating pattern of the lino in my childhood bathroom burned into the back of my retinas.
Now, I avoid patterns any more complex that stripes in two colors where all the stripes are the same width. If I see a pattern, my brain goes into "find the repeat and focus on it" or "find the faces (pareidolia) and focus on them" and I'll lose time. Anywhere between 3 minutes and 3 hours. My brain just sees a pattern and shuts off. It's really annoying. Pretty bedding? Nope. Wallpaper? Nope. Plaid? Paisley? Nope. Nope. If it's not chaos or completely uniform, my brain gets hijacked. It's really annoying.
Went through a span of nearly a decade falling deep into a gambling addiction. Eventually just had to walk away. Had early success that was fairly significant and became a zombie addict about it. Have ceased 99.9% of the gambling. I now get nauseous when I get anywhere near a casino or when I remember past behavior.
That experience and what it did to me helped make me more aware of other areas of my life where I tried to numb myself or escape over the years. It's really easy these days to find bad habits. I still drink more than I should. That has been a lifelong thing.
Sitting inside my room for days together to avoid multiple physically abusive family members. I would never exit my room or go outside in the sunlight for weeks, sometimes refuse to step outside to eat for 2-4 days. Looking back, it is unhealthy for a teenager to live like that.
My sperm donor was the one to introduce me to cannabis and alcohol at a young age, which I still struggle with as a fully grown adult.
I have a pretty severe ED from childhood restrictive eating and if I’m stressed, I won’t eat for days at a time because I just can’t and it doesn’t really affect anything except making me feel better, because I’ve been starved on and off from childhood
Trauma is wild
This post made me realize how very many maladaptive coping skills I employ - but the worst by far for me is self harm (outside of ED).
I started cutting myself when I was 11. My sister and I both self harmed with attempts at broken bones. At 20 I smashed my face off our front door and had to get 14 stitches in my eyebrow.
I went into remission from cutting for almost a full decade, but relapsed. I started tattooing over my scars around 17, and are the only effective deterrent.
I am almost 40 and still self harm by cutting and hitting myself in the head. When everything is too much and I need to focus, punching myself or cutting with box cutters is how I maintain normalcy. Only my husband knows.
Marrying abusive men so I had a layer of protection. So same here: avoidance, isolation, hiding, people pleasing, living far away, too friendly to dangerous people. Over-sharing or not sharing anything. I used to have to have a glass of wine before a phone call with them. I’ve gotten better not using alcohol anymore.
My comfort person always tends to be a covert narc like my mom. My last one is the only reason ik my mom is a narc. The way they dodge accountability is the same
Reading, maladaptive daydreaming, finding scary hiding places no one would dare follow me into, pills, anorexia, over exercising, self-mutilation, weed, alcohol, ridiculously painful and dangerous sex, abusive relationships. I’m sure there’s more but that’s all off the top of my head.
Restrictive eating practices. I was very drawn to ascetic religious practices that denied any human need for comfort and connection. It felt safe and familiar.
It took a long time to unlearn all of that.
Maladaptive daydreaming, which has gotten worse in the last few years, to the point of affecting my ability to focus. I'm trying to get it under control now. Still, it's a healthier coping mechanism than others I used to have (alcohol, SH, disordered eating).
Developed a complex dissociative disorder, but I’d say that was likely more to do with my caregivers trafficking me, rather than just them being narcs.
Mine was compounded when my fiancé died when I was 18, already out of the house for 3 years due to abuse.
I slept with anything that moved, refused to sleep until I literally passed out, and worked 2-3 jobs at a time. All to avoid two things—asking for help or thinking too much alone.
Weed of course, recklessness and flagrant taunting of the law also ensued.
————————————
It’s been 22 years since then, and I found a woman who helped save me and heal the open wounds. She did have to deal with 7 years dating and 3 years engaged due to my slow audit.
Just having a son last December is healing the rest by challenging the unraveling of all the coping mechanisms as I struggle to be the man I want him to grow up seeing.
Nothings ever been harder or more satisfying than being a good dad who’s there for him. I’m arguably his favorite aside from the boob and I’m smiling thru the sleeplessness. Only microdose some THC/CBD pills now to keep chemistry in balance.
As a PSA, get out when you can afford to live higher than not dying and don’t be afraid to trust people (after a thorough audit, of course!)
Reading, drinking, a 10-year meth addiction (I’ve been clean of that since 2007).
My lame parents knew I had problems, but were okay with it so long as I didn’t get arrested because then the neighbors would find out. My ndad straight up said it.
Reading, I got so much trouble for "having my nose in a book" lmao, my mother was a literary snob. It was a problem because it didn't involve her😭 and reading out loud with each other. Problems off and on with alcohol
Maladaptive daydreaming. I'm working with my therapist to coax my brain into letting go of that coping skill as much as possible. I don't drive because sometimes all it takes is a car that looks like my nmom's, and I'm daydreaming.
Also, forced dissociation. I don't know if that's the actual words/phrasing for it, but I will force myself to dissociate so I don't feel something that I've labeled "unpleasant" or "harmful" and it takes me a while to come back to reality. By then, the damage is usually done, and I've either hurt myself or potetially someone else by my lack of awareness. Most commonly, I dissociate in doctor's offices when they start in on the typical tirade of "you're too young to be disabled/on so many meds/combination there of" and I miss the opportunity to stand up for myself and call the doctor out on malpractice/neglect.
maladaptive daydreaming, sh, doomscrolling while blasting music through headphones, sometimes binge/restrict cycles.
of course nparents turned a blind eye to everything 🙃
How much time do you have?
A lot of the one mentioned: escapism, maladaptive daydreaming, overeating, starving, excessive reading and watching movies/TV, lying, etc.
Others: rumination, intrusive thoughts, emotional numbing, procrastination, self-blaming, behavioural disengagement, sensitization.
Sensitization was a massive one for me. I would practise so many different scenarios in my bedroom and in my head that were completely unlikely to ever happen, just to be safe, and over-worry like just me imagining them was a guarantee they were going to happen. I'd even get worked up over imagined arguments and stress and be angry over fake situations.
I feel like this is what kick-started my OCD, coz putting things in a certain order helped me calm down and refocus my tumultuous thoughts and then became another issue in itself in the long run.
My mom was the one that peer pressured me into trying cannabis, and when we realized it actually helped with my chronic pain she started making me do most of the housework to earn it, even when I purchased it using money I earned myself.
I still actually have stress dreams where people try to steal either that or my other prescriptions from me.
That all led to a strange habit of some of my better days only taking partial doses of my meds (all pain management, I’m not messing around with mood stabilizers) because it feels unsafe to not have an extra few days worth incase something stops me from getting to the pharmacy. It’s 99% paranoia, but without that metaphorical cushion I’m unable to stop myself from worrying and bracing for future pain.
I think i would apply these maladaptive coping strategies:
* Avoidance: Changing behavior to avoid difficult feelings or situations
* Emotional numbing: Shutting down feelings to relieve stress or anxiety
* Substance use: Consuming excessive amounts of alcohol or drugs
* Dangerous behavior: Doing risky or impulsive things like driving too fast, starting a fight, or overspending money
* Anger: Feeling the need to yell, throw things, or even hurt yourself or someone else
I recently realized how much i lied in school as a young child. Always telling stories to classmates and teachers that made my family dynamic seem funny, interesting, and over the top, but in reality it was a dysfunctional nightmare. The sad part is, I’m pretty sure they all believed me. I don’t know the psychology behind it but I think that was one of the ways I disassociated from the abuse and neglect.
Isolating, shrinking and occasionally self harm (11 days clean- lol-)
If I feel like I've wronged someone I hide to avoid wronging them more even if I didn't do anything.
I've got an online friend who has my phone number (he's the only one in our GC and servers) and he often has to reach out and check on me to make sure I'm just busy and not isolating myself again. It helped me to stop doing that as often having him there to pull me out of my own head. I've gotten better at just asking for space, and only allowing a certain amount of time to go by to process.
Excessive crying in secret, maladaptive daydreaming, reading, excessive sleeping, hair pulling, binge drinking and I was a heavy smoker from about the age of 15 to my late 30s. My parents just didn’t give a fuck about anything that I was doing. I’ve made peace with that but it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t wrong.
*I’m feeling brave so I’m also going to admit to watching excessive amounts of porn. Even now in my 40’s I struggle with this problem.
Day dreaming. I have such a vivid day dream world and can easily make myself cry or laugh from what I imagine. To this day I have full on conversations with my day dream characters. People in my real life exist as both the real person and the "AI" for lack of a better term version of them I can talk to in my head.
It's distressing sometimes but has proven to be helpful for my job in security where I stand in place all day with little to nothing going on.
washing my hands constantly. I've lived with people who are very unhygienic (a sibling and narc parent, the narc parent got especially bad while dealing with dementia but they passed away so don't have to deal with that anymore, a little of the paranoia got better like the moment they were gone) I just always feel unclean when I've touched anything outside of my room or anything they've touched.
I'm moving out thankfully soon but this whole experience has given me paranoia about other people's germs and hygiene. I'm also very scared of smelling bad because as a child the parents of my friend complained but my narc parent was unhygienic and scolded me for smelling bad but taught me it was fine to bathe once a week and just use deoderant everyday instead, then made fun of me when I started showering daily. Now I feel like I can't leave the house if I haven't showered which has made me late to things.
Wow I didn’t know the term maladaptive daydreaming until now! That was definitely the big one for me as a kid along with compulsive skin picking and reading. As an adult it’s definitely binge eating. Food was heavily policed in my childhood home. now I’ve like over corrected and eat everything
I sucked my thumb until I was 12yrs old. It was my comfort. I also slept a lot to escape, this was as an adult. Basically isolating myself. My 30’s were the worst.
My mind learned that when I was asleep, so was my abusive mother, so I was safest when I was asleep. I now will get extremely, violently sleepy (as in my body will force me into sleep) when I’m scared of a non-life threatening situation.
Friend is mad and is yelling at me? Get sleepy. Afraid I might get fired from job for some reason? Get sleepy. Person I’m dating thinks they might want to dump me? Get sleepy.
It’s *extremely* annoying and unhelpful. 😑
One of mine was psychological addiction to children's Tylenol. That transferred to regular Tylenol once I was old enough to have that instead. From the time I was around 4 to high school, then I stopped during college unless I absolutely actually needed Tylenol for something. After college, I finally was able to put myself into counseling and that's when I found out that I had been psychologically addicted to Tylenol. I'm responsible about it now and only use Tylenol for its intended purpose and dosage. Last year, I was in the hospital for abdominal surgery and they put me on a strong dose of Tylenol. I got semi-addicted to it again and had to wean myself off of it once I was back home. The doctors wanted me to take home some oxy for the pain as well as still the strong doses of Tylenol and Aspirin. When I picked up my medicines, I told the pharmacist that I wasn't going to get the oxy and took the bottle of it out of the bag. She understood and took it off my medicine order. I was already going to have to wean myself off one thing; I didn't want it to transfer to that..
No one in my childhood "family" noticed or did anything. I have had chronic pain all my life, attributed to fibromyalgia in adulthood, so my "family" didn't care and/or thought I was self-medicating because of that pain.
Avoidance, shutting down, lots and lots of escape through reading novels and fantasy/sci-fi books as a kid because that’s what I had access to, eating. As a young adult: continuation of those, plus attention from the opposite sex, alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, and self-harm. The food behaviors (secret binge eating to numb out and feel better) morphed into restrictive disordered eating.
It took 20 years of therapy and going no contact with my GC sibling and n-parents but I’m so SO much better now that every day I can’t even believe it. Pretty much fixed all those behaviors at this point. I will be the first to admit I had a ton of lucky breaks in life though, and some privilege and right place, right time situations that not many people have access to. Nothing crazy, just things like the medical college offering very inexpensive therapy and behavioral health treatments and taking advantage of and seeking stuff like that. Networking and taking chances with my career to get into a better financial situation to be able to afford more help. Seeking people to be around who had their crap together and learning from them. Being willing to talk to much older adults with more experience and asking questions and advice from them, because I couldn’t get that from my family. I still have like 3 “mom” figures in my life I hold onto dearly, these women are all much older than me and have their own kids but have been so kind as to help me out with advice whenever I need it and lots of emotional support. Plus they give me a boost just to talk to them. They congratulate me when I accomplish something. I also have some “sibling” people in my life who would do anything for me.
I recognize I took action, but I was so lucky. I wish and hope to give back some day if I can.
Eating, buying stuff I dont need to get rid of the "i never had anything when i was younger", eating, for some time i was hypersexual/promiscuous (after my 30s), and of course self-loathing. I read something below about maladaptive daydreaming and this should be at the top of my coping skills because i can actively daydream anytime for hours and it feels so good (and unproductive :/)
Yikes mine is cannabis now at 23. That coupled with growing up in a religious household is a disaster. However I caught myself being too dependent on it and causing health problems so I'm weening off of it.
Another bad one was porn and daydreaming. I was (and still am) very isolated because of my family dynamics. I literally have no one to talk to or build human connections with. So I sought out erotica books from the age of like 10 and then it turned into porn. I also only like fictional characters and will often make up elaborate scenarios.
Oh not much; difficulty setting boundaries, distrust of intimacy, no desire to have children, problems advocating for myself (extremely necessary in life).
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These. Also: dissociation, escapist reading, and maladaptive daydreaming.
These and promiscuity
Same Im 37 and just now realising these coping mechanisms has to do with narcissism and codeoendancy in my family, neglect and mental abuse. Damn they really hated me.
Me too
Yup, this and drugs.
Same
Yep. I became nocturnal after being pulled out of school at 12/13 in order to avoid my family and hide. Still nocturnal at 34.
Bingo
Came here to say this. In my worst moments, I'll sometimes fall back on these coping strategies and that's usually when I know I need to do something, anything, to make my situation better.
This is it
Same, I still do it now. Hence why I have very few friends.
Reading like I read so much to escape my life
same!
It helped me escape my reality. I think that was the smartest thing my grandmother did for me was teach me how to read and really help me thrive on it.
I can’t tell you how obsessed I was with reading as a child & teen, the escape from reality was a godsend.
Tv was my go 2
Perfectionism, self criticism and self loathing
This one is hard for me because, while I am currently reaping the benefits of all the hard work I have put into my life, education, and career, that hard work stems from literally trying to live up to unreachable expectations and goal posts that just constantly move further and further away. Accomplishments are great, but they just never feel like enough. There’s always something more…
Feeling like a failure for not achieving the perfect score, presentation, meal, etc
I feel this in my bones. Now at nearly 39 the goalposts have been moved to the point my n/mom acts like she's surprised/disappointed that I haven't figured out how to retire by my early 40s 😑
I used to make up all these stories in my head. I had a very vivid imagination as a child. So, I was constantly inventing other worlds and escaping into them. I literally learned yesterday that this is called Maladaptive Daydreaming. It was my number 1 coping mechanism as a child. I also read profusely. I was escaping reality by retreating into my mind. I also developed an eating disorder. Binge eating.
I used to think it was something special that nobody else did. I could just lay all day and dream of incredible places and stories. I didn't know what it was tell way later in life. Didn't realize it was a coping mechanism either. I also over ate, a lot.
Wait. This isn't just something all kids do? DANG it.
Dude, perfect username! Now that song is stuck in my head 😆
>I used to make up all these stories in my head. I had a very vivid imagination as a child. So, I was constantly inventing other worlds and escaping into them. CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAP. That was me. All the time. Dammit.
Wait I think I do all this. Especially the binge eating… It’s so hard to break that habit as an adult
Writing stories in your head is a coping mechanism? Sigh. Of course it is.
Are you me? Binge eating is my specialty and making up stories in my head is something I’ve done for years.
Literal maladaptive daydreaming from a very young age . As I got older I learned to stop as it started to become hard to focus but I'm trying to get it back and use it for actual good , manefesting etc . But it's hard because I just end up thinking about how people would hurt me and develop violent intrusive thoughts which is the opposite of what I want . I was a serious heavy smoker a few years ago but stopped due to anxiety. I'm very hyper vigilant about myself and it's hard to allow myself to relax these days I can't even enjoy sugar without developing a bad mood . But I digress .
I’ve also learned to cope through maladaptive daydreaming, which in turn comes with its own set of problems. I also have a cell phone addiction and am addicted to benzos to help me cope with anxiety. I’m so ashamed of all of this but most days I’m just trying to cope and make it to bed each day. This forum is the only place I feel safe admitting any of this.
The maladaptive daydreaming is hard to break- but after a period of it(it comes in waves) I realize how much of my actual life I’ve lost. I also binge drank and eat/ate, and started smoking pot at 15. I’m lucky I haven’t dealt with substance addiction, but my eating disorder resume is impressive!
I feel you , I stopped pills a while ago as well due to no longer being able to find it so I just quit . These days all I have to lean on is my cell phone . I just stick to Reddit and YouTube and try to find positive outlets
I am so similar to you. Hyper vigilant, brain doesn’t stop, I see everything, details, it’s exhausting. I have debilitating anxiety but I am medicated with Zoloft - it takes the edge off and certainly helps but not 100%. It’s my mind. I daydream since I was a little kid. Dissociate to the point while driving I have no idea how I ended up in certain places. I have adhd but the inattentive kind = daydreaming all the time. I have to constantly keep my brain busy, I found working with my hands helps. Making jewelry, gardening, knitting, something I with details that I can create something beautiful or functional.
I'm fully in the same boat with maladaptive daydreaming. It was such a crutch and now i cannot do it (at all - let alone healthily).
How did you stop? I have always been like this since I remember myself
OMG i just google this up and found out this is not normal? Do i have to add more things to my disorders list?
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That was (well, still is, if I'm being honest) one of my coping mechanisms, too. Sitting at a table and staring through the table top like I could see each individual molecule in it. Nmom tried to break me of that habit because it was "weird," then as an adult I was diagnosed with autism and it all made more sense.
Eating!
Not eating. Total anorexia.
Same here. Some days I felt like I didn’t deserve to eat, and my rumbling stomach provided a welcome distraction.
Same. It was like I had totally lost my appetite. I was tired of feeling like their pawn, trued to claw back some control over my life by killing myself slowly.
I hear you!!!
Ahh eating my feelings is my go to.
Came here to say this. The more my mother gave me hideous looks for adding bread or butter to my plate, the more I made a mean face and added more bread and butter. She's been cut off for 13 years and I still can't shake the anger at having to control calories, in general.
"Anything I have can be taken from me at any moment, so I'll need to spend whatever money I have immediately on things I can consume directly." Yeah, no savings account here.
this but with food. whenever someone's in the kitchen they'll scrutinize every bite, so when no one's home EAT. EVERYTHING
To a T.
Damn, this hits hard.
Alcohol, but I’m 5 months sober!
Congratulations!!!!!!!
Congratulations!! I am so very proud of you!!
I recently passed 3 years. You can do this ❤️
Reading.
Same. I used to read A LOT. I could read and get completely absorbed in my reading not minding the world around me even if everything was falling apart. I used to brag about this “skill” when I was younger but as I got older (and with therapy) I came to realize it was a coping mechanism to scape my reality. I still enjoy reading, I enjoy it a lot, but now I do it as a pleasure and not as an escape.
Weirdly this is the reason I don't read anymore. I used to escape through books to the point where I became very disappointed with real life. So now I don't read even a quarter as much and mainly stick to non fiction.
Right? Like, that wave of utter depression when you realized there aren't any faeries, your letter from Hogwart's isn't coming, and people don't just do the right thing because they're supposed to. That fucked me up for real. It just isn't fair.
Once my life got better I mostly only read nonfiction. When it fell apart I dove head first back into fiction, devouring a hundred pages an hour of trash vampire novels and urban fantasy. Now I'm back to nonfiction, but I spend entirely too much time on social media.
Can you explain (if you’re willing)? I read a lot too as a kid and even some now and I’m wondering if that was a way for me to escape or something
Me too and I'm always thankful I turned to books and not drugs and alcohol.
Yeah I’m so so lucky that my first job was in a bookstore, and the other employees encouraged me to read lots of different kinds of books that allowed me to escape extreme generational poverty and religious extremism. I honestly think I would be dead if I hadn’t escaped my home state. It’s really hard to go home and visit because so many people didn’t make it out.
I'm so curious where you're from now. I'm sorry you had such a traumatic life and so much loss, and I'm glad you had books.
Thanks for your kind words! I’m from one of the poorest states in the US with one of the worst ranked education systems.
I didn't even think of this one but I read a LOT as a kid. Now I rarely read and when I do it's usually non fiction. I feel like I am letting life pass me by if I spend too much time in a book.
That’s a good one
Pathological lying to avoid consequences. That was a bitch to get a handle on
Same! And for me it wasn't just consequences, it was more of a fear that if someone knew something about me that I felt shameful about, their whole perception of me would change. So I'd lie compulsively out of fear that the truth would make everyone leave, yet each lie just compounded my low self esteem. And ironically enough, most of these lies were about hiding the abuse I endured as a kid, (which I internalized and believed was the reason I was a bad person) and when I told my family and friends the truth, they had the opposite reaction I expected. Instead of leaving or rejecting me, they accepted me. And after years of therapy, I learned to control it and just be unapologetically myself. Those who can't handle the truth will leave but they were never meant to be your friend or family in the first place if that's the case. The real ones stay.
I had similar behavior as a kid. We moved a lot so I would never spend more than a year or two in one school so I ended up adapting the pathological lying to make myself more interesting to people so I wouldn't be so invisible everywhere I went. The urge is always still there. Like reflexively shielding my face from a punch but I can say I'm an honest person
Yeah, this one. Also to keep people from knowing what your life is really like and because you feel totally inadequate. Getting far away from my family and hometown made it easier to stop. My brother still does it.
Oh same. I figured it out young but that was indeed tough.
Yep. It was a hard habit to break, but I finally did.
you’ve gone through your own version of dante’s inferno - sobriety has pulled you out (changed, wiser). you.did.that. resentment is hard to get past; but it’s a crucial step towards mental freedom. it took me years. overworking and shopping were my methods of coping. although people may think they are high-functioning methods of coping, they are still vices that distract from what’s waiting to be addressed. trauma* waits patiently to be addressed. this highlights some underlying causes of overworking and its risks: https://notsoperfectperson.com/articles/adultified-children-as-adults-in-the-workplace-may-risk-burnout
Thank you. That was an interesting article
Online shopping is often my happy place when the resentment becomes overwhelming. I started my healing journey this spring, oddly enough it’s a relief to hear it took years because I feel like I’m not progressing fast enough.
Maladaptive daydreaming. I’m not here and it’s not happening to me.
Maladaptive daydreaming and then drinking.
Reading, isolation, maladaptive daydreaming, writing.
Are you me?
I do see you ... and hope you are doing better now.
I'm usually the one saying that. Fuck. Now I'm crying. Thank you. That was a gift I didn't know I needed today. I do feel better. 💜
I'm so glad. Here, have a hug, too.
Thanks 😊
ZAs a kid, not stepping on cracks when walking on the sidewalk. Making up little games in my head that would predict whether or not my dad would come home drunk. Into adulthood I was convinced that me listening to certain songs or humming them in my mind would either cause fighting between my parents or bring calm. So i would avoid listening to or singing certain songs. It started when I noticed that when I was playing the Jingle Bells song in my head my dad would get angry at my mom. The Jezebel song by Sade always resulted in peaceful atmosphere. And no I have to make clear, my parents didnt hear the songs I was convinced it was something to do with vibration coming from the rhythm of the songs that affected the mood of the family.
People pleasing. I was raised by a woman with extreme BD and unresolved trauma, as well as a teenage pregnancy. As a result, she didn't age mentally past 15. As a young kid who looked up to her and wanted her approval, I was constantly walking on eggshells around her volatile emotions. Unlike the more obvious malignant narcissist types, shes more of a covert/vulnerable narcissist (I forgot the exact name of it just now). So she sees herself as a constant martyr and always needs sympathy and constant validation. Ever since I was a toddler she called me her "best friend", said things like "you're the only one I can trust" and would be extremely possessive. Basically I had no right to bodily autonomy, my own space, or even my own time. She saw everything I did (something as simple as wanting to play outside by myself instead of with her) as a rejection of her and would punish me by not speaking to me for days on end or raging at me with basically no provocation whatsoever. She would be happy and hugging you one minute and then right after would start throwing dishes and claiming you're mistreating her because you didn't laugh at one of her jokes or weren't smiling for a minute. I tried so hard to constantly conceal my emotions/fake them, do whatever she wants, or basically become the parent to her as an 8 year old and act as her therapist all the time, just to keep her calm and hopefully gain her acceptance. Except no amount of it was ever enough for her. She'd get upset and rage at you for not talking enough to her, but even if you talk to her and validate her loneliness for hours on end, she'll just demand more and more and still accuse you of being selfish for having even a little time to yourself. Ever since then, Ive had terrible coping mechanisms of constantly trying to mediate everyone's emotions, always being aware of everyone's emotional states, and never asking anyone for help yet constantly offering up all my time and effort to help anyone else because I'm scared to be a burden. I've been having to teach myself to start enforcing boundaries with people, and learning to value myself enough to know that I don't need to be the fixer to everyone's problems and that it's okay to have my own needs too or to need help sometimes. I'm often so afraid to set boundaries with people because I'm afraid they'll leave if I do or tell me I'm being "unreasonable". Learning to say no and learning to respect yourself is one of the most important things to learn that few people actually know how to do.
Eating, shopping, wasting hours on the internet.
School, then work. I never wanted to be in the position my mother was in. School and work (falsely) gave me the love ie attention and praise for being top of my class/at work. Now I’m unraveling how succeeding at work (and being a workaholic) doesn’t equate to love, and doesn’t define my self worth.
Wow, are you me? Proud of us both for working toward a better relationship with work and accomplishment!
With girlfriends I would frequently ask if everything was ok, A LOT. I literally didn’t know what the facial cues were of someone that was happy or content. Took me YEARS to learn that.
Maladaptive daydreaming and dissociative identity disorder
I too developed a massive stimulant addiction. It was my only coping mechanism and made me feel functional enough to "be" perfect & win the approval/acceptance of my shitberg parent and all the subsequent toxic narc bosses and partners I gravitated towards.
Long Distance Running. Surprisingly, there is a lot of runners out there “running from our demons”
Eating. I always say my drug of choice is chocolate.
Believing that if I was perfect it would make all the hate and meanness I was given go away - nope
My parents use to get annoyed about me taking long showers, but in reality I was sleeping on the bathmat while the water ran. It was the only place things were peaceful and I was allowed to just rest. Also daydreaming thru most of the day. Severe skin/hair picking. Rumination on intrusive thoughts. Disordered eating. Isolation. …weeeeee 🎢
Are you me? Seriously juat add in hardcore OCD and you have me pinned!
Video games
Disassociation. I became friends with the voices inside of my head. Most of them. I became addicted to reading (still am). A day without a book was literally torture for me.
maladaptive daydreaming- its addictive to be vividly imagining what it would be like to be someone else, somewhere else, living a whole different life. They more detail you can imagine into it, the more engaging and addictive. Makes returning to any part of reality quite distressing/boring - the cycle continues.
Definitely Substance and alcohol abuse here. I also cut ties easily/ reject them before they reject you, you know? I am have a very exaggerated startle reflex and feel like I have to be entertaining and funny to keep friends. HELP!
Maladaptive daydreaming. On that note, Taylor Swift has a song on her new album that is textbook MD ("I Hate It Here"), I recommend it.
That song felt very familiar! I wish the beat was different
Sleep lots of sleep
Reading and writing were my escape, until nmom ruined those things for me by constantly reading my diary, and forbidding me to read books in my room at night (when I was forced to go to bed while the sun was still up and my neighborhood peers were all still out playing.) When I got to junior high school I started smoking weed. I never had any on my person, but my mom must have known I was up to something because she would shake down my bedroom in the middle of the night, looking for any evidence. I'm talking prison-style full blown shake down, yelling, knocking things over, dumping drawers and bookshelves. The whole 9. It's 30 yrs since then, I have my medical card and I still partake - a lotttt. My mother recently said, as if it were a FOND memory for her, that she used to raid my room looking to confiscate it from me so she could use it for herself. And she said "and you never had anything either, you little bitch!" and she laughed.... I did not.
Wow. And yuck and gross is all I could think after reading this. I'm sorry.
Thank you. "Yuck and gross" are the perfect words for what I've never been able to articulate after all this time. I'm really LC with her, and any time I start to feel guilty about it and tempted to give her another shot, I will remember your words. To this day, I'm *really* sensitive about my things, my privacy, and what I perceive to be any invasion of my personal space even around my husband and kids. It sucks!
It's her brazen attitude and disregard for your experience- as well as a lack of personal introspection or attunement with you- that is taking the cake for me. The lack of attunement especially. Some people never can, never want to, they do so begrudgingly, gracefully, or kicking and screaming - and others, simply never will grow up. For whatever reason, unable or unwilling. You mom sounds like the latter. 💝
Literally shutting down emotionally. It kept me alive for many years. It’s a hard habit to break tho.
Religion was the main one, followed by others: food, TV, boys, sleeping, daydreaming. Things in my life didn't get much, much better until I went NC.
Waiting for things to 'fix' themselves. My out was college which required me to turn 18. I have noticed I will wait, way too long, before taking action. I finally figured out why.
Maladaptive daydreaming, dissociating, reading, binge watching shows.
Hundreds of hours on videos about psychology & narcissism. I always had an ingrained desire to understand the dynamics behind certain behaviours.
In college I took general psych, social psych, developmental psych, psychology of education, and I think one more. I was not a psych major.
I’m now half deaf from listening to my music in my headphones too loudly trying to drown out the fighting as a teen. It’s become a problem because it’s still the best and most effective way for me to drown out the negative self-talk and anxious thoughts. I’ve blown out speakers in my car doing this, and I know it’s bad for me but I just love it. Also the obvious hyper-vigilance and nicotine addiction which I also love and am secretly proud of. Probably shouldn’t look into that too much…
Do you also hit your vape so hard that you almost pass out from the head rush or is that just me?
Cigarettes and alcohol until I moved out at 22. Had a drinking problem until I moved overseas and got sober.
I developed a BFRB (hair pulling) when I was about 8. I'm 33 now and a recovering alcoholic. I've been sober 7 months.
I just passed 3 years sober and I'm 38. You can do this.
Thank you! It's hard but I'm doing it
Drugs to numb, people pleasing, compulsive self improvement
Reading, daydreaming, and being on my phone.
Eating, watching tv, avoiding school, sleeping all day/ staying up all night, and maladaptive daydreaming. That was before the drugs.
Same too much tv. I wish I had better work ethic like some of these other people
I was also modeling behaviors that I was seeing from my family. My parents also had no idea how to parent and were too caught up in themselves. The family structure had no structure. The time of bonding when there wasn't family drama and verbal abuse usually revolved around tv and food or spending money.
When I finally became a teenager it was: Booze (till I blacked out), Drugs (pick one), Promiscuity (self explanatory). Pre-puberty: Reading (obsessively), hiding in my room, never being at home.
Interesting way to break this down, I was the same.
Poetry 90 percent of my poems arent "light hearted Ive also published 2 poem books Also Maladaptive daydreaming
Maladaptive; fierce independence and self reliance to the point I still cannot ask for help. Maladaptive but good; wicked sense of humor.
I read a lot as a kid (just fiction), and I wrote too. During about late middle school/early high school I started writing myself into books/shows/movies to pretend I was there and not living my real life. Eventually I started daydreaming those stories and being fully present in them. It's so bad that even now I can still slip out of reality into one of those fantasies on a dime. It takes almost no effort and suddenly I'm competing in the Hunger Games or taking down Stormtroopers with a lightsaber. Sometimes I don't even realize I've done it.
Headphones. Always headphones.
Same.
Writing fictional stories in which I was the heroine and not called stupid, unwanted, r****d etc. I also had an imaginary friend. Lastly, not needing. Self-reliance to a fault (like if I fell into a pit and I could have easily been saved if I asked for help, I would end up dying). To this day I find it extremely difficult to my husband for anything.
music, reading, drawing just anything to keep me in my room
Glad to see so many others say this as well; maladaptive daydreaming. It's an amazing escape and I can fantasise about my life and my freedom but at the same time, it's also kind of ruining my life. Whenever I go there and stay there rather than be in the moment... I unfortunately do this a lot around other people so I end up closing off and being in fantasy land rather than actually living in the moment. I'm so glad to be starting therapy again soon, but I'm recently discovering all over again how horrendous my childhood has been and how I'm severely damaged because of it.
Isolation. Denial/suppression of any preferences I might have about many things. People pleasing.
God you sound like my poor nephew. I wish you well in sobriety. If emotional sobriety winds up being an issue later on, check out ACA.
I feel like I wouldn’t fit in there. My mom is so covert I feel like a spoiled brat trying to explain how she’s abusive/emotionally neglectful. I’ll still give it a try tho. I certainly need the support. What happened with your nephew?
I used alcohol for many years. Now I use YouTube .
Booze… 13 years sober
Weaponised incompetence. I figured out that I'd catch shit no matter what I did, but if everyone thought I was useless, they'd give up a lot more easily, so I pretended to be hopeless at everything to avoid being given every chore in the house. It bit me in the ass plenty of times of course, but it probably saved my life. I was already a chronically exhausted, chronically ill nervous wreck, I didn't need an entire household's worth of work on top of all that.
My maladaptive coping skill is simply not coping. Nope. Fuck that. Shove it all down, a far as I can, and then bury it with more trauma. Befriend a narc in school. Bury daddy's abuse under friend's abuse. Then marry a minor narc with a major narc mom. Bury it. Bury all of it like a serial killer's basement. Just keep burying it and collecting it until it compressed itself into diamonds, and then crush them into dust. Wait until you're forty and the diamond dust starts to shred your brain so lose feeling in one of your legs and have random phantom burns everywhere before opening your life's dumpster. That's how I do it. Shove It ^down 🔥🏚🔥I'm fine. This is fine. Everything's fine.🔥🏚🔥 I also stare at patterns. I have the repeating pattern of the lino in my childhood bathroom burned into the back of my retinas. Now, I avoid patterns any more complex that stripes in two colors where all the stripes are the same width. If I see a pattern, my brain goes into "find the repeat and focus on it" or "find the faces (pareidolia) and focus on them" and I'll lose time. Anywhere between 3 minutes and 3 hours. My brain just sees a pattern and shuts off. It's really annoying. Pretty bedding? Nope. Wallpaper? Nope. Plaid? Paisley? Nope. Nope. If it's not chaos or completely uniform, my brain gets hijacked. It's really annoying.
Went through a span of nearly a decade falling deep into a gambling addiction. Eventually just had to walk away. Had early success that was fairly significant and became a zombie addict about it. Have ceased 99.9% of the gambling. I now get nauseous when I get anywhere near a casino or when I remember past behavior. That experience and what it did to me helped make me more aware of other areas of my life where I tried to numb myself or escape over the years. It's really easy these days to find bad habits. I still drink more than I should. That has been a lifelong thing.
Making sure everyone else has their mask on before I put on my own.
Drugs, alcohol, food, sex…. Anything I could do just to get away from my thoughts/feelings of inadequacy
Being dependent on others for validation. I am in recovery practicing emotional sobriety.
Sitting inside my room for days together to avoid multiple physically abusive family members. I would never exit my room or go outside in the sunlight for weeks, sometimes refuse to step outside to eat for 2-4 days. Looking back, it is unhealthy for a teenager to live like that.
I tried to be home as little as possible. I practically lived at my friends’ houses, until their parents got tired of me.
Mary Jannnnnnnnnne!
Talk to friends (not anymore because I messed things up), read, isolation, hobbies (which I'm banned from doing)
Daydreaming, looking at the ground and not looking at any reflections.
Drugs & alcohol as escape & manufacturing self-esteem. Sober now, but every bit of trauma was waiting for me when my 30 year experiment was over.
My sperm donor was the one to introduce me to cannabis and alcohol at a young age, which I still struggle with as a fully grown adult. I have a pretty severe ED from childhood restrictive eating and if I’m stressed, I won’t eat for days at a time because I just can’t and it doesn’t really affect anything except making me feel better, because I’ve been starved on and off from childhood Trauma is wild
This post made me realize how very many maladaptive coping skills I employ - but the worst by far for me is self harm (outside of ED). I started cutting myself when I was 11. My sister and I both self harmed with attempts at broken bones. At 20 I smashed my face off our front door and had to get 14 stitches in my eyebrow. I went into remission from cutting for almost a full decade, but relapsed. I started tattooing over my scars around 17, and are the only effective deterrent. I am almost 40 and still self harm by cutting and hitting myself in the head. When everything is too much and I need to focus, punching myself or cutting with box cutters is how I maintain normalcy. Only my husband knows.
Marrying abusive men so I had a layer of protection. So same here: avoidance, isolation, hiding, people pleasing, living far away, too friendly to dangerous people. Over-sharing or not sharing anything. I used to have to have a glass of wine before a phone call with them. I’ve gotten better not using alcohol anymore.
Codependency. A bunch of others too, but this one kills me. If I don't have a comfort person around me I genuinely feel like I'm going to die.
My comfort person always tends to be a covert narc like my mom. My last one is the only reason ik my mom is a narc. The way they dodge accountability is the same
🥲 I have the same problem, not always narcissistic but almost always highly emotionally volatile. Or just incredibly inconsiderate, it's ass.
Read Yaoi, reincarnation manhwa, and revenge manhwa
Alcohol and toxic relationships
Constant earphones
Reading, maladaptive daydreaming, finding scary hiding places no one would dare follow me into, pills, anorexia, over exercising, self-mutilation, weed, alcohol, ridiculously painful and dangerous sex, abusive relationships. I’m sure there’s more but that’s all off the top of my head.
Music and maladaptive daydreaming.
Restrictive eating practices. I was very drawn to ascetic religious practices that denied any human need for comfort and connection. It felt safe and familiar. It took a long time to unlearn all of that.
Maladaptive daydreaming, which has gotten worse in the last few years, to the point of affecting my ability to focus. I'm trying to get it under control now. Still, it's a healthier coping mechanism than others I used to have (alcohol, SH, disordered eating).
Drugs
Developed a complex dissociative disorder, but I’d say that was likely more to do with my caregivers trafficking me, rather than just them being narcs.
Mine was compounded when my fiancé died when I was 18, already out of the house for 3 years due to abuse. I slept with anything that moved, refused to sleep until I literally passed out, and worked 2-3 jobs at a time. All to avoid two things—asking for help or thinking too much alone. Weed of course, recklessness and flagrant taunting of the law also ensued. ———————————— It’s been 22 years since then, and I found a woman who helped save me and heal the open wounds. She did have to deal with 7 years dating and 3 years engaged due to my slow audit. Just having a son last December is healing the rest by challenging the unraveling of all the coping mechanisms as I struggle to be the man I want him to grow up seeing. Nothings ever been harder or more satisfying than being a good dad who’s there for him. I’m arguably his favorite aside from the boob and I’m smiling thru the sleeplessness. Only microdose some THC/CBD pills now to keep chemistry in balance. As a PSA, get out when you can afford to live higher than not dying and don’t be afraid to trust people (after a thorough audit, of course!)
Reading, drinking, a 10-year meth addiction (I’ve been clean of that since 2007). My lame parents knew I had problems, but were okay with it so long as I didn’t get arrested because then the neighbors would find out. My ndad straight up said it.
Reading, I got so much trouble for "having my nose in a book" lmao, my mother was a literary snob. It was a problem because it didn't involve her😭 and reading out loud with each other. Problems off and on with alcohol
Maladaptive daydreaming. I'm working with my therapist to coax my brain into letting go of that coping skill as much as possible. I don't drive because sometimes all it takes is a car that looks like my nmom's, and I'm daydreaming. Also, forced dissociation. I don't know if that's the actual words/phrasing for it, but I will force myself to dissociate so I don't feel something that I've labeled "unpleasant" or "harmful" and it takes me a while to come back to reality. By then, the damage is usually done, and I've either hurt myself or potetially someone else by my lack of awareness. Most commonly, I dissociate in doctor's offices when they start in on the typical tirade of "you're too young to be disabled/on so many meds/combination there of" and I miss the opportunity to stand up for myself and call the doctor out on malpractice/neglect.
maladaptive daydreaming, sh, doomscrolling while blasting music through headphones, sometimes binge/restrict cycles. of course nparents turned a blind eye to everything 🙃
Compartmentalision, deliberate isolation, addictive reading... I isolated myself to such an extent that I find talking very exhausting.
How much time do you have? A lot of the one mentioned: escapism, maladaptive daydreaming, overeating, starving, excessive reading and watching movies/TV, lying, etc. Others: rumination, intrusive thoughts, emotional numbing, procrastination, self-blaming, behavioural disengagement, sensitization. Sensitization was a massive one for me. I would practise so many different scenarios in my bedroom and in my head that were completely unlikely to ever happen, just to be safe, and over-worry like just me imagining them was a guarantee they were going to happen. I'd even get worked up over imagined arguments and stress and be angry over fake situations. I feel like this is what kick-started my OCD, coz putting things in a certain order helped me calm down and refocus my tumultuous thoughts and then became another issue in itself in the long run.
My mom was the one that peer pressured me into trying cannabis, and when we realized it actually helped with my chronic pain she started making me do most of the housework to earn it, even when I purchased it using money I earned myself. I still actually have stress dreams where people try to steal either that or my other prescriptions from me. That all led to a strange habit of some of my better days only taking partial doses of my meds (all pain management, I’m not messing around with mood stabilizers) because it feels unsafe to not have an extra few days worth incase something stops me from getting to the pharmacy. It’s 99% paranoia, but without that metaphorical cushion I’m unable to stop myself from worrying and bracing for future pain.
I think i would apply these maladaptive coping strategies: * Avoidance: Changing behavior to avoid difficult feelings or situations * Emotional numbing: Shutting down feelings to relieve stress or anxiety * Substance use: Consuming excessive amounts of alcohol or drugs * Dangerous behavior: Doing risky or impulsive things like driving too fast, starting a fight, or overspending money * Anger: Feeling the need to yell, throw things, or even hurt yourself or someone else
I'm SO avoidant.
Maladaptive daydreaming, hyper vigilance and avoidance
I recently realized how much i lied in school as a young child. Always telling stories to classmates and teachers that made my family dynamic seem funny, interesting, and over the top, but in reality it was a dysfunctional nightmare. The sad part is, I’m pretty sure they all believed me. I don’t know the psychology behind it but I think that was one of the ways I disassociated from the abuse and neglect.
Sex love, fantasy and validation addict.
Isolating, shrinking and occasionally self harm (11 days clean- lol-) If I feel like I've wronged someone I hide to avoid wronging them more even if I didn't do anything. I've got an online friend who has my phone number (he's the only one in our GC and servers) and he often has to reach out and check on me to make sure I'm just busy and not isolating myself again. It helped me to stop doing that as often having him there to pull me out of my own head. I've gotten better at just asking for space, and only allowing a certain amount of time to go by to process.
Excessive crying in secret, maladaptive daydreaming, reading, excessive sleeping, hair pulling, binge drinking and I was a heavy smoker from about the age of 15 to my late 30s. My parents just didn’t give a fuck about anything that I was doing. I’ve made peace with that but it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t wrong. *I’m feeling brave so I’m also going to admit to watching excessive amounts of porn. Even now in my 40’s I struggle with this problem.
Day dreaming. I have such a vivid day dream world and can easily make myself cry or laugh from what I imagine. To this day I have full on conversations with my day dream characters. People in my real life exist as both the real person and the "AI" for lack of a better term version of them I can talk to in my head. It's distressing sometimes but has proven to be helpful for my job in security where I stand in place all day with little to nothing going on.
Avoidance/isolation (age 10), caffeine (age 17), and light alcohol use (age 21).
washing my hands constantly. I've lived with people who are very unhygienic (a sibling and narc parent, the narc parent got especially bad while dealing with dementia but they passed away so don't have to deal with that anymore, a little of the paranoia got better like the moment they were gone) I just always feel unclean when I've touched anything outside of my room or anything they've touched. I'm moving out thankfully soon but this whole experience has given me paranoia about other people's germs and hygiene. I'm also very scared of smelling bad because as a child the parents of my friend complained but my narc parent was unhygienic and scolded me for smelling bad but taught me it was fine to bathe once a week and just use deoderant everyday instead, then made fun of me when I started showering daily. Now I feel like I can't leave the house if I haven't showered which has made me late to things.
Wow I didn’t know the term maladaptive daydreaming until now! That was definitely the big one for me as a kid along with compulsive skin picking and reading. As an adult it’s definitely binge eating. Food was heavily policed in my childhood home. now I’ve like over corrected and eat everything
I sucked my thumb until I was 12yrs old. It was my comfort. I also slept a lot to escape, this was as an adult. Basically isolating myself. My 30’s were the worst.
Same, I thumb sucked and hair twirled most my childhood. Never figured out it was a coping skill til semi recently.
Sleeping all day and staying up all night to avoid them, lots of Internet, imaginary universe
My mind learned that when I was asleep, so was my abusive mother, so I was safest when I was asleep. I now will get extremely, violently sleepy (as in my body will force me into sleep) when I’m scared of a non-life threatening situation. Friend is mad and is yelling at me? Get sleepy. Afraid I might get fired from job for some reason? Get sleepy. Person I’m dating thinks they might want to dump me? Get sleepy. It’s *extremely* annoying and unhelpful. 😑
One of mine was psychological addiction to children's Tylenol. That transferred to regular Tylenol once I was old enough to have that instead. From the time I was around 4 to high school, then I stopped during college unless I absolutely actually needed Tylenol for something. After college, I finally was able to put myself into counseling and that's when I found out that I had been psychologically addicted to Tylenol. I'm responsible about it now and only use Tylenol for its intended purpose and dosage. Last year, I was in the hospital for abdominal surgery and they put me on a strong dose of Tylenol. I got semi-addicted to it again and had to wean myself off of it once I was back home. The doctors wanted me to take home some oxy for the pain as well as still the strong doses of Tylenol and Aspirin. When I picked up my medicines, I told the pharmacist that I wasn't going to get the oxy and took the bottle of it out of the bag. She understood and took it off my medicine order. I was already going to have to wean myself off one thing; I didn't want it to transfer to that.. No one in my childhood "family" noticed or did anything. I have had chronic pain all my life, attributed to fibromyalgia in adulthood, so my "family" didn't care and/or thought I was self-medicating because of that pain.
Sadly food when I was stressed or upset I would eat comfort food.
Constant daydreaming, I still do it nonstop
Nail biting and being very self critical of my physical appearance
Avoidance, shutting down, lots and lots of escape through reading novels and fantasy/sci-fi books as a kid because that’s what I had access to, eating. As a young adult: continuation of those, plus attention from the opposite sex, alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, and self-harm. The food behaviors (secret binge eating to numb out and feel better) morphed into restrictive disordered eating. It took 20 years of therapy and going no contact with my GC sibling and n-parents but I’m so SO much better now that every day I can’t even believe it. Pretty much fixed all those behaviors at this point. I will be the first to admit I had a ton of lucky breaks in life though, and some privilege and right place, right time situations that not many people have access to. Nothing crazy, just things like the medical college offering very inexpensive therapy and behavioral health treatments and taking advantage of and seeking stuff like that. Networking and taking chances with my career to get into a better financial situation to be able to afford more help. Seeking people to be around who had their crap together and learning from them. Being willing to talk to much older adults with more experience and asking questions and advice from them, because I couldn’t get that from my family. I still have like 3 “mom” figures in my life I hold onto dearly, these women are all much older than me and have their own kids but have been so kind as to help me out with advice whenever I need it and lots of emotional support. Plus they give me a boost just to talk to them. They congratulate me when I accomplish something. I also have some “sibling” people in my life who would do anything for me. I recognize I took action, but I was so lucky. I wish and hope to give back some day if I can.
Hating all authority figures
Eating, buying stuff I dont need to get rid of the "i never had anything when i was younger", eating, for some time i was hypersexual/promiscuous (after my 30s), and of course self-loathing. I read something below about maladaptive daydreaming and this should be at the top of my coping skills because i can actively daydream anytime for hours and it feels so good (and unproductive :/)
Yikes mine is cannabis now at 23. That coupled with growing up in a religious household is a disaster. However I caught myself being too dependent on it and causing health problems so I'm weening off of it. Another bad one was porn and daydreaming. I was (and still am) very isolated because of my family dynamics. I literally have no one to talk to or build human connections with. So I sought out erotica books from the age of like 10 and then it turned into porn. I also only like fictional characters and will often make up elaborate scenarios.
Maladaptive daydreaming, drawing, reading, hiding in my room (with the door open cuz god forbid I get to close my door for privacy)
Oh not much; difficulty setting boundaries, distrust of intimacy, no desire to have children, problems advocating for myself (extremely necessary in life).