Do I need to take action concerning my over active imagination?

Mental health
1

Over my life, I've been told countless times I have an over active imagination. I used to have imaginary friends based on people I'd seen and liked (e.g. the Doctor from Doctor Who). When I was younger I never really had real friends, I could keep myself content for hours just imagining that I was having conversations with my favourite cartoon characters.

The thing is, I'm nearing 18 now and I haven't grown out of it. I get into this obsessive state over celebrities that'll last months, for example, for 5 months now it's been Anthony Hopkins, so obsessive that I have seen 33 of his movies during this time. I won't pretend that I'm talking to him, but I will literally see myself as him. I will do things as simple as walking to the shop and in my head I am in his body. I will copy mannerisms and I will imagine somebody walking beside me, and I'll have a conversation with them in my head, or perhaps mutter under my breath. I will always imagine this, even unconsciously so, it's just stuck in my head that I am him.

This creates a problem for me at college, as I find it hard to concentrate. I will try to listen but my mind always wanders elsewhere, imagining another conversation in my head, again with myself as another person, or perhaps I'll imagine myself as a character of his, e.g. Hannibal Lecter.

Seeing movies with Anthony Hopkins in fills me with a huge sense of contentment, it makes me feel relaxed, in the same way that imagining myself as him does. I feel happy this way, and on the off occasion I say to myself "I'm not him", I feel incredibly lonely and down.

I also feel I should mention I am not socially awkward in any way, I find it very easy to talk to people, I just prefer my own company to being with another person. Nobody knows this, although needless to say everybody knows I like Anthony Hopkins.

What's wrong with me? Do I need to see my GP about this, or will he think I am wasting his time? Am I crazy?

Also apologies if I have put this into the wrong category, but I don't know where else to put it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, I really appreciate it.

2

I don't really know if you'll believe or find useful what I'm about to write, but it's the truth. I feel the exact same way. I do those things too, only difference is that I don't tend to spend a lot of time 'being' the same famous person or character. Also, I can be skillful with people, I usually simply don't want to, or don't feel like so (not that I ever really feel much).

I also feared it was getting harder and harder to separate reality from imagination, so I even tried to create rules in my head to separate the two, but I'm not sure these 'rules' are effective at all, especially because they were made in my own head.

Now, I also don't know if I'm going completely bonkers or not, and I don't even know if you're even going to read this, since I see you've written your post quite a while ago, nor do I know if you can help, but if you've gotten any response (here or elsewhere), anything you heard that might have helped you, or anything to share at all, I'd be glad if you could post me back an answer.

Thank you, I'd really appreciate the help.

3

Hi, I used to imagine myself as being famous people as well, I would do it for confidence reasons though. Like I would imagine myself as being Ryan Gosling whenever I felt anxiety kicking in, in a social situation for instance.

However the past 3 months have been terrible, after doing this type of thing for like 6 months on and off, not obsessively and it gave me pleasure like you mentioned. I went through a very stressful 3 month course and I ended up having these imaginations like you've described but about a person I really didn't want to be, I started saying what if I have his voice and I sound like him, what if I look like him. I'm now doing countless and countless compulsions in my head. For instance if those thoughts pop up, I'm constantly arguing with them or replacing them with better thoughts, rationalizing them. I know they aren't real but I honestly don't know why I carry on doing the compulsions, its like if I don't do them I get anxiety and I feel that I'm going to be that person unless I keep fighting them.

So I'm countless imaging myself from different angles to be different people and thinking of people I admire to overlap these horrible intrusive thoughts.

Its just really difficult to explain it and be taken seriously but its really ruining my self esteem at the moment and I feel embarrassed to mention it to a professional. I can't stop obsessing about overcoming this damn problem.

Got any advice?

4

I know exactly how you feel trust me I was a complete loner that loves movies and I had to make up my own friends and eventually my own universe I'm even planning on writing a book one day of the adventures that have occurred in my head for the last 6 years now (I'm 13 now) and what I made myself believe is that in order to save my self from all the waiting in my imaginary universe I convinced myself that it would be amusing to go in a matrix type simulation of today's reality and lie to myself that reality is a simulation so that I could focus on exams more clearly and I would occasionally make imaginary breakthroughs to relive myself hope this helped have to go kill a league of space Dinos in my sleep now bye!