Why Am I Lost in My Thoughts ?

As a young adult, I felt like my own life was a kind of distraction. I preferred to be lost in my own thoughts—planning, figuring things out, or daydreaming. Being immersed in my inner world took up a huge proportion of my time. I clearly preferred my own world to the real one; it was far more pleasurable.

I remember, for instance, walking for hours, completely lost in my thoughts and dreams. On the plus side, it brought me a respectable level of fitness. On the other hand, this was time not spent having real-life experiences or investing in my growthand my work. With hindsight, I can see I missed out on a lot.

Is This Dissociation ?

Being lost in our thoughts from time to time is normal. Spending the vast majority of our time in our head, as I did, is not. We can call it being “distracted,” suffering from maladaptive daydreaming, or just being a “creative introvert.” But what it really is, is life avoidance. It is a form of dissociation.

“Dissociation” is a big, scary word. It conjures up images of people with multiple personalities or hearing voices. Because of this, we don’t think it applies to “normal” folks (whatever normal means). But while dissociation can involve those spectacular symptoms, it can also be as simple and quiet as being lost in your thoughts.

We all do this to some extent. Have you ever arrived at your destination and realized you don’t remember the drive? There you go: you dissociated. Nothing to worry about. But somewhere between that everyday experience and more severe disorders lies the territory of my younger years—and maybe your own experience. As a rule of thumb, dissociation becomes problematic when:

• It isn’t voluntary. We can’t control when it starts or stops.

• Given the choice between a real experience or dreaming about it, we choose the latter.

• We spend several hours a day lost in our thoughts (or at least more than what we would like), and our work, life, or relationships suffer.

A Perspective from Internal Family Systems (IFS)

From the perspective of Internal Family Systems (IFS), this isn’t just a habit or a personality trait. It is the work of a Protector Part.

In my youth, I had a “Dreamer” part that was incredibly active. Its job was to pull me away from a reality that felt overwhelming. When we understand our mind is made of different “parts,” we can see that dissociation is often a protective mechanism. Our mind leaves the room even if our body is still there, usually because a part of us perceives reality as too painful or anxiety-provoking to fully integrate.

If you are still reading this, you might be wondering if your dissociation is a problem. Let’s examine how “heavy” dissociation manifests.

Having No Memory of Life “Chunks”

We don’t remember everything, of course. We rarely have memories of our life before age 4 or 5, and we don’t remember every commute or every trip to the post office.

However, some of us have entire chunks of life missing. We might remember only scattered fragments of childhood, or have years of adulthood that feel like a blank. That is a sign we were dissociating at the time; we weren’t “registering” what happened to us.

If this is your case, it’s a sign something wasn’t going well. It could what we psychologists call Big T trauma (violence or neglect) or more subtle things, like not feeling loved, a death in the family, or a lack of emotional connection.

I have a patient, for example, who remembers nothing from her childhood except when she was living with people outside of her family: weeks with her grandmother, or summer camps. We discovered her life in her family of origin was very unpleasant, to say the least; she dissociated when she was in a difficult environment, but she didn’t when she was safe. There was a message in the selective forgetting.

Maladaptive Daydreaming

Daydreaming can be positive; it can show us where we want to go. But Maladaptive Daydreaming has an addictive quality. It usually involves “little movies” in our heads with ourselves as the main character. Maladaptive daydreaming is not (yet) a formal disgnostic criteria, although a group of psychology researchers are working on it.

It acts as a coping mechanism to protect us from difficult realities—loneliness, sadness, or unprocessed trauma. It shields us temporarily from a painful reality, like the end of a relationship, but it can also keep us from being present in our precious, real life.

Limerence

Limerence is a form of obsessive love for someone. For some of us it can be the first step towards a long term relationship. For some of us, it can be a sure sign a relationship will not work, or will not even start. It can become total preoccupation or obsession with someone who is not available for whatever reason.

We turn to maladaptive daydreaming, playing out endless variations of one scenario: how we will be so awesome that the object of our obsession will fall madly in love with us. Meanwhile, that person is just living their life, while we are having an entire relationship strictly within the confines of our own mind.

If you want more information on this issue, you can find it in a dedicated article here.

What Can We Do to Stop?

Compassion and self-love are key. Often, when we realize we aren’t “healthy,” our default setting is self-hate. This reaction is unfair. This is a coping mechanism; our “Protector” is doing it for a reason. Adding another layer of criticism will not help. As Dr. Bruce Perry suggests: it’s not about “What’s wrong with us?”—it’s about “What happened to us?”

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t gently resist the tendency. We can’t change overnight, but we can push a little more toward “real life” each time we have a choice. I’m glad I eventually pushed myself to be a little more adventurous and social than I initially felt comfortable with.

Mindfulness is another helpful tool. Mindfulness it basically the contrary of dissociation, or being lost in one’s thoughts: it’s all about being present to our reality. You can find free help on the web to get started on mindfulness, for example here for a free course, or here for a free app.

Finally, we must understand that dissociation is a consequence of trauma. Trying to treat maladaptive daydreaming, repeated limerent episodes, or obsessive thoughts is like treating a fever. It is sometimes helpful on the short term, but real, lasting improvements will only come with starting a recovery process addressing our difficult past. For this, find help in the form of a skilled mental health professional, if you can, and keep on reading and informing yourself.

In the meantime, let’s take good care of ourselves and stay grounded in our lives as much as we can.