my dreams are all over the place

Honestly, I my dreams started in my 8th grade year of school. The year before I had gone to school. I had never gone to a school before (I'm homeschooled) and it was really terrifying for me. I went that year and I never really found any friends. I talked to people and interacted but not on a real emotional level beyond small talk. everyone seemed so different from me and we didn't share any interests. this definitely took a tole on my mental state. I felt extremely isolated and I had several episodes of near panic from the thought of going back to school the next day. I was constantly stressed and continually trying to find an outlet for that stress. I turned to my pets and reading and  drawing anything to get away from it. I was so happy when the school year ended and I could return to homeschooling. the following year, however, turned out to be just as bad. apparently the stress of school hadn't completely left me because I found myself not doing schoolwork because I was afraid of getting bad grades. I didn't even finish any of my subjects that year. also in that year, with all of that extra time, I turned to fanfiction about my favorite characters to alleviate my stress. However, my parents believed that the app I was using wasnt safe for me to use and I stopped. with this outlet taken away I started to daydream about the characters instead. this is what started the downward spiral into the maladaptive daydreaming. I've hopped around to a few different characters and people, but the daydreams have gotten worse as time has passed. whenever I would be talking to someone I would think how it would be to talk to one of my characters instead. I was supplementing real world interaction with fanciful ideas of fictional people, while talking to real people. if that makes sense but I have been working on actually engaging in conversations without relating it back to  my daydreams. Its hard because I feel like everything around me can be turned into material for a daydream. its an odd feeling to imagine a character in the place of friends or family members. its not something I like to do and I've tried to concentrate on the present instead of the daydream world. So far its worked out alright but I still find myself slipping every now and then. hopefully now that I'm fully addressing the problem I have I can really take ahold of both the fanciful and reality!