Psychology Students/Psychiatrists: What kind of verdict would you give the following person?

[Angelina25]

Person A: Made up a scene inside his head at a young age, the scene and the characters involved grew as he did. The characters developed. Person A has a character called XYZ in their heads and they're in love with XYZ. In short: Person A has a Princess charming figment of imagination. The princess charming has a name, a designation and all the specifics.
Now here's the twist: PERSON A KNOWS and understands fully well that Princess Charming is a figment of his imagination and yet he chooses to continue to love her. In a recent appointment he said that if I'm ever forced into a relationship by my parents, I might end up either killing myself or my wife who "even thought of replacing Princess Charming" (He's assuming that this relationship will be forced and the wife will be perfect on picture but horrid underneath)

That raises a good number of flags. What surprises me though is that he's aware of the scene not being real and is in fact quite grounded in real life. This Princess Charming however has impacted his love life because he tries to find the Princess Charming in every woman he meets and if they don't check the boxes, they're never contacted again.

----DONE---Why am I asking this? Recently I started checking out some psych books and my friend and I were having a discussion. So curious.

[dynamicyandere]

I got my bachelor’s degree in psychology. This question sounds fun. 😊


It seems like he has compartmentalized his love life from the rest of his life. The rest of his life has more of a consistent order to it and is governed by rationality. Whereas his love life is literally a whole new world with different rules and expectations.


He’s grown really attached to his princess charming, he will not let her go, he will not forget her or push her out of his mind, he's holding onto her. Perhaps this also has something to do with his attachment style.


Cognitive dissonance is felt as an inner stress when our thoughts do not harmonize with our behavior. Our minds will either force us to change our behavior or change our thoughts to establish congruency. I suppose, he is determined not to change his thoughts about his princess charming, so what’s left is his behavior matching up with his thoughts, creating congruency.



But, the thing is, this creates some potential for dysfunction in interpersonal romantic relationships when his reference point for what he wants is grounded in his imagination rather than the real world.


Perhaps, him holding onto his unrealistic expectations is intentional self-sabotage—an excuse to break up with people so that he can remain with his princess charming—it’s perhaps a smokescreen that he uses and an excuse other people can accept. He doesn’t want to conform to the social expectations of society and by blatantly letting his supposed irrationality known to potential suitors, they will avoid him—which may be exactly what he wants.


He wants to just be left alone, with his princess charming, and if people call him crazy or unreasonable, he doesn’t mind at all, it’s an easy explanation other people can grab onto to explain away his behavior, it’ll help them leave him alone.


He’s very attached to his imaginary SO, and he’s willing to appear crazy so that other people will back off, so that he can enjoy his relationship with his imaginary SO in peace. If he gets into a relationship, it’s probably to appear “normal” but he’ll sabotage it, because he wants to just be with his imaginary SO.


This part of his life doesn’t affect his day-to-day life, only his love life. So, other than his love life, it looks like he doesn’t have any conditions or disorders. His love life is compartmentalized in his mind and goes by a different set of rules—rules limited only by imagination—rules not grounded in rationality.


This princess charming fulfills his emotional needs and he has understandably become attached. Now he doesn’t want to let go, because by letting go and by forgetting her, he would be killing her, because what is the life of an imaginary being but the memory we hold of them? Killing her is something he absolutely refuses to do. And thus, instead, he protects her—guarding her in his mind—even if it means looking like a fool to others.


There is nothing he won’t sacrifice to keep his princess safe. 🧐

[dynamicyandere]

Thanks for the MHO. 🙂

[jshm2]

That's basically a self sabotage disorder and locked inside ones heads. The "cure" would be to ensure that person joins many different groups and peoples.

The first order would be for them to see and feel what a proper "relationship" is about. only once this is cemented, will they be weened off their fantasy relationships.

[JustinTheGreat]

not a psychiatrist or anything but I relate to this a little bit lol. I used to make up scenarios and characters in my head all the time as a kid. Some of those characters meant a lot to me and I still think of them here and there, I also imagined them growing up as I did 😅
However I never “fell in love” with any of them or compared real people to them, they never affected my actual life. He definitely should talk to a therapist about all this. I’m sure there’s some kind of trauma that caused it.

[Angelina25]

Yes well I suppose the almost all of us make up characters inside our heads at some point or the other.

[Smashingdoozy]

There isn't really any one category that this would fall into. It's a very complex situation with probably a laundry list of conditions and life events that lead to this. Likely started as a trauma response which developed into an obsession.

[dynamicyandere]

Yes, perhaps a method of coping in response to some sort of painful circumstance, which then evolved into what it is now.

[genericname85]

i'd consider them to be a narcissist. because their fantasies and what they made up in their head is more important to them than what happens in real life with real people.

i mean they may construe it as them "loving this fictional character" but what it really is, is them loving their own ideas, hence "themself" more than anythign else.

[FictionalCharacter]

Sounds like bi- polar paranoia disorder

[Angelina25]

I don't see any clear signs of paranoia?

[AMS700CX4u2]

Read dynamicandere's answer. Sounds right to me.

[Mediboy]

An extraordinary question.