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I've been with my boyfriend for almost a year now and everything has been going so well for us, but he has picked up on a few things that he thinks I may need to get help with; my delusions for famous celebrities.
When he first mentioned it a few months ago, we both laughed it off, I feel I'm fairly aware that my delusions are simply that; delusions. However, more recently, he sat me down to have a chat about how he thinks it may be escalating further than just a simple celebrity crush.
I've studied psychology since I was 17 (3 years) and I remember learning about parasocial relationships in school, vividly recalling the time my friends and I joked about us being the reason for the proposal of parasocial relationship theories. But, now that my boyfriend has mentioned this, I find myself going back to then and wondering if I actually may be experiencing a parasocial relationship, specifically Celebrity Worship Syndrome (CWS).
I won't divulge into the details of CWS here, so please look it up if you are unaware and curious, but I would just like some guidance on if people think I may be somewhere within the CWS spectrum and, if so, if it is severe enough for me to be encouraged to seek professional help:
I've always had a thing for different celebrities for as long as I can remember and I know my obsessions used to be much worse, especially during lockdown (which I believe was down to me being 15/16 and chronically online during this time). I can remember so many times where I would think 'I will never be happy or satisfied with my life unless I am sharing it with this celebrity' or 'I don't think I will ever meet someone that could compare to this person'. At that time, I hadn't been in a relationship and was very inexperienced in dating, so of course I would daydream and obsess over celebrities because who else did I have? Overtime, as I started to mature and casually date people, my obsessions with celebrities mellowed, but never completely went away.
I should probably give some context here, but I am massively into music. It is probably my favourite and most effective coping mechanism for my depression and anxiety. I feel such a strong connection to music, and so I suppose that has festered into me feeling attraction for the musicians that create some of my favourite albums. Since being 15/16, although my obsessions have mellowed, they definitely peak after I've been to a concert or festival and seen them there. More recently, I went to a festival and saw a band that I have been wanting to see for years. As I've mentioned before, I've expressed to my boyfriend about my attraction to the musician in this band, but it has definitely escalated since I saw them live. I daydream about them more often than I would like to admit, I create up fantasy scenarios around this person when going to sleep, I google about their life from childhood to now, I watch any and all interviews that I can find online (all of which take me back to my younger years of obsessive love for celebrities). But, the thing that has pushed my boyfriend over the edge is when I had expressed that I thought if I ever met this celebrity on the street, I think they would fall in love with me. I told my boyfriend that this celebrity would not see me as a fan and would be attracted to my personality and looks. I said it kind of as a joke, as I know how unlikely it is I will ever meet this person and I know that this is what I've created in my head, but at the same time, I do genuinely believe that if the very unlikely came true, it is possible that they would find me attractive. My boyfriend didn't express it to me at the time, but he has since told me that it hurts him that I have these feelings for people that aren't even in my life. I didn't mean for it to hurt him, and he knows I would never leave him for a musician as I have fallen in love with him, I haven't fallen in love with the celebrity. However, I can understand why it must be so hard for him to hear me talking about another person in this way.
It isn't affecting our relationship in the way that he would leave me over this, but as you can probably guess, it is still having a negative impact on our bond. I don't want to hurt him and I don't mean for this to hurt him because I am truly in love with him, I just cannot help but have these delusions sometimes. I have the option of not sharing my thoughts with him, but sometimes he prompts a conversation to do with said celebrity and I just end up spiralling and wanting to keep talking about them. I don't know what to do anymore and I don't know if this is something that I can work through myself, or if I should seek help for this type of addictive/obsessive disorder (if I even have CWS in the first place).
I'm currently on a waitlist for PTSD therapy, but I'm wondering if, at this point, I should call them and ask them if there's anyway I could be seen sooner since this, on top of my anxiety and depression, is getting worse and interfering with my life.
Any help and advice would be really amazing, thank you so much if you took the time to read through my very very long thread!
