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This is a distinction I was acutely experiencing as a teenager. As a child, I used to use fantasies to soothen my internal pain - from being mistreated (or "mistreated"), from being rejected and so on. It didn't occur to me until later that such refuge in imaginary ideas fails me: more obviously, just the fact that I'm thinking them doesn't make them any more true; less obviously, it encourages wishful and victim thinking both at the same time because I give away power and opportunity to change myself and my circumstances for the better since I'm too scared to act on them in reality. Those slowly went away as I started to work on myself. Positive thinking is helpful for one's mental health. Fantasizing is detrimental.