All Discussions Tagged 'maladaptive' - Wild Minds network2024-03-29T00:21:30Zhttps://wildminds.ning.com/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=maladaptive&feed=yes&xn_auth=noHow do you know if your daydreaming is severe?tag:wildminds.ning.com,2018-04-29:4661400:Topic:2872992018-04-29T23:28:57.032ZRene Walkerhttps://wildminds.ning.com/profile/AnaMcLaughlin31
<p>Hello!</p>
<p>I didn't know about MDD until last year, when a friend casually mentioned it to me and I realized that I've had it most to my entire life. I used to think it was normal, and I would tell people that I was super imaginative and creative. I would even talk about it with my family, because I thought it was a normal thing and I didn't see a problem with doing that. I told my mom that I daydream at least once every five minutes, and she got really freaked out and claimed I might…</p>
<p>Hello!</p>
<p>I didn't know about MDD until last year, when a friend casually mentioned it to me and I realized that I've had it most to my entire life. I used to think it was normal, and I would tell people that I was super imaginative and creative. I would even talk about it with my family, because I thought it was a normal thing and I didn't see a problem with doing that. I told my mom that I daydream at least once every five minutes, and she got really freaked out and claimed I might have epilepsy. </p>
<p>Anyways, I suspected I had a mild case of MDD, but I've never met anyone else who has it (I never talk about it with the friend that introduced me to it) so I've never had anything else to compare it to until now, and I'm realizing that I daydream way more than a lot of people describe on this website. I'm not sure, but I think I involuntarily daydream once every five minutes. My daydreams vary, so during some I'm half conscious of what's going on around me, and others are so big I have to pull myself out of it, and I'm usually confused and have to remind myself of what's happening around me. I'm not sure the specific number, but I think the big ones happen a couple times per hour (I've tried to take count, but I always forget and can't focus) I always mouth and make gestures without noticing, and a bunch of people have called me out on it. I've involuntarily zoned out during several movies and plays that I've wanted to see for ages, which is really frustrating because most of the time I can't control it. I zone out during youtube videos, and have to rewind several times. I always zone out during conversations, etc. <br/>I really try to control how often I daydream, but it's ridiculously exhausting and i suffer a lot of withdrawal symptoms. I don't know any of my triggers, because I feel like i just daydream nonstop. It's kind of routine, and I don't know how to break that routine. <br/>Is this severe? And if it is, does anyone know how to treat it? I'm honestly kind of desperate, I'm really tired of daydreaming all the time.</p> Avoidance - Yes or Notag:wildminds.ning.com,2017-08-24:4661400:Topic:2642012017-08-24T12:33:58.297ZSarcorumhttps://wildminds.ning.com/profile/Sarcorum
<div class="_1dwg _1w_m"><div><div class="_5pbx userContent"><p>I have a question that's been bothering me for a long time. I don't know if i should stop daydreaming altogether or if I should just cut down on it. At one point I completely stopped and it was the worst thing I experienced. I understand this sounds ridiculous but unfortunately it's true. <br></br>So should I just try to do more things in the real world or stop daydreaming for good? My whole life and interests are based on my…</p>
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<div class="_1dwg _1w_m"><div><div class="_5pbx userContent"><p>I have a question that's been bothering me for a long time. I don't know if i should stop daydreaming altogether or if I should just cut down on it. At one point I completely stopped and it was the worst thing I experienced. I understand this sounds ridiculous but unfortunately it's true. <br/>So should I just try to do more things in the real world or stop daydreaming for good? My whole life and interests are based on my daydreams.</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
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</div> Dr Somer new interveiw on MDDtag:wildminds.ning.com,2017-08-14:4661400:Topic:2633512017-08-14T18:59:05.993Zgreyartisthttps://wildminds.ning.com/profile/CarolMotsinger
<p><span>Yalda Hakim, host of Impact on BBC World News interviews a person with maladaptive daydreaming and talks with Prof. Eli Somer, a psychologist who studies this psychological problem</span></p>
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<p><a href="https://youtu.be/CU8oozZKn04">https://youtu.be/CU8oozZKn04</a></p>
<p><span>Yalda Hakim, host of Impact on BBC World News interviews a person with maladaptive daydreaming and talks with Prof. Eli Somer, a psychologist who studies this psychological problem</span></p>
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<p><a href="https://youtu.be/CU8oozZKn04">https://youtu.be/CU8oozZKn04</a></p> Mental Illness?tag:wildminds.ning.com,2017-08-11:4661400:Topic:2630912017-08-11T18:16:21.293ZEmilyhttps://wildminds.ning.com/profile/EmilyLivengood
<p>Do you consider maladaptive daydreaming a mental illness? Whenever I think of the word mental illness it's something I could never imagine myself having...it's such a strong word, kind of scary. </p>
<p>Do you consider maladaptive daydreaming a mental illness? Whenever I think of the word mental illness it's something I could never imagine myself having...it's such a strong word, kind of scary. </p> Lack of Inspiration?tag:wildminds.ning.com,2017-08-11:4661400:Topic:2631632017-08-11T16:10:10.424ZEmilyhttps://wildminds.ning.com/profile/EmilyLivengood
<p>While I am maladaptive daydreaming I call it My World. And in my world is a whole new different story of characters I have created in this physical world and one main character that I see myself as or (the person that I wish I could be but am not) she is the main leader in this story. Over the years I've thought up this characters whole life story, from her birth to her death. I know all her flaws and mannerisms by heart. Iv'e created her husband,children, mother,fathers, siblings, friends.…</p>
<p>While I am maladaptive daydreaming I call it My World. And in my world is a whole new different story of characters I have created in this physical world and one main character that I see myself as or (the person that I wish I could be but am not) she is the main leader in this story. Over the years I've thought up this characters whole life story, from her birth to her death. I know all her flaws and mannerisms by heart. Iv'e created her husband,children, mother,fathers, siblings, friends. I guess you could say I know her just as well as myself. You come up with different story lines and scenarios for your characters(in my situation I even act them out). I was wondering if anyone else ever has a lack of inspiration for their characters. You feel like you're replaying a situation over and over again. You want new ideas and inspiration to make your time more enjoyable but sometimes you have inspiration block. </p> A friendly chattag:wildminds.ning.com,2016-12-28:4661400:Topic:2498312016-12-28T22:47:48.752ZGeorgiahttps://wildminds.ning.com/profile/Georgia591
<p>Anyone fancy a friendly chat. I'e been waiting so long to talk to people who see the world like I do and now I finally found a place where I can. If anyone wants to leave a message maladaptiven or not feel free to drop a chat I havethis tab open during most of the day anyway :)</p>
<p>Anyone fancy a friendly chat. I'e been waiting so long to talk to people who see the world like I do and now I finally found a place where I can. If anyone wants to leave a message maladaptiven or not feel free to drop a chat I havethis tab open during most of the day anyway :)</p> MD Community Survey Availabletag:wildminds.ning.com,2016-07-09:4661400:Topic:2348422016-07-09T22:13:39.512ZWrenahttps://wildminds.ning.com/profile/Wrena
<p>I thought I would share this here if anyone is struggling with the issue of feeling alone. </p>
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<p><a href="http://goo.gl/forms/GiVNcTcRavLmLQah1" target="_blank">Maladaptive Daydreaming Community Survey</a></p>
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<p>Maladaptive daydreaming is often a private and challenging issue. Even after discovering this community one can still feel alone and unsupported. Much is still unknown about MD, but even less is known about the people who deal with it on a daily basis. In an effort…</p>
<p>I thought I would share this here if anyone is struggling with the issue of feeling alone. </p>
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<p><a href="http://goo.gl/forms/GiVNcTcRavLmLQah1" target="_blank">Maladaptive Daydreaming Community Survey</a></p>
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<p>Maladaptive daydreaming is often a private and challenging issue. Even after discovering this community one can still feel alone and unsupported. Much is still unknown about MD, but even less is known about the people who deal with it on a daily basis. In an effort to bring MD’ers together, <a href="http://maladaptivedaydreamingsupport.tumblr.com/">Maladaptive Daydreaming Support</a> has created an online survey for the MD community.</p>
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<p>This is a survey to anonymously collect and share basic statistics about maladaptive daydreaming. The point of this survey is to find commonalities between people who suffer from maladaptive daydreaming symptoms and help us compare our similarities and differences. Previous surveys about maladaptive daydreaming have not had large sample sizes (completed responses) or have not accounted for the varying nature of maladaptive daydreaming. This will also be published for the MD community, not the psychiatric community and results will be presented in plain language (i.e. - 50% of people daydream for 1-3 hours a day). The statistics will be updated as more information is added. Volunteering to complete this survey helps everyone better understand their symptoms and experiences. You can take this survey even if you aren’t sure if you have MD.</p>
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<p>Help us better understand ourselves and this unique experience. Please share this to help it reach someone who needs to know they’re not alone.</p>
<p>Thank you,</p>
<p>Maladaptivedaydreamingsupport.tumblr.com</p> Two factions of Day Dreamers?tag:wildminds.ning.com,2015-11-09:4661400:Topic:2179982015-11-09T06:51:07.695ZI washttps://wildminds.ning.com/profile/Iwas
<p>I have known all along how and when my day dreaming began. In middle school, high school and through half of my college I had these chronic headache's accompanied by sinus inflammation, eye watering etc that made it impossible for me to concentrate on the outside world. This pressure in my head would build up right in the morning and with great pain I would get through half of the day, with my head down and wyes staring at the floor, after which it would subside and I could relax. It grew…</p>
<p>I have known all along how and when my day dreaming began. In middle school, high school and through half of my college I had these chronic headache's accompanied by sinus inflammation, eye watering etc that made it impossible for me to concentrate on the outside world. This pressure in my head would build up right in the morning and with great pain I would get through half of the day, with my head down and wyes staring at the floor, after which it would subside and I could relax. It grew progressively worse throughout the period that it ailed me, from pretty benign in middle school(age:12) to killer at the end of school(age:17).</p>
<p>Somewhere in-between compensating began, I would put my head down in school and looking at nothing I would concentrate on my inner world, making dreadful fantasies with sprinkle of happiness but mostly sacrifice, anger and dread. My favourite one was where I would save people trapped in the very building I was in from zombie infestation that had occurred(derived from Resident Evil 4). Only once my sinusitis and headache was cured two years ago did I actually notice how much I Day Dreamed! And my dreams are full of dread and painful things occurring; things like having a mutilating accident or killing my brother by some ill mistake, diseases etc. Don't get me wrong, I would also fantasise a lot of Narcissistic content and a lot of sexual stuff too(I was a teenager!) but the sum total of my Day Dream was, as I said, Dreadful. </p>
<p>Lately I managed to minimise my Day Dream by acknowledging their negativity and using it as a negative reinforcement to forcefully stop MD. But it wasn't until I had read <strong>Eretaia</strong>'s brilliant post titled "cure to maladaptive daydreaming" did I make all the connections and have a breakthrough. I have been using Day Dreaming to mask my every inability and take refuge in this alternate reality, from using it purely as mind diversion from pain, I learnt to use it to <strong>'dissociate' </strong>from my every inability and weakness stemming mainly from my inability to apply myself ever since this whole misadventure began. </p>
<p>The arguments at Eretaia's post brought me to think: can it be that there are those of us who use it purely for mind diversion from pain and on the other hand those who use it to creatively express themselves unbarred from obstacles of reality. And if there is a whole gradient of those in between doing a little bit of both. I think which camp you are from depends on your answer to this: Does day-dreaming enable you? or Does it disable you?</p> Part IV: Curing MDtag:wildminds.ning.com,2015-08-01:4661400:Topic:2122232015-08-01T13:28:40.737ZEretaiahttps://wildminds.ning.com/profile/Eretaia
<p>Hey guys. For those who are following my other topic on curing MD, I finally got some spare time to update and elaborate on some things that I thought were missing in the previous posts. I'm posting it here or you can read it directly on the <a href="https://maladaptivedaydreamingguide.wordpress.com/2015/07/30/part-iv-the-void/" target="_blank">blog</a>. I hope it ends up making sense for some of you. Here it goes:</p>
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<p>Whether you…</p>
<p>Hey guys. For those who are following my other topic on curing MD, I finally got some spare time to update and elaborate on some things that I thought were missing in the previous posts. I'm posting it here or you can read it directly on the <a href="https://maladaptivedaydreamingguide.wordpress.com/2015/07/30/part-iv-the-void/" target="_blank">blog</a>. I hope it ends up making sense for some of you. Here it goes:</p>
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<p>Whether you decide to wean yourself off gradually or go cold turkey, physical cessation of engaging in MD is a prerequisite for waking up. Force yourself to stop daydreaming – <em>not</em> in order to stop MD altogether – but in order to release and identify underlying toxic emotions and pain that fantasy is censoring. You will be surprised what will come out. As already explained in the first part of this series, familiarize yourself with the pain, loneliness, fears and once you have surrendered to them and accepted them, you should lose the impulse to use MD as an escape method.</p>
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<p>Now, a question: is MD an attempt to run away from yourself or an attempt to finally be yourself?</p>
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<p>I say both. If you embrace negative feelings and face them, that should stop you from using MD for escape purposes. However, you’ll still want to use fantasy to temporarily come in touch with detached feelings and parts of yourself. Now let’s see what we can do about this part.</p>
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">The Void</h4>
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<p>When you receive a wake-up call and finally decide that you are going to try to put an end to this madness, one thing usually stands in your way: emotional bluntness. Inability to connect to yourself and consequently to the real world. Probably the most discouraging feeling in the entire recovery that drives all your relapses.</p>
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<p>When you think about it, it’s not bad feelings that torture and compel you to engage in daydreaming as much as it’s the lack of feelings. But what causes this numbness?</p>
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<p>Detachment isn’t a product of what we call MD. Numbness was <em>always</em> there – and MD was your way of dealing with it. You wound up numb and emotionally disconnected from reality because you became emotionally disconnected from yourself. Do you notice that the moment you switch the point of view from yourself to your daydream characters [or idealized you] and use them as receptors instead, you can instantly feel? Or rather, <em>they</em> can feel and you can feel through them. In other words, you are physiologically able to feel. So you’re not an emotionless nutcase or somebody who is beyond repair. You <em>can</em> feel but dissociation stands in your way.</p>
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<p>There’s an ongoing misconception that maladaptive daydreamers are at disadvantage because our drug of choice is accessible all the time making it perpetually tempting and harder for us to stop while alcohol or meth addicts have to go through some bother to get hands on theirs. Well, not really. We are not special because we are maladaptive daydreamers and we aren’t having it any more difficult than other people dealing with addictions. All addictions involve fantasy. All of them. When a meth addict isn’t taking meth, he’s thinking about it all the time. It’s the first thought that flashes through his mind when he wakes up and the last thought that leaves him before he falls asleep. So you’re not the only one who is stuck in a fantasy world non-stop. All addicts are. We’re collectively cut off from the outside world, we’re all a bit numb and a bit lost in this ocean of alienation.</p>
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<p>Emotional bluntness follows <em>all</em> addictions, it’s their elemental driving force. Numbness, coldness, detachment, inability to connect – these things aren’t specific to just you. Whoever had addiction also struggled with partial or complete lack of emotional response relative to the real world. People addicted to pornography usually can’t experience intimate or sexual feelings with a real person yet, hey, it’s sex they crave. A daydreamer who craves connection to something but cannot connect to anything isn’t any different.</p>
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<p>Breaking through the numbness is a slow process. When reality slaps you in the face and your illusions and dream world crumble, this does not equal instant recovery – this person who’ll wake up will <em>still</em> not be you. Please remember: the numbness you feel upon stopping MD, detachment, loneliness, alienation and cold reality everyone seems to love but you hate – these are not you, they are not your ultimate destination. It’s just an ugly, long, sometimes discouragingly long transition between waking up and actually awakening.</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Breaking Through the Numbness</strong></p>
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<p>Technically, you can be aware of every single problem of yours but until life slaps you, you won’t start to deal with them. Many of us need to be challenged and pushed to the edge of our limits in order to start doing things about our lives. You need a specific situation, something, someone who will wake you up, who’ll tell you in your face that you’re a fucking insecure coward who runs away and is inept to live. I mean, sure, I know I’m a coward, my depression makes sure to remind me of it every day, but when someone else tells you this, it hits you in quite a different way. It hurts. On a very, very deep intimate level. Then you start to get angry – with that person and with yourself. You finally start to process emotionally what you’ve done with your life, you come in touch with this pain that has been hurting you for far too long and you slowly come to your senses. Then you’ll start doing something about it. Our main drawback is that we’re introverts who are used to deal with pain alone. That’s not going to work. You can’t do it alone. You need an observer, something or someone external, you need to be challenged, outright pissed off to start making changes.</p>
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<p>Get angry. With your therapist who doesn’t understand, with your family that undermines your problems. With the world, with yourself, with reality. Not frustrated but angry. Just explode. It doesn’t matter if you lash out at anyone specifically or not, just be sure to acknowledge the anger and let it wash you clean.</p>
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<p>Metaphorically speaking, you’re stuck in a body that isn’t yours. I’m not referring to your daydream characters here. I’m talking about your real self, the one you see in the mirror and think of as foreign and miserable, the same one that is infected with depression, self-contempt or low self-esteem, which make your self-image completely distorted. Heck, of course you’ll want to run away and escape from this decaying body, this broken self, because this isn’t you, this can’t be <em>real</em> you – otherwise you would’ve never wanted to escape from it in the first place. Your mind knows this, hence the impulse for running away. Your MD isn’t a protest against reality, it’s a protest against this broken, distorted self – that is <strong>NOT</strong> the true you.</p>
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<p>Lastly, get angry with this messed up version of yourself, with numbness and dissociation and void. And whenever someone tells you that you messed up your life and irrevocably wasted it, whenever they mention all the things you could have done but didn’t, your seeming lack of passion or interest in real life, get angry with them too because no one knows that every day is a struggle for you, because no one knows what it’s like to not to exist anywhere. Get angry because <em>none</em> of this is your fault. Because you didn’t choose to be like this.</p>
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<p>Then start to change things. For somebody who has bottled things up their whole life, anger is an immensely healthy and purifying emotion. Destructive but purifying. It’s the fight component of fight or flight mode that makes one face uncomfortable situations and fears head-on, without running away from them or feeling intimidated. Anger will probably be the first emotion to awake in you relative to the real world. Welcome it and hate everything around you if you want to. Hate the real world if you need to. But hate it with <em>passion</em>. Just don’t be numb to it.</p>
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<p>This is where bluntness breaks down and you begin. Seek situations that make you care about something other than your fantasy even for just 10 seconds, whether it’s destructive or warm and beautiful. Try to pinpoint these short, fleeting moments when you feel spontaneity of emotions, when real you awakens – and then hold onto them. In the beginning they are short, followed by a week or two or three of numbness and emptiness, but once they happen, let them be your hope, a reminder that things can be normal. When numbness strikes again, and it will, don’t ask yourself what you are doing wrong. Because you are doing nothing wrong. It’s normal – you simply have to be persistent even when the weight of the void keeps pressing down on you, you have to keep going. Every time you feel like you’re falling and failing, let pain defeat you over and over again and maybe this insane battle will make you feel alive every time you hit rock bottom. It sounds odd but pain, even tough it’s terrifying, reminds you that you’re alive. It pushes you to the limits. MD numbs pain and so it numbs the feeling of being alive. Your dream self may be alive but you aren’t as long as you rely on MD not to fall apart.</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;">—</p>
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<p>You know what the worst thing you can do to yourself is?</p>
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<p>Convince yourself that you really are without passion and incapable of feeling emotions you experience in your daydreams. If in the midst of your withdrawal you think to yourself that you will never be the person you are in your fantasies, you are automatically self-sabotaging. Don’t think of reality as something foreign you have never experienced before that everyone suddenly expects you to come to love after years of being absent. Reality is where your feelings are – feelings shape our perception of it to the point one could even argue that there is no objective reality. <em>You</em> exist where your feelings are. All your feelings are in your fantasies right now, but once you transfer them <em>not</em> from your daydream characters to reality, but from your daydream characters to yourself, you will automatically start to connect to reality.</p>
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<p>MD is not a split between worlds – it’s the split of the self. You can fuse the worlds together but the emptiness remains because the one who observes these worlds is broken in two. Don’t obsess over trying to stop daydreaming. Don’t obsess over trying to love reality. You’ll fail<strong>.</strong> Focus on healing the self and cravings will reduce automatically. Your goal number one is to make yourself feel without censorship all the things your daydream characters feel. When you succeed this, you win.</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Relapse?</strong></p>
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<p>When you finally start to get better and receive positive feedback from reality, you’ll relapse. It’s the ridiculous law of addiction and you can do little to avoid it.</p>
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<p>You aren’t a heavy smoker who can just give up tobacco and then find another distraction. MD often bleeds into every possible aspect of your life so when you do away with fantasy, you automatically do away with your entire life, leaving yourself with <em>nothing</em>. There is no one, no home, no reality to return to. If your recovery is going well, you will have more and more moments when you briefly come in touch with your true self [and therefore with reality too], but majority of your days will still be tainted with numbness.</p>
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<p>If at this point you really relapse [and chances are very, very high], oh well. It’s actually perfectly normal. Do not spend a moment beating yourself up over it. Cravings will exist as long as dissociation exists. MD is your life force, it’s the energy that cries out to be released one way or another – and you can neither stop it nor ignore it. As I said in the beginning, stopping daydreaming is necessary <em>only</em> in order to let repressed issues out and then feel them with your entire being, which will ultimately liberate you from their toxic grip. If you relapse <em>after</em> you have done your emotional detoxification, it’s okay. From this point onwards, all you need to do is focus on breaking dissociation and healing yourself. If you daydream in the meantime to give yourself a little fix to pull you through the periods of nothingness, make sure you don’t use MD to repress things and don’t let it distract you. Always use it with the idea that things you <em>feel</em> in daydreams can be felt in real life too, that things your characters feel were originally supposed to be <em>yours</em>. The more you come in touch with yourself, the more will your addiction collapse. When you feed MD, you starve yourself – but when you feed yourself, you starve MD. Break the dissociation of the self and MD is gone.</p> Part 2: Curing Maladaptive Daydreamingtag:wildminds.ning.com,2015-04-08:4661400:Topic:2042522015-04-08T11:46:19.604ZEretaiahttps://wildminds.ning.com/profile/Eretaia
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<p>Hello guys. Since info on curing MD happens to be really sparse both on this forum and in general, I got a few requests to continue my previous essay on overcoming MD, so I set up a website with additional information you might find useful given that content gets easily lost on this forum. <a href="http://wildminds.ning.com/profile/IvyWhite">Ivy White</a> and I will be updating often. I hope you'll find something useful there.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><br></br> Here are the…</p>
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<p>Hello guys. Since info on curing MD happens to be really sparse both on this forum and in general, I got a few requests to continue my previous essay on overcoming MD, so I set up a website with additional information you might find useful given that content gets easily lost on this forum. <a href="http://wildminds.ning.com/profile/IvyWhite">Ivy White</a> and I will be updating often. I hope you'll find something useful there.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><br/> Here are the link to the essays: <br/></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://maladaptivedaydreamingguide.wordpress.com/2015/04/04/part-i-fantasy-and-fall-of-the-self/" target="_blank">Part 1</a> - (already published on this forum <a href="http://wildminds.ning.com/forum/topics/yes-you-can-cure-yourself-from-maladaptive-daydreaming" target="_self">here</a>)</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://maladaptivedaydreamingguide.wordpress.com/2015/04/06/part-ii-are-you-there/" target="_blank">Part 2</a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://maladaptivedaydreamingguide.wordpress.com/2015/04/06/part-iii-are-you-there/" target="_blank">Part 3<br/></a></p>
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