Constantly Needing To Be Entertained - Life Is Boring

[Rachel S]

I think, just after talking to a few people on here, I've realised why I DD.

 

I need to be constantly entertained. I need people to constantly be talking to me and having interesting, intellectual discussions with be all the time. Not in an attention seeking way or anything like that. I get so bored with my every day surroundings and my routine. And in those small periods of boredom when I am free to think, I start to feel sad that life isn't all that it's cracked up to be. We're all just sort of stuck here, going through the motions.

 

I do think my MD is a coping mechanism. But it's not to cope with trauma or stress. It's just to cope with the fact that life is really boring and disappointing. (Not that I'm depressed.) It's just, I'll never have a life that's action packed and full of superheroes or whatever, but I can in my head. I think that's why I want to be a script writer. It's like being paid to have MD.

 

Anyway, my question is: Do any of you think you have MD purely out of boredom and the fact that your expectations of life are far too high? Lots have MD because of trauma or just generally going through a rubbish time (trauma sounds so harsh) and I think mine started because of that in my teens. But now, it seems to be because I want more out of life.

 

I don't know, if life won't give me it then I'll imagine it whilst I work towards having it in real life.

[littleschrodinger'scat]

That is exactly how I feel! My whole life I have felt extremely nostalgia for unrealistic worlds and the more I think about it, the more I see what a dissapointment it is that life cannot be that way.

[roxanne]

I think mine started  from something biological and it was so emotionally satisfying that, despite having a good life, and great husband, I have no interest in giving it up.  Not that I could, anyway, so why not enjoy it?  I think it's both biological (we were born with capacity for it), addictive, and a way to cope with trauma if one has trauma to cope with (I didn't, but some do.)

[roxanne]

I do agree though with needing that constant entertainment.  But maybe because I have had this all my life - my own life is good, but more "normal", but my DD world is out-of-sight.  It is hard to give up that endorphin rush and settle for everything "normal."  I wouldn't actually want all this excitement in real life - no one could actually have what I have in my mind, because it repeats constantly, fine tunes itself, out does itself, etc.  I would be worn out just trying to keep up with any of it.  But I still like having the thrill of it, even with the pain attached.

[Em]

Mine is definitely a mix. I know that when my life dishes out a lot of real stress, I recede further into my mind. If I feel like I have failed at something, I get a lot more reclusive and my MD gets pretty overwhelming.

But I also have no idea what non-MDers do with their down-time. What do people do when they're sitting on the bus to go to work? Do they just wait? Are there really times when a person isn't thinking? I've never experienced any down-time where my brain wasn't alight with daydreams.

But life can be a little vanilla... a little slow. Perhaps the media has had this effect on us. In movies, since they're only two hours long, only the most important things are shown. You don't see Harry Potter get up and brush his teeth every time he wakes up because it's not important to the story. So, everything is fast. You usually have to cram days, weeks, months, years, decades into a two hour slot of time. Maybe we want life to be more like a movie.

[roxanne]

I love movies, so I totally get that.

Most people day dream a lot, according to that study.  I think it was about 50% of time.  They just think about different things - more real life things - a conversation they just had, what's for dinner tonight, watching other people on the bus, thinking of their to-do list, even some somewhat fanciful things like winning the lottery.  But they aren't continuous, elaborate, movie-like stories, about things pretty unlikely to occur, and that you can't wait to get back to.  We are, acc. to study, compulsive fantasizers; they are day dreamers.  This distinction makes so much sense to me.  

[Rachel S]

That is such a good point Em, about not seeing Harry Potter brush his teeth etc! I've never thought of it like that before. Because when I'm doing those mundane things, I feel panicky if I'm not DDing. Actually panicky, because I immediately think  "God my life is so dull. I need to be doing something."