Doctors

[Cyan]

I've gone to many therapists and had different experiences with each one. The first one was so nice to me, but I never got around to telling her about the daydreaming. At least not really. I mentioned it casually like I daydreamed like other people. 

The second therapist I went to was a nice enough man but he was trying to be my friend and he made me uncomfortable. He never did anything wrong, it was just his presence or aura. I'm not sure. 

A few days after I left him, I went to another therapist. She was a very mean woman. She would tell me that my daydreams weren't the real issue and that I was depressed and I just felt like she never listened to me. She would tell me that I was just being rude to my mom when I paced. I left after getting some blood work done and one session.

And the next therapist I went to was a licensed therapist but she was my life coach. That meant that she wasn't there to be my therapist per say but to sort of guide me through my college application process. (She also taught me ASL but that's another story.)

For those of you who have gone to therapy, did you tell your doctor about daydreaming or did you keep it a secret? Also, have any of you been on medication? Did it work fo ryou? I've been on adderall and it made me more productive during the day but I also became depressed and daydreamed more often. 

[Ivy White]

I've been in and out of therapy for 10 years and more now, I never told any of my treating therapists. It took a lot of time to figure out what was wrong with me (turns out my familial environment wasn't helping at all) and I was mostly consulting for problems regulating mood and attention. Mood got better after I broke the rather abusive relationship I was in and moved out of my parental home, but attention problems stayed. So then we were focussing on attention and ADD. They gave me rilatin for that, it made me able to focus better on my studies but sometimes it wasn't effective. It made me cranky in the evenings though. 

I also took wellbutrin for the attention and slight depression but that fucked me up wildly.

I told a friend who is a psychiatrist about the MDD, he's kind of following up on me now. But I can't really start dealing with the childhood trauma with him, I think that sort of crosses the boundary between friendship and therapeutic relationship.

[Cyan]

I totally understand what you mean about friendship. I just feel like daydreams are super personal and you don't want just anyone to know. Mostly since they'll ask questions about what you daydream about and I've never told anyone.

[Alvi]

I've also seen a number of different therapists in my life. I've had some pretty bad experiences with a few health professionals that put me off of opening up to anyone but recently I told my new psychologist  just how much daydreaming affected my life and he seemed to understand a bit better. He asked a few questions and didn't push me when I told him I didn't want to share what my daydreams are about.

The therapist I had before was awful and really shouldn't be working with vulnerable people. When I told her about how much time I was losing daydreaming I got a lecture on dissociation and repressed memories and from that point on she brought up repressed childhood sexual abuse at every session. She would constantly bring up other patients problems and make me feel very guilty about some of the things I worry about in life. I was too nervous to leave so spent many wasted sessions filling in worksheets whilst she arranged appointments and responded to emails. 

Other people I have told treat it as a silly childish quirk that couldn't possibly be having a negative impact on my life.

I've been on a number of different antidepressants and tranquilizers in my life and they never helped me to stop daydreaming. The tranquilizers (I still occasionally use diazepam and oxazepam) make my daydreaming worse. 

I recently started taking an antiepileptic/moodstabilzer/antipsychotic medication that I'm hoping will help stop the amount I daydream (and sort out some of the other problems I've been having). But at the moment it hasn't changed anything and I think it's wishful thinking that a pill will cure years of problems.