Maladaptive Daydreaming: where wild minds come to rest
My maladaptive day dreaming has dwindled so much since I was 29. Now at 32, I have an even clearer head and can focus better on things. Regardless, I have absolute no idea who I really am. I spent many
years just sitting or pacing about while deep in a fantasy escape, but never in that time frame, did I really ever learn about myself around people in the real world. Of course, I did have several hobbies and interests that I always attended to, as well as my studies. Still, I was so very introverted that I rarely spared a moment to actually pay attention to real people. I rarely ever spoke a word and constantly kept to myself at an extend that nearly everybody disliked me. I found it extremely hard to develop friends and relationships, and spent most of my time solo. SO, these days, I feel like there's this big blank gap in my life that's never been filled. For instance, personality traits, people relations, verbal demeanor, world perception and other meanings in my life that I haven't even discovered yet. Basically, my day dream life is all I've ever known. Crazy enough, I even believed so much in my day dreams, that I convinced myself that they would come true. When really, I was so very naive, complacent and had no real word experience. It's just a screamer when I think about it. It's enough to kick yourself in the pants.
Has anybody ever experienced this situation after getting past the density of their MDD?
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I can't say I'm able to prevent it from interfering with my ability to live in reality. I struggle keeping everything together even to this very day. Sometimes, I have to travel a far for work, and it feels very nerve wracking. You just can't be somewhere else and be able to achieve things in life, all at once.
Things that I did to help me out of chronic MDD:
Fear of the future is a major factor. I don't know if it'll be any better or worse, or even safe years from now. MDD has effected not only my health, but how I connect with people and how I'm going to survive out there. It is a scary thought for MDD'ers, as it's very hard out there and there's a lot of demand. Everything these days counts on speed and excellence. It's harder to win people over too, because everyone has certain expectations in a person.
In terms of career, I'm in a field where I'm always learning new things and facing new challenges, which helps wake you up. Repetitive jobs where you keep on going at same pace, and they're not hard, will just induce MDD. My dad is still pushing me to move out at some point, but I still can't afford it. My current employer will less likely give a better raise. So, I am looking for a newer and better job right now.
I really need people in my life, but there's nearly nobody, because I spent years just living in my head. How can you interact properly and do that all at once? You can't. So, I practice carrying on conversations with people and listen to them as best as I can.
It was very difficult to stop mdd at first but it gets easier with time. Long trips are difficult for me as well because mdd used to be a “great” way to spend my time on the plane. Still, I have traveled a few times since quitting mdd and haven´t had any problems. All it takes is a little preparation, packing a book I love, snacks, dinks, my journal etc.
Things that helped me to get out of the mdd circle:
The first step for me was that I started to become worried about my future. I was daydreaming away my life and I knew if I continue to do so I will never get anywhere in life. I would never make new friends, find love, move to a nice place, find a job I like,… Stopping MDD does not guaranty any of these things but it at least makes it possible and easier to experience life.
Whenever I started daydreaming I would start focusing on something else. If I was driving and mdd kicked in I would turn on the radio and sing along to the music. If I was at home I would start reading a book or right down something in my journal. If I was around people I would start focusing on their conversation or would start talk to the people I was with.
Changing my diet has also helped a lot. I started eating fresh fruit and veggies whenever I felt bored and felt like daydreaming. I also started to exercise regularly and experimented with supplement, especially B12 and Omega-3.
Even though my life is far from perfect and I have basically none of the things I mentioned above, I do feel a lot better since I stopped daydreaming! I am a lot healthier and feel a lot better. My surroundings are much more organized. I am more aware of what goes on around me and in the lives of the people I know and most importantly my friendships improved.
I wish that I told myself this so many years ago....tisk. People have been finding out about my day dreaming and told me not to do this. Stupidly, I didn't think it would do any harm.
Thank you Silver Swan and Jui for your experiences and tips! I think having concrete strategies or activities to try when I daydream is a great starting point.
It's cool how you both mentioned using fear/anxiety about the future as a strategy. That is actually really helpful, though painful in that moment. I've been trying that lately... facing the reality about my MDD, actively contemplating how this has ruined my life and will ruin my future if I don't stop, and just sitting with painful emotions. It is really difficult to do and I do need practice in resisting the urges to daydream. But I think it's really important to be done. Sometimes it takes a good number of slaps to the face to finally wake up, especially since I've gotten myself to that stage.
I'm also going to try the exercising and keeping more intellectually and actively engaged with my school/career stuff. They're healthier ways to occupy my mind and hopefully they will exhaust me enough to not want to daydream before sleeping. That's a specific problem I've been trying to address, since I often deprive myself of sleep to daydream, and then end up being more prone to daydreaming because I'm so tired the whole day.
I haven't gotten completely past MDD, but I understand what you mean about believing so much in your daydreams that you felt they would come true. I also believed in my DD and thought that they would come true, so much so that I told my therapist that the life I lived wasn't real, like who I was in reality wasn't real. I spent a lot of time believing that who I was in my DD was real, and that I was going to become this big name famous person, but in reality I wasn't really working towards becoming this person. It was like I just thought it was going to happen, because my DD said so or something.
Yes, I find this uncanny. When I was in my youth, I did believe I will be cerebral or someone significant. At the time, I day dreamed the strongest, I really did believe in what my head was telling me. Regardless, everybody around me in real life, they kept on reacting towards me like I had a serious problem, that I had no good interpersonal skills and wasn't even using my brain the correct way. As a matter of fact, they didn't find me OK at all....like they found me so very quiet and uninteractive. They always stared at me oddly....and sometimes got mean. To be honest, I denied their criticisms and kept on believing in my maladaptive day dreaming. I felt that nobody is perfect anyway, so what does it matter. Over the years, I expected exciting things to happen, as my day dreams had told me, in spite I wasn't ever doing anything about it in real life. I even created a collection of artwork as a medium of escapism in my studio, with music in my ears, which boosted my day dreams even more, giving me feelings and vibes that were very unworldly. I'd go for walks and stare down at cracked, chalked up sidewalks and roads believing that there's something extraordinary out there waiting for me....far more amazing than this life...and this geography. Regardless, I kept on getting terminated from a number of jobs, because I was not communicating and so distracted by day dreaming.
After 30 and discovering wild minds, I realized what I was doing and I gradually began to stop MDD. My head began to clear up and I grew more receptive to the real sounds, sights and smells around me. I realized my 20's could have looked so much better if I hadn't done MDD in the first place. This was a very embarrassing scenario for me—as I remembered my school peers bringing up how distant, unsocial, idiotic and 'out of it' I always was. I didn't travel, move, socialize at parties, date guys, get active, nor get a better schooling, all because I wanted to live in my world of day dreams. I learned the hard way that I allowed MDD to wash over my sense of reality and it prevented me from learning who I truly am. So, now I'm very lost and my knowledge of the world is very shallow.
That last part is what is killing me - MDD-ing keeping me from knowing who I actually am and how I know very little of the world because of how "away" I chose to be from it. Now I'm really having to climb out of a deep rabbit hole to rejoin reality. It's frustrating and the regret of how much I ruined my life because of this is sometimes unbearable.
Progress has been made lately, though. The little steps to being mindful of my existence in reality and occupying myself with real-life activities are helping and reassuring me that I can recover and live a better life than I did before. But it's requiring a hell lot of effort and I have long way to go, not to mention the constant relapsing. But better now than never
Yeah, I feel like I'm actually friendlier to people now that I am fighting against MDD, because I can now understand how people or why people want to engage and interact with each other. Previously, I didn't care that much of how much I interacted with or engaged with people, and I'm not saying I didn't have friends, but outside of my friendships I was pretty cold. I think abut how easy it was for me to not engage, or to just discard people out of my life because I didn't feel like I needed them, I had everything I needed in my daydreams, and those people could never make me feel as good as my daydreams.
My day dreams used to make me feel good, in contrast when I was around real people. When really, it distanced me away from people to an extent I didn't make any friends. I realize that I should have appreciated what I had in front of me while it still lasted. After high school and college, everything began to get so much quieter and lonelier. My peers all went their separate ways to other parts of the world. So, seldom having good social skills, I find it much harder to reach out to others. I've had people have talks about making lots of connections, but I took it all for granted, so I honestly didn't listen that much.
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