a Plan to Quit

[Lily Morrison]

This post was posted on  my blog on blogger, but I feel like I should cross post it here. I've read a lot of Maladaptive Daydreaming blogs on the internet, and it seems like most people have a two step recovery plan:

1. Stop themselves from daydreaming from moment to moment
2. Fix the root cause of the daydreaming, usually by forming or developing their relationships with other people

I think this is very valuable because it makes the psychological tangle that is Maladaptive Daydreaming a little bit more manageable. The second step will be what ultimately removes the need to daydream, but the first step is what gives you the room to do so. Daydreaming takes a lot of emotional energy and time that you are going to need at your disposal while you are develop areas of your life that you have not paid a lot of attention to.

Due to the nature of my daydreaming, my steps looked like this:

1. Stop myself from daydreaming from moment to moment
2. Develop my relationships (by paying attention to the people around me and by seeking out people to fill my social need instead of automatically daydreaming)
3. Find meaning from or develop meaning in my own life
4. Do entertaining things

The reason my plan has two extra steps is because I realized that there were actually three reasons I daydreamed: I was lonely, I was bored, and I didn't feel that the things that I was doing were meaningful. 

For example, while washing dishes one morning when everyone was still asleep, I started to pretend that I was an anime character who was guarding a high ranking official's son. Washing dishes became meaningful in that context because it showed how the character was practical and took care of things that needed to be done. Doing the dishes in that context was meaningful. 

When I realized why I was daydreaming that particular scenario, I thought about how my doing the dishes was meaningful. I realized that washing the dishes was meaningful because it meant that when someone wanted to eat later, they wouldn't have to wash dishes first and be stressed about it. Because I was too busy thinking about that, I stopped daydreaming. Then, every time I started to daydream, I could just go back to thinking about how good it was to wash the dishes.

That was a great discovery for me because it meant that I now had a way to avoid daydreams when there was no one else around. Of course, I have other methods, but I find that the ones that fulfill one of my needs had the longest effects. Instead of staving off the daydreams, they remove the cause, at least for a while. 

[Lily Morrison]

Oh yeah, that's definitely true. I mean, my plan is not 100% successful, and I succumb to daydreaming a lot too. Sorry, if I implied otherwise. Aw, thank you. Yeah, definitely. Maladaptive Daydreaming is difficult, and there is no shame in getting help from other people. Thanks, and I'll do that.

[Rafael Hernandez]

thanks for sharing your techniques.

in some moments of my life i tried to stop dd, but it was really hard doing it coupled with other problems that i have, and it being a cheap and powerful escape, i succumbed to daydreaming.

everyone of us are different and need different techniques to quit/control daydreaming, and im glad that you are finding the ones that fit your needs.

but one thing is common about us: we need self control of our minds, and sometimes we cant do it alone and need help of medications and/or therapy.

good luck and keep posting your new findings.