Addiction? Mental Illness?

[Sam]

Does anyone on here consider MD to be a form of addiction?

I do.

I'll even admit that it's slowly ruining my life... but I don't want to stop. It has taken over, filled a void in my life and I fear and know that without it I would not be able to cope.

It is not innocent but it is my crutch, my security blanket. It didn't start out this way though. It creeps up on you. I use MD to cope with real-world problems including depression, anxiety and feelings of self-hate. 

I've retreated into my fantasy world where I don't have to deal with my own problems, socially isolated, aimless, apathetic towards real-life living and moving forward.

Mental illness runs in my family so MD may in correlation to other problems.

Do any of you consider MD as harmful to your mental health in the long run?

Do you feel that it has contributed or hides mental/emotional problems you are trying to avoid? 

I'm glad I'm not alone.

 

[Louise ström]

Agreed, it is addictive and can ruin your life. My biggest fear is to wake up at the age of 50 and realize that I have wasted my life in a fantasy world, doing nothing with myself. Regreat is my biggest fear. But for most of my life, I have truly hated my life. I always had social anxiety and in my dreams I didn't. I could live the life I wanted and be the person I feel like I really am. Why wouldn't I prefer that life? Through most of my youth I would hope to get sick so I could have an excuse to lay in bed all day and daydream because being in school was nearly unbearable. For some reason I would NEVER get sick so I faked it several times. It has effected my sleep since I lay awake all night daydreaming instead of sleeping.  The older I got, and the more bullied, neglected and traumatized I I got, I lost my ability to cry. If I needed to cry it just locked up in my throat to the point of hurting really bad, now it has become an automatic reflex and the tears just bounce back down in to my chest, even if I am in a much better place in life. But then I can lay at night and dream about the most dramatic and sad things of people dying and such and such, and the tears begin to pour. After I feel relief even if the thing I daydreamed had nothing to do with the thing that made me sad in the first place. At least it relieves the pressure. Daydreaming replaced the comfort I should have gotten from friends and family, and that is exactly what addiction is. People that do drugs replace the closeness they should get from others, with drugs. That is why addictions are so difficult and really only can be treated with real love and care. Daydreaming is our choice of drug and it can have devestating effects. Loosing a job, failing in school, neglecting relationships and wasting our time. When I was younger I loved it, because it was an escape, but eventually it started taking control over me rather then me controlling it.As soon as a situation is stressfull, my brain automatically begin to daydream. There are triggers, it can be a situation, a subject or just a sentence. The key to getting better is to figure out the trigger, because the trigger tell you the secret to what trauma it is you have and need to work on. It is difficult and take a lot of work, but it can be worked on.

[Matt]

Yes. I definitely feel that it is an addiction. I think it is much more harmful than it is good. I've tried to stop for 20 years now and have not been successful. Everything I've tried has failed and I'm honestly getting pretty scared at this point.