Celebrity Sufferer: Fiona Apple?

[Brandon Ross]

Hi Guys!

I'm new here, but have been experiencing Maladaptive Daydreaming since I was a child. I'll be 27 in a few weeks. I've had a long-running "obsession" (I'd prefer to call it appreciation!) for Fiona Apple. She's talked in interviews about having OCD, which it seems like she may have, but sometimes I wonder if she also suffers from MDS. In interviews last year, she talked about compulsively walking up and down a hill for 8 hours a day until she was injured to the point of requiring physical therapy. She's also discussed that after being raped at the age of 12, she started rollerskating around the dining room table 88 times (representing the number of keys on a piano) to relieve anxiety. This does sound more OCD, but that kind of repetitive movement is similar to MDS. 

If you watch her stage performances, when she is not at the piano, she moves around in ways that remind me of someone with MDS. In the song "Sullen Girl" from her 1996 debut, she sings "There's too much going on, but it's calm under the waves in the blue of my oblivion." On that same album, in "Slow Like Honey" she is clearly singing about a guy throughout but it includes the line "Dreams can be deceiving/Like faces are to hearts/But they serve for sweet relieving/When fantasy and reality lie to far apart."

Finally, one of the last singles she released is called "Every Single Night," and to me it is like she is describing MDS to a tee. "Every single night's a fight with my brain/I just want to feel everything."

What do you think? Are you a fan? Are there other musicians/songwriters you suspect of having MDS?

[Brandon Ross]

So glad she has a new fan! You should listen to all her albums... they are all stunning. :)

[KwanKwan]

omg i've never heard her songs before! They are beautiful. New favorite singer!

And yes i think she might have MD (evidence would be the "every single night" song).

[Brandon Ross]

Nice, thanks for your response! I'll have to check out Katy Rose as well! Another video that I would love to share is Fiona's performance of "Why Try to Change Me Now?" She didn't write this one - its a cover of a Cy Coleman song. But I think it provides further concrete evidence that she may have MDD and I also love the message it sends. It basically seems to admit a ton of quirks, but encourage the listener to embrace them. 

Lyrics:

I'm sentimental so I walk in the rain

I've got some habits even I can't explain

I go to the corner and I end up in Spain

why try to change me now?

I sit and daydream, I've got daydreams galore

Cigarette ashes there they go on the floor

I go away weekends, leave my keys in the door

Why try to change me now?

Why can't I be more conventional?

People talk and they stare so I try

But that can't be 'cause I can't see

my strange little world just go passing me by

So let people wonder; let them laugh, let them frown

You know I'll love you 'till the moon is upside down

Don't you remember - I was always your clown

Why try to change me now?

[Sky with Diamonds]

Yes, i am a fan. Ive always loved Fiona Apple. To answer your question, i do believe there are muscians out there that also compulsivly daydream. One person ive suspected is a girl named Katy Rose, whom i adore. Fiona Apple fans would probably like her as well. In one of her songs called "Snowflakes" she writes "Ive lost my mind in wonderlust, my heart cannot be found". Maybe im reading it wrong, but when i first herd that it hit me like a ton of bricks. And she also writes a lot about fantasies. Possibly MDD? I dont know...