Daydreaming all my life

[Frances Dignam]

I have been daydreaming as long as I can remember since a child- I am now nearly 50 & feel that I have dreamt my life away. By the time I was 18 I realised that I needed to stop the excessive dreaming as it was affecting my whole life. Ever since then I have tried and failed to stop.

I have wasted so much time. I spent holidays & days out with people ignoring them & going to bed early just so I could dream.

At the start I was in the dreams but not for many years. My dreams are full people who are always beautiful, understanding & charismatic. I have favourite stories  that can run over & over again and can last several days. I dream about all sorts of problems but knowing that everything will work out well. People always find happiness, love and understanding.

I know some of it is a place to go to block out loneliness, anxiety etc, but it started while I lived at home with sisters and a brother so I wasn't lonely then.

I have never found anyone who understands & the only person I ever told was a counsellor who laughed & said it must be like watching a favourite film that I could keep playing the best bits.  She didn't understand that the difference with a film is that you could turn it off..

It is so helpful at last to find people who understand & make me realise that maybe I’m not such a terrible person, because I so often hate myself and I constantly have headaches with arguing with myself, failing time after time. I’m wondering now if I could accept that daydreaming will always be a part of me but am worried that if I stop fighting it then it may be there every second. Part of me longs to be free of it & part of me desperately wants to keep it and the fight in my head has made me so tired it’s hard to think at all.

Thank you so much for making me realise I'm not alone.

 

[Dea]

This is what just pisses me off... MD should be classified as a real, serious disorder. What's wrong with psychiatrists?

I am fully aware that, when I spend my time withoud DD, I feel happy, satisfied, etc.

And I'm fully aware that, when I spend my time doing nothing but DD, I feel anxious, I feel horrible, I feel/I know that I'm literally gonna destroy my life.

But I keep doing it. Can't help it. It's an addiction.

It's a disorder.