Do I need to go to therapy for this? Or do I only need willpower? (daydreaming cessation)

[writerspeak]

 

Honestly, I think, and to some extent have always thought therapy would help me quit. I know its a "choice" to daydream, but for me, it is also an addiction. And this addiction has gone too far- in fact, it went too far three years ago and has only numbed me to the realities I am avoiding in my life, speicially social and school life.

I dont know if that was vague or not, but I just want to know what others think about me getting therapy. I have felt conflicted about getting therapy before in the past because I wasnt sure if I really needed it- my probelm is that I dont study or do homework(because I daydream).. I mean, I do, but 90% of time its cramming. EVERY single semester I make all these promises to myself about how Im going to change and study ahead of time and do good in classes. But as always, a month or so later I'm back to my usual: daydreaming sometimes 6-7 hours a day and hardly any real social life because of my social anxiety...also, massive procastinator... And now Im a senior with 2 more semesters to go- (I'll be a 5th year senior) and I still have this probelm. Theres conuseling on campus for free but I've been to the counselor there and he isnt any good honestly, and I just dont like him... (but I guess I shouldnt be picky, after all I have no choice in the matter, I mean none of my parents are willing to pay for therapy...we have insurance but it only covers one session per month...) What am I gonna do??            ((aRGHHH .....moneyyyy!!))

So...... 1)do I need more willpower and/or therapy to stop daydreaming  AND 2)what do u guys think about my schoolwork probelm...surely I need therapy for that- its been going on for too long, and mainly because of my daydreaming and procastination...

And thank you guys so much ! Really looking forward to some comments/advice!

[Marcelo]

i agree with you, we cannot generalize

The studies are not conclusive and i agree with you that most of us got a good childhood, with a good family.

   but also have the other side, people like me that got problems on the childhood and started MD to have a better world and scape from a oppressive family.

In my opnion we cannot generalize what cause MD and also we cannot affirm that is not caused by trauma.

Because we have friends here that relate their MD with their childhood problems and the studies shows that we are the minority but we are.

Again i believe that most of us have MD for another reason and only a small piece of us have by trauma

[writerspeak]

I didnt really have any childhood trauma- well, nothing servere. My parents got divorced when I was 5, but that didnt really hurt in any servere way.

[roxanne]

But roughly 25% of people from general population do, also.  Many of them don't DD.  I & most others did not have trauma, but we do.

[Marcelo]

Must be coincidence that me, doctor Somer's patients and a lot of people here got problems on the childhood and even 1 patient of Cynthia's study.

[roxanne]

Remember Cynthia's study.  Your MD is not related to childhood trauma.  We just do it.  If you go back to that counselor, I would certainly take Cynthia's paper along (see Links) as well as the Scientific American (?) with the article about Cordellia.  If he/she still dismisses it, I would ask for a referral else where.

[writerspeak]

Thank you Marcelo,

I agree that therapy as well as medicine can do wonders. I currently have a pyschiatrist that precribes me abilify for bipolar and used to give me zoloft for my social anxiety. The abilify helps alot w DD, but my doctor has weaned me almost completely off of it now because I am doing so well- soon I'll be off. I dont wish to go back to taking meds tho, i feel its so unnatural, but if I absolutely had to go back to taking it I would. I like the idea of therapy so much better. Just wish I could actually get real psychotherapy, not just counseling.

[Marcelo]

I experience the same problems, when i was younger, I used to DD all day long, even in the school, i was always DD,

I also got social problems like social phobia.

I started therapy when i was 22, It helped me so much, because i discovered that my MD was a way to escape from my childhood problems and my low self steem.  I stopped therapy for some years and returned one year ago, as much as discover more about myself, about my childhood problems i think is reducing my MD, now i have more control over it.

When i was 22 i also used medicine, it helped me to control the MD,  Ok, Doctors don't know nothing about the word "maladaptive daydreaming" but i talked with 4 doctors and 2 of then understood the symptoms and they said to me that they got others patients and medicine helped then, I got 30% more control after use the medicines.

So i think you can do therapy if you think that you MD is related to some problem on your childhood, or you can go to a psychiatrist, explain all the symptoms and try use some medicine to control the compulsion.