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Maladaptive Daydreaming: where wild minds come to rest

Emptiness.

Lately, I've been getting better at controlling myself and not daydreaming all the time.

But I'm surprised at how depressed I get. Is it like a withdrawal thing... has anyone else dealt with this? It's like if you're not daydreaming you're forced to face real life, and real life isn't the happiest thing for someone who's daydreamed their life away. It really empties me, like I don't have much to think about.

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Comment by Dreamer on August 9, 2013 at 5:28am: Yes I am trying to curb my MDD and I too feel depressed along with a litany of other withdrawal symptoms like insomnia, anxiety, emptiness and fatigue.

A woman in long term recovery from alcoholism wrote recently online that when you learn to manage your addiction you are then left with yourself. So we must remember that successfully abandoning our maladaptive day dreaming is not the end point of our recovery - it is many ways only the beginning. After eliminating this compulsion we have to face up to the painful elements in our reality that caused us to MDD in the first place. This second phase of the healing can be very difficult as we cannot allow MDD to insulate us from this pain any longer. We have to stand and confront our demons.

Comment by Francisco on May 16, 2012 at 9:48pm: I feel exactly the same. I beleive that the emptiness comes from comparing your dreamt life with your real life.

It would be good for you to have a list of goals to achieve: I mean attainable goals and even small goals (because I've heard that procrastination is a sympthom of MD). This will sound stupid, but it really helps if you write down your list of goals and read it once or twice a day. By this, you will be more concentrated on your goals and less concentrated on comparing your dreams with your life.

Comment by Amanda Lynne on May 16, 2012 at 2:19pm: I know what you mean, before I knew there were other people like me I felt like the biggest freak in the world!

& it is depressing when you enjoy your fantasies more than reality. But you have to remind yourself spending a majority of your time has put you a few steps behind in life, and you can catch up, you just have to work at it and be patient. We have to remind ourselves that daydreams are like a drug, and like a drug their positive effects wear off, and nothing feels better than really feeling things that are really happening.

Comment by Liza Maria Medina on May 16, 2012 at 4:27am: I totally agree, when I can't or try not to DD I start to feel sad that my real life isn't as good as my imagined one. I tried not to dream all day and felt pretty good, finding this forum has been a lifesaver, literally I was so depressed and felt physically ill. Find like-minded people has helped the sadness but only time will tell if this feeling stays. I hope to be able to work through it here by just typing it out.

Comment by Amanda Lynne on May 15, 2012 at 6:58pm: I guess the obvious solution for emptiness would be to fill it up with something. Like you said, finding something positive you enjoy. (:

I think we've lived (or atleast I have) through our characters, and now we have to learn who we really are.

I guess things get a lot worse before they get better. Good luck!