Fustrated!!!!

[Paige]

 

Well, i'm writting here tonight because i'm so fustrated.  I keep daydreaming the same daydreams over and over again.  I'm growing quite tired of them.  I can't motivate myself to do anything but go into my dream world and I feel like i'm wasting my life away.  I have lots of things I want to do like be a good writer, have good friends, be athletic and in good shape, eat well, etc, etc.  But I can't do any of them because I can't make my fastasy life like my real life.  I mentioned in my original post that the daydreaming has gotten worse in the last couple of years.  I think it's because of a mid life crisis type thing.  Has anyone here experienced a worsening of this during midlife?  Any suggestions to get myself moving and actually achieve some of my goals/dreams? 

[Paige]

Thank you for your comments to my post.  It is nice to know I am not alone in my struggle with this.  Your kind words are welcomed and does my heart a great deal of good.  At my low points I think I will always have this and I should just accept it and work around it.  With that said I know I will never be fully living my life and that saddens me so. 

 

Paige- I'm don't think i'm narcissism (not completely sure), I just think i'm an extrememly needy person who didn't get attention growing up and it tries to work itself out through my daydreams.  I appreciate you bringing it to my attention and encouraging me to find peace through forgiveness.

 

Eludemyfantasies-thanks for mentioning the stress issue.  After thinking about it, my daydreaming does become much worse when I feel like i'm under more stress.

 

Khaughey66-nice to see another midlifer here.  Continuing with the stress idea, midlife has been very stressful trying to figure out what to do with my life now and prehaps that has triggered more excessive daydreaming.

Any successful approaches in stopping MD for anyone out there?

[khaughey66]

I notice that I do that obsessive going over and over the same daydream multiple times a day for days and days on end is related to how much stress I'm under.  I'm a "binger"  I mean I've always got tons of trouble focusing and I have to re-read most pages several times because something I've read has triggered a daydream always.  That sort of thing just never ever goes away--very frustrating.  But I only experience that (I'll call it manic) obsessive daydream "reruns" from time to time.  The last one that I had is what made me look for this site.  It lasted around 3 or 4 weeks but it's finally run it's course.  I don't know what stopped it.  I'm in mid-life myself but that's not what's doing it.  I've always been like this.  I know your frustration, I'm sorry that all I can do is commiserate with you.  I'm still wrestling with this stuff too.  But for what it's worth.  I know how you feel and I know it's hard to talk about so thanks for having the courage to share this with us!

[Julie]

Hello, Paige. First of all, it's good that you realized that excessive day-dreaming wastes our lives and (according to your first post) you're about to fight it. Secondly, looking at average age of the guys on this forum, we would rather not find many examples of midlife crisis although many of us have gone through teenage crisis, 20, 25 and 30 years old crisis. This may not be that serious but the symptoms are the same. In some period of life you make a summary of your achievements and compare then either to your peers or to your goal and realize that you could do better. That's normal. Even the most successful people go through this and this is by no means a reason for depression or any kind of justification. What may also seem to you is that many goals are out of your reach now (at least this is the symptom) but, I don't remember who said this, it's impossible to get back and have a new start but it's possible to start today and get a new ending. It's never late. Ok, maybe, it's too late to become a ballet dancer, an Olympic champion in gymnastics, an astronaut and a few more jobs but it's definitely not late for many other achievements.

Here I'll be mixing replies on this post and your first post. Regarding fixing the childhood issues, I think, Herr Freud did a great job on finding the problems in our childhoods but it only matters if you have a clear goal what you will do when you discover them. Otherwise, this becomes a constant justification and a pleasant leasure time to dig deep in your head and analyze the childhood issues and creat "what if" scenarios. My dad was an alcoholic, so what? I learnt how to forgive and forget and don't show the signs of adult children of alcoholics. If you had a really serious issue in your childhood (I mean: something classifying as law violation), you'd need to consult a specialist to get over it. Otherwise ("oh, my parents didn't love me", "nobody understood me", "they forced me to go to different school", etc.), for your own mental health, it's better to forgive, forget and start again.

One more thing. You probably wouldn't like it but this is a guess. Looking at your first post about the kind of dreams you have, you might need to read about narcissism. Being beautiful, successful and having a perfect relationship dreams is the symptom of narcissism. Of course, this is not blaming and this is just guessing, but at least this condition is much more studies than day-dreaming itself. So even in Internet there is plenty of help.

The good thing is that you have more or less clear goals (being writer,having  friends, being athletic, etc.) In this case you might either start fighting your day-dreaming or simply set goals day by day how to get there. I bet, it wouldn't be as fast and perfect in real life vs. the dreams but seeing some progress day by day, you'll get more confident and will start to like real world a bit more. Hopefully.

So, have a nice day and a nice try ;)