How do I find help?

[JD]

It is so difficult to acknowledge how bad my maladaptive daydreaming is that I have had multiple fantasies where I got to a medical office, sit on a couch and talk about it. My fantasies are actively taking themselves to the doctor. And yet I can't get there.

Sometimes I feel like I fight my fantasies for control. It becomes almost related to self-esteem in a way... The person I enact in my fantasies is so valuable to the characters around her/me, but I am not valuable to the people around me in my life? I know I am! I do some really exciting work and yet I spend all this time absorbed in an entirely different state! So frustrating! I want to control it. 

 I don't know who could help me. I don't really have a doctor and... how would I even begin to explain this? How do other people get help? Where do you start?

[Tila]

"My fantasies are actively taking themselves to the doctor" -lol. Don't you love when they try to help you out, in their kind of useless but adorable way? 

My main DD character keeps trying to interrupt when I am analyzing myself, and steal the show. Now she's the one whose had MD since she can remember. 

[zeina]

From personal experience, I think keeping yourself busy is the best way like do something that needs your full attention, and if you could try to do it with someone this way you'll be focused on something and interacting with someone so there's really no chance for your mind to daydream, and go out as much as you can don't stay home for a long time, and make more friends and go out with them, I noticed that after I have a phone call with a friend or hang out with them or have any social interactions with anyone really I would not daydream for quite sometime

[Windy City Day Dreamer]

For me MD is a mirror of what is missing from my life,  MD would fill voids in my life.  Then, after DD I felt very guilty. 

I think journaling about your MD is a great way to start.  when did you first MD? What triggers you to start DD?  What are your DDs about?  If you play a character in your MD, what is that character like?  What attributes does that character have?  What positive attributes of that character do you wish you had?  What function does MD serve in your life?  For example, is DD something you do to help escape from uncomfortable emotions?

MD was something I did to self-soothe often.  I was experiencing anxiety so I would MD.  Sometimes I would want to celebrate and then I would MD though as well.

What are your goals?  Do you want to stop MDing or just reduce it?  You could write the answers to  these questions in your journal perhaps

I went to a therapist and I had done so journaling beforehand which helped me explain to my therapist in more detail why I thought I MD'd, how it started, what are my triggers, and what my goals are, etc

I haven't MD'd since January of 2015.  I realized that if I just DD'd once with one of my fantasy scenarios I would lose three days of life in a DD state each time.  It took me about three days of DDing to escape the DD completely and go back to complete reality.  So everytime, I want to DD- I ask myself do I want to lose another three days of my life getting sucked into MD world?.  I go to therapy weekly. 

I have tried to make my life fuller.  My main MD character can play the guitar so I started to learn the guitar in real life.  I also did exercises in the "The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook: Practical DBT Exercises for Learning Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation & ... Tolerance (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook)" which helped.

Sorry for any typos or grammatical errors.  I wish you the best.