New To This

[Mumford Providence]

Hi All,

 

For the past couple of years, I have been searching for a name to discuss my behavior. After leaving college, my fantasies and daydreams took on a whole new level of reality for me, sometimes spending days in a hypnotic trance, pacing the same stretch of carpet back and forth, imagining myself anywhere but here. I was fully functional, holding down a job and paying my bills. But I felt that I was betraying myself living in the corporate world I had professed to discuss.

 

But it was too easy. Serve my forty a week, then lock myself up with a bottle of vodka and a seemingly endless list of possible achievements to delude myself into thinking I'd actually earned.

 

The problem only got worse when I realized I had two degrees in fields (history and economics) that I did not wish to pursue any further. I had, quite unwittingly, found my true love only after graduating college: mathematical physics. I spent entire weekends working graduate level physics with a doctoral student I had met, hoping for, and daydreaming about, my chance to get into that kind of work.

 

But it wasn't to be. I didn't have the money to go back to school for a third undergraduate in physics, and no programs would accept me without that. So I decided to move forward with economics, thinking I would work it from a mathematical angle, thus serving my thirst for work in mathematics.

 

I was wrong. After being accepted into a top program, I realized that I did not believe the mathematical approaches being taken in the economics field had any validity as a science, and, what's worse, I remembered how little I wanted to have anything to do with money and the field of business.

 

I tried to think of a way out without harming any future possibilities of pursuing it should I decide I wanted to, and got it, though in a most unfortunate way: I was in a horrible car wreck that shattered my right leg and elbow.

 

As I sit here in a wheelchair with nothing to do but think, I have realized that all the wrong turns I have taken in life were an effect of my maladaptive daydreaming, though I didn't have a name for it then. I would play up the possibilities available in any life plan I concocted by way of the daydreaming, only to back out when the reality of the situation hit me, like my eureka moment with economics.

 

I have been searching for a name to put to my addiction, and this website, along with the work done by psychologists in the field, gave me that. I am thankful to find I am not alone in my struggles.

 

But, during the times that Google failed to bring me here, I conducted a search in myself for the root cause of my addiction, and now I want to present my findings to everybody, and see what you think. My daydreams were a safe place for me to face the judgment of others. In the real world, we cannot expect, and certainly not control, how others will receive us, whether it be positively or negatively. The philosopher Sartre talks about the Other, and the a priori justification that the Other exists is in the shame we feel when under his scrutinizing eye. I felt this shame with a possibly too sensitive mien, and thus created delusional fantasies wherein I could present myself under controlled circumstances, the control being that the Other is a construct of my mind, so of course I will be well received.

 

The way this becomes an addiction, the fantasies beating out reality in a landslide, is obvious. Carl Jung mentions that to any subject, the constructs of his mind are just as real as external reality. So we live in a constructed reality that will serve our emotional needs in the face of uncertainty for whether reality will, or even can, ever do the same.

 

This may be worded in a piss-poor fashion. If so, I'm sorry. Unfortunately, I can only write according to my ability, and not my need. I hope this message finds everyone well and that it will generate a good discussion.

 

Sincerely,

Mumford Providence

[Jeni]

Interesting theory. I've never taken the time to figure out what could be the cause of my overactive imagination, I'm too easily distracted, but i'm glad I focused long enough to read this. Insightful.

[roxanne]

I think it's possible that certain areas of our brain that have to do with daydreaming (as well as ruminating, etc) are more prominent in us, or perhaps have a closer connection to reward centers.  Your theory about the Other would add to this, as would someone who was traumatized, but I think the inclination/ability to DD was there first.  Others with similar psychological presentations do not take to day dreaming.  Once it starts, no matter how it starts, I completely agree with your idea of addiction.  It is just so emotionally satisfying that it is difficult to give up.  I also love to see Sartre mentioned, as I was a french existential drama major, and certainly don't see him referred to everyday.  Your thoughts were very interesting and thought I would add to the discussion.