Surveying the Damage

[Ocean Breeze]

Warning … this is kind of dark.  If you’re in a good mood, you may want to skip it.

I received a very nice email from the woman who runs the “Are You Daydreaming Your Life Away” website, after I’d sent her an email thanking her for putting up that site.   She said some things that made me turn around and view the trail I’ve forged in the 43 years of my life.  Maladaptive Daydreaming may sound like a mild disorder, but in my particular case, it has done some serious damage.

She mentioned that we MDers tend to neglect our health.  That hit home.  I have been so absorbed in my imaginary world that I don’t know how to live in the real one, and because I have no choice but to live in the real one, I have dealt with stress and anxiety.  I dealt with it by becoming an alcoholic (I’ve been sober now for 13 years, but getting sober was quite a struggle).  I’ve also been a binge eater my whole life.  I haven’t been able to find recovery for my eating disorder, and as a result, I’ve always been overweight, and the associated health problems are getting worse.  I’m pretty sure that whenever I do die, it’s the eating problem that’s going to kill me.

Because I don’t understand the real world at all or how to exist in it, I struggle with finances.  I am a superstar in my fantasy world, but in the real world, I don’t really have any talents, or if I do, I don’t know how to use them in this world I have to live in, so I have a basic, boring job that pays the bills.  I live alone and will probably remain alone. 

I’m not alive.  I’m only existing.  It’s only in my fantasy world that I am truly alive. 

I’m officially at middle age.  I’ve blindly stumbled to this point, focused more on my imaginary life than the real one around me.  But the real world is like a foreign planet that I’ve been dropped on and left to my own devices.  And however many years I have left, I’m still stuck on this planet. 

Wouldn’t it be cool if when we die, our heaven is our MD world becoming reality?

[Ocean Breeze]

M Hunter, that last paragraph is beautiful.  I hope we all get to live in our dreams.  And don't be ashamed about not being able to work.  You are doing the best you can with the mind that you've been given.  It's remarkable that you are as well as you are.  I'm glad you're on this site with the rest of us.