This is my post, there are better and prettier posts than it, but I like this one because it is mine.

[Penguin]

Alright. 19 year old guy, full-blown dreamer since I was about 13, earliest I can trace the habit back to is 5. Maybe I've been like this all my life, wouldn't know as my memory is worthless (seems I'm not alone in that).

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to keep a blog of my progress and thoughts. I have already started taking notes so making this for all of you see might turn out beneficial for others as well. Though, knowing my history of consistency, I don't know if I am able to keep up with it. So yeah.

Here goes.

My fantasies are all very narcissistic, plots are fairly simple and I almost never have actual characters that aren't there to prop up my ego. I did have more detail to them but over the years they have reduced to easily attainable chunks of feel-good. Main theme is being admired for attributes like intelligence, creativity, beauty, also reliving my life to change what I was (awkward) into what I dream I could have been (awesome). Fairly common amongst y'all, it seems, the main difference being that they are all very shallow and ego-centered (though I've seen a few of you sharing the pattern).

Daydreaming consumes, or consumed (making some progress), all of my time. Even the quickest are at least a couple of minutes long with a lot of them 30-90 minutes or so, and I've had a couple of months worth of time wasted on ones that last nearly all day.

The categorization I've used for a couple of days now, for tracking purposes, is:

1. Full-blown. The kind with a story and setting, biggest emotional satisfaction and the ones that make me feel the worst afterwards if I happen to actually spend time in reality.

2. Dreamy monologue. Talking with another person without the partner ever responding. Constant satisfaction on a low level, since I've become fighting the addiction this is the most persistent. I suppose this is the result of forum lurking (I rarely post) which I've done for 3-4 years constantly. The setting used to be Youtube as well but as I've grown tired of vlogs it has gone away.

3. Chatter. Nearly subconscious, cannot describe it as I cannot pinpoint it. All I know is that this one gives me some kind of gratification while making sane thinking unavailable. Easy to stop but usually a prelude for the other two.

My main issue outside MD is anxiety. I suppose it's AvPD but I've never went to see a psychologist for those problems (I was forced to on multiple occasions ages 13-14). Then again, while the AvPD symptoms were crippling up to a year ago, they only provide a noticeable yet manageable hindrance nowadays.

My feelings over time are fairly cyclical. First I'm dreaming and bored, after a week or so I become enthusiastic about some subject (music, study, exercise, foreign language, programming etc etc etc).
The enthusiasm lasts for 3-4 days. During this I'll introduce myself to the subject and use the snippets of information to fuel my fantasies of being a master in the activity, conquering the world with never-before-seen talent and skill.
Next is the slump. I become depressed once I encounter a problem, I do nothing to improve my skill in the activity and only dream of mastery. The intensive phase of this lasts for a day or two, sometimes I'll become enthusiastic again but eventually I become hopeless.
Near the end daydreams of suicide or some way of overcoming the cycle are common. This dark period is around 4 days and once this ends the cycle begins again.

Triggers are usually people's opinions (I often lurk political forums imagining taking a contrarian stance), American tv storylines, any sort of praise or criticism in real life, learning new things (imagining being the master in the field), remembering old classmates and being pitied or felt for by people. I used to read and watch movies a lot and they were big triggers as well but this has stopped.

I am often envious of others which leads my daydreams to becoming vengeful and hurtful, obviously due to low self-esteem.

Social life is nonexistent. I have always deemed myself unworthy and incapable of meaningful emotional contact and an often-dreamt theme is improving myself up to the point where I can make friends. Even as a child I always felt unable to socialize as others could, it's as if I was born with the longing to connect but without the instinct that would tell me how to do that. I had some friends, playmates, up to age 9 or so, then only one. And the one friend I did have I never actually communicated with, we just bonded because of, I guess, a shared feeling of desertion.
I'm sure my MD is to a large degree due to being rejected by my peers during childhood. I had a funny name, funny teeth, funny looks and, the funniest of all, poor family. When I was 8 I started to cut myself off from others, at age of 12 I had little contact and by the time I was 14 I had little else but a few attempts to reach out left. I was always very observant of others (as much as I could without showing interest or making eye-contact) but was scared to death of trying to open myself up.
This is the solitude I've lived for 5 years now. I can't have any emotionally meaningful relations, with the only possible exception being my brother. Although my fear of people is subsiding and I'm not as anxious about talking to strangers as I used to be, I can see little possibility of companionship.

Oki, getting tired now but still haven't haven't said everything I set out to say. Will continue tomorrow. Kudos to anyone bothering to wade through it all :)

[Penguin]

‘Then you have to work your way down in order to know why pri[m]arily were you rejected by your peers.’

I already know why I was rejected and I know I compounded the effect of rejection with prior introverted and avoidant tendencies. Can't really see why I would really think about them too much: kids are stupid, adults are stupid big kids with set-in habits, and I'm a dummy myself. I daydream primarily (at least that's why I think I do) because of feelings of inferiority, I don't see any point in judging myself under the standards that cause me to feel like this (gots to be smart, rich, attractive, etc), I'd rather reject the standards as they are instilled in me because I was a stupid kid among other stupid kids growing up to become one of all the stupid adults.

To try to put it more briefly: the reasons aren't worth much examination, trying to meet inculcated standards is futile (is this even what you are saying? bleh), gots to be my own man.

My English isn't the problem, I just suck at expressing myself -_____________________-

[quentin]

Hey, Penguin

Your story sounds quite similar to mine.
The way I daydream and the reasons seem to be identical to a great extent to my own daydream addiction.
Although I have always possessed an ability to unfold imagination, I think my MD is the result of peer rejection in childhood and low self-esteem.
But this is for me only a starting point. Then you have to work your way down in order to know why priarily were you rejected by your peers. I think the main reason of my "weirdness" and subsequent rejection is an undiagnosed Attention Deficit Disorder. As a child, I was unable to concentrate on anything and often failed to meet the expectations of my peers.
Maybe, for you, it has been AvPD or something else. You will have to search the reasons for being rejected.

[Penguin]

I ain't gots money for docs, maaaaaaaaaaaan.

[Cordellia Amethyste Rose]

To clarify, the fact that therapy & medications don't work for me doesn't mean that they won't work for other people. Many conditions are co-morbid, so you definitely should not rule out anything else unless you truly don't feel you have it. Most docs may not know about MD yet because it's fairly new, but they could tell you whether or not they think you have other things as well. If I found medication that worked for my MD or anything else I'd pounce on it. The point is getting well.

[Penguin]

Mah. I'm not gonna go see a shrink anyway so, unless I start seeing some pattern that warrants a consideration for a diagnosis other than MD, I don't really care about what psychological disorder I might possibly have :/

[Tila]

Penguin, your emotional cycles as you call them sound a bit like the cycles manic-depressives go through......
I don't mean to reduce everything to psychology (the world is far more complicated, inside our brains and out, IMO). It's just something to consider...

[Penguin]

On My Thoughts on the Cycle and Language Study.

Oki. Had a bad day up to around 3 o'clock, then regained most of my composure. Penguin Cave only partially open; started to become quite angry at work with accompanying daydreams of hopelessness; managed to do everything I had planned.

I should note that while I do think in terms of my emotional cycle I have only started noting it for two weeks. That means the understanding of it is mostly inferred from foggy memories and it'll take several months to really comprehend if and how the cycle works. Maybe it was only anxiety over not accomplishing stuff when I became enthusiastic and began daydreaming heavily on a subject, or maybe it does exist but won't present itself as intensely under these new conditions, or maybe it will function in a two week timespan with regularity. Will see.

Today I had more than my required hour of Russian, I have decided to try to sit down to do vocabulary as often as I can and to try out different methods so I can come to understand what works for me. Just now, after 30 minutes of intense (by my standards) vocab study I had a very overwhelming DD of being a polyglot that I was able to stop after 15 minutes. In the last week I haven't had such a strong daydream that was directly linked to an activity. This made me think that I might get interesting results with intensifying energy spent on Russian, thus the increased time on learning it.

My reasoning is that I might ignite a passion for a subject as well as, if I know I am prone to very strong fantasies while studying hard, further increase my understanding of my MD by being aware and actively countering the ensuing daydreams. That might also give me a sense of consistency during the (possible) dark phase and increase my claim over my day.

Now, if anyone actually is reading this drivel, I'll explain why I've chosen Russian as something to spend my time with.

In Estonia a third of the population is Russian. While kids in most Estonian schools (as opposed to kids in schools for Russian speakers) study either Russian or German, beginning in the third grade. Few students who don't have Russian family/friends or don't live in an ethnically Russian area actually manage to become fluent, or even proficient, in the language, despite years of classes two or three times a week.

Much thanks to my MD I was one of those students who never acquired anything besides the basics of the language. Only recently have I begun to see what an interesting and beautiful language it really is and thus I would like to learn it, even though much of my appreciation for the tongue has developed in DDs and is therefore subject to doubt (I've explained this earlier). Also, the benefit of knowing Russian is, besides how cool it is to speak several languages, the larger choice of work opportunities, something I need to think about as my current job won't last forever.

Laters.

[Penguin]

On the coming slump.

Oki now. Today was a fairly bad day and it looks like I'm going into the dark phase of the overarching emotional cycle. Will probably last for a week, at least I hope so, that way I have better times to look forward to.

What this entails is a lot more and a lot more intensive daydreaming. Thoughts of suicide and fantasies of drastic changes to my life are expected, my motivation will go way down and the Penguin Cave will probably have to close down the shop for a while.

Things I'm planning to do to wade through span of depressive time:

1. Try to restate how untrustworthy all my sentiments and thoughts are as often as I can.

2. Keep myself as mellow and calm as possible, I can expect myself to get really angry at times, especially at work.

3. As my awesome Penguin Cave is prolly gonna be closed, I should try my hardest at following my daily routine (getting stuff done). This should not only keep my DDs from building themselves up to too overwhelming, but also make myself feel happier over doing real things in the real world once I get better.

4. Take as much note of this phase as I can. Keeping my mind together is important of course, but understanding in what patterns my brain works will be even more beneficial.

And another goal I'm setting for myself once I finish this thing is to quit smoking. Tobacco is the biggest damage to my health and causes me to fall a bit ill pretty often. Plus, if I manage to keep up my workout regiment, the compounded benefit of no cigarettes and physical activity should be pretty damn good :)

[Penguin]

On my plans.

For three days now I've prepared myself to start implementing some routines.

The things I've done:

1. Use the 2nd cat (mentioned earlier) DDs with the setting of this blog and how I have accomplished reducing MD. This has turned out to be very beneficial as I now see that I can use the daydreams to think through different ways I can spend my time and effort on clearing my mind. Also, pushing myself towards certain fantasies has established some emotional and time-perception constancy, that is even if my mood fluctuates and I become depressed that I won't make progress with this thing, I will still come back to thinking of kicking MD by the end of the day.

I'll start referring to this daydream where I imagine myself somewhere along the line of making progress and making blog posts as the Penguin Cave. I don't really know if penguins live in a cave, but keeping my mind steered towards that daydream does offer some feelings of security, it's like a happy place I can go to if I start getting afraid or lose my aim.

2. Take note of how my feelings change during the day. This is what I understand at the moment:

* If I force myself towards a certain mood the daydreams start to intensify and go in a direction away from what I'm aiming for, I still suck at stopping dreams so I try to use my awesome Penguin Cave until it works.

* Around 14:00 the predominant pattern is cat 3, the chatter. Seems like I'm fairly powerless at this time to push myself towards my Cave (feels awkward using that kind of term, but whatever, it can become useful in time I'm sure) or to try to feel clearly. Lasts about 90 minutes.

* Around 18:00 I get depressed and start feeling despair. I've denied myself the thoughts of going to school/whatever, so instead I just fret over nothing. Lasts about an hour.

3. Keep myself really mellow. I haven't practically said anything for this time, I'm emotionless and passive. If something angers me I start pummeling my mind to have my dreams head over to Penguin Cave (still awkward :)). The point of this exercise is to keep myself relatively stable so I can notice all the other things that go on under the hood, a pretty smart thing to do, if I do say so myself. Kudos.

4. Take one or two 30 minute chunks out of the day to simply keep myself without any activity. I just sit there with my laptop closed, no pacing or fidgeting, no thoughts of plans on what I'm gonna do. Just try to concentrate and stop daydreams.



For the next few days I want to start introducing activities. 1 hour of Russian language study, 1 hour of school stuff (I need to finish up an assignment, was supposed to turn it in today the latest, don't know if they'll kick me out), work out, eat enough (I kinda hate food) and spend 30 minutes cleaning/fixing up some clothes/whatever, and of course take the 30 minutes of silence.

I know I'm probably going to spend 80 per cent of the time I give for the stuff on daydreaming, but it's a start. My priority is not getting shit done but rather to see how my fantasies and anxiety reacts to productive activity. I won't give myself any props on actually meeting my daily tasks until I have kept it up without fail for at least two weeks, which is the approximate span of my overarching mania-depression cycle. I'm not setting myself a daily timetable, instead I'll just try to do the stuff as early in my day as I can.

Will see how it goes.





Final note on my writing capabilities:

Oki, I've excused myself a couple of times in the end of the post for possible incoherencies. But now I see, after going through my posts and considering both my lack of English knowledge and how unaccustomed I am to talking, that my writing is bad and will be bad for a long time. There's nothing I can do except try to be better and learn more about English, but that will take ages for me to get done.
My posts suck, at least in the quality of writing. Deal with it :)

[Penguin]

Hello, third day of blog :)

This is related to my last post.

On the unreliability of motives.

Oki, most of my anxiety and fear are due to feelings of inferiority. I think about how the people I went to school with are all having fun with their lives knowing their aim. I was supposed to graduate gymnasium this spring, didn't because I dropped out for a year when I was 17, now going (well, they'll probably kick me out) to night-school, due to finish next year. This is a constant source of frustration for me.

I often fret over how I'm going to fail in life and as such my enthusiasms, and a good deal of DDs, are about imagining how I find some trade, how I become skilled in it, how I go to and succeed in university, and how I become a successful professional.

But if I reject my values for reasons given earlier, why would I aim for a normal, successful life? Even if I do somehow manage to collect my mind for long enough to study for exams so I can go to uni and even if I manage to get a marketable degree and find a well-paying job in the field, what would that give me? A sense of security and accomplishment, sure. I would not feel inferior, or as inferior, to my childhood peers, authority figures and people I come across as I would if I were to figure stuff out not going the institutional direction (uni->job).

But if my values are silly products of MD and my motives for direction of life are simply led by sensed inferiority--the cause of my predicament (well, I think that's the cause, still need to do a lot of introspection and memory digging to figure out if this is the case)--would it not be better to discard the aim for a normal, successful life? I'm only working (when fantasizing permits) for my graduating exams out of fear, and I only fear because I think I will end up being worth less than the people who, directly or indirectly, caused pain to me in my childhood and adolescence. If I continue this path I will do so not because I have figured out that this is the way that I would like to spend my life but because I want to avoid anxiety.

While I'm not abandoning school outright, I do think it's better for (re)claiming my mind and life to assert that uni-career is just as doubtful as are my values and inclinations. I do not have passions or sincere interests so trying to anchor myself in the context of difficult and skillful work is of questionable worth.

I have a rough idea of what I'd like to be once I can say I have overcome MD. It's someone confident and well-aware of himself, someone that knows what he does and why he does it, someone that can meticulously analyze his life and actions to come to conclusions regarding what it is he wants to do. Aiming for that does not presuppose financial and professional success, and tying myself down into oughts and responsibilities at this point where I am clueless and lacking direction is probably not worth the effort. Of course, taking this course entails a lot of fear and feelings of insecurity but I think I need to accept those emotions anyway if I want to reach my goal.



Bleh, I wrote this in short bursts over two hours inbetween other stuff, not very coherent.