Biggest challenges quitting MD

[Yukia]

For some reason today the universe bestowed a very philosophical mood on me, so I obeyed and decided to finally write an unedited blog post about MD. Like, I didn't even try to think about the logical structure or else. Just got an urge to shoot something out there.

Anyway, I divided the challenges into 3 types. This is rather arbitrary by the way, i.e. based on my observations more than the research papers. I've read them, too, but I wasn't religiously referring to them when listing these types of challenges. Rather, it's a combination of stuff I came across surfing the web and personal opinions. The only reason I'm doing it is for the sake of recording a few refreshing thoughts before they fade tomorrow.

So, type 1 is Dependency — Fear of losing everything

Example: You believe that your daydreams are a part of your personality.

My two cents: Never had an issue with that. I'm an assertive and creative person, especially when given an opportunity to express myself. I'll jump there head first without hesitation. Whenever I look at my writings, I see my personality, be that yesterday or 10 years ago. When I watch a published video I've edited, again I see my personality, particularly my touch that turned a raw film into a visual story. It's things like that, which exist in reality as evidence of who I am and how I'm fulfilling this role, which make this fear of losing a huge chunk of my personality just nonsensical to me. When I devote my mind to doing something concrete instead of thinking about abstract things, I see an achievement regardless how small. When it's the other way around, I see absolutely nothing because I didn't even try fulfilling my purpose. Simply put it contradicts what I really see versus what my mind wants to see.

Type 2: Obsession — MD is a gift that keeps on giving, so why quit at all?

Example: You're a writer and you believe that you owe your ideas to MD.

My two cents: I've been there. Not just with writing compositions or stories, but even with drawing comics. When you're at your lowest stage of MD, the programming goes so deeply that you genuinely believe as if everything unique about you is an attribute of MD. This is so messed up, and I'd use a harsher word if it weren't for the terms of service but you get the gist. Some see it in a positive light, saying that they wouldn't be able to enjoy life as much or be creative without this condition. There's no way I can assess that claim by individually talking to people who think that way, but here's why I have a problem with it. Like I said many times here before, MD isn't the cause. Circling back to fire and smoke analogy, MD is the smoke. Meanwhile, the fire can be anything from anxiety to first stages of depression, maybe even an abusive family member or toxic friends you're blissfully unaware of. I don't want to make it sound like I'm fear-mongering, especially respecting the fact that there are mature people who seem to carry on for decades with MD without adverse consequences, like a severe mental health condition surfacing and ruining their life. It's a thin ice to be walking on when trying to answer whether MD can be tolerated if you feel like it's beneficial, since evidently everybody goes through their lives at a different pace and has different goals. My personal opinion is that no, it cannot and should never be tolerated. It's nothing but a patch that serves no other purpose than suppressing feelings and opinions, and therefore denies you the learning from trying to live your life. Instead, it normalizes receiving effortless rewards for killing your priceless asset which is time, and in the worst case scenario, can submerge you into an eco chamber where a lot is going on but nothing makes sense. Sort of a Hundun kind of a human being. If you don't know who that is, check it out by the way. It's a very cute primordial chaos thingy that I think all MD-ers can relate to at least a bit.

Type 3: Rationalization — MD is the only way to process emotions healthily in a disconnected world

Example: You're an average person in 2024 needing meaningful connections. You're also not very wealthy, so instead of going out or traveling, you resort to excessive daydreaming.

My two cents: Been there, too. I've drawn my conclusions. It's no use griping about the economy because it is what it is. Same goes for the disconnected world. Since I've learned to honor my boundaries, I put myself out there and met a lot of new people. Some were great while some limited themselves to superficial relationships, i.e. were friends with you until you disagreed with them on a thing or two. I'm not very agreeable so I guess the silver lining is, at least I got under the fire and off the doorstep before I was dragged too deeply into a circle where questioning the status quo was a taboo. This ill tendency I believe to be, partially, the fault of social media algorithm that won't dare challenging your opinion, and will always feed you the content that makes you feel the most comfortable by recycling your biases and agreeing with your thoughts—before you even think them. In my experience, I've got it the worst with people obsessed with how others viewed them online and socially. I've spent a long time describing all that because I wanted to admit that yeah, there is a weird focus on superficiality among many people. Digital world absolutely contributes to that, endorses even. So I can see how easy it is to shrug off MD as mostly harmless by comparing it to the global problem of people losing touch with reality at an alarming rate. Nevertheless, it's the product of our time. You can't discontinue it. MD is different because unlike social disconnection and your underlying condition (if you turn out to have one), the power to stop this is completely within your hands.

That's it I think.

Wait no.

P.S. I suppose: my surprising takeaway from quitting MD was that... I desperately want to buy a violin and get someone to teach me how to play it. Violins are just easier to carry than a piano. I know this bit looks weird as hell to whoever is reading it right now, but here's the explanation: before I started writing this post, I had a general idea of what it's going to consist of. I wanted to include the fact that I used to play a piano before I left home. This fusion between producing music from my favorite TV-shows and movies while making every sound of it intentional with my fingers meant a world to me, a world that no degree of MD will ever even approach to being able to simulate. Then again, piano is a very local instrument. With me changing locations so often, this skill quickly turned obsolete because there's no platform to be honing it on.

So, to make this post even weirder, I'll leave here a reminder for myself: get a violin.

[Kalliope]

Fantastic!! Thank you, nice read.

[Sakshee Dhumal]

About the second one,
I would say that your artwork comes from your imagination. The MD condition and our imagination are two different terms. The Condition/disorder referes to the excessive imagination PLUS the consequences (like bad social life, trouble concentrating on work etc)
You can quit MD and still have great imagination which will help you create amazing things. Just like other 'normal' artists.
It will be called a condition when it becomes maladaptive and has consequences on your life. That is the abnormal part.
Imagination is a characteristic trait of a person, doing it excessively is their behaviour.
Keep the trait not the behavior.

The plotline in our head will be called our creativity when we engage with it for few minutes and then use it to write a story (or to create something else). And the same plotline will be considered a part of our Maladaptive daydreaming when we do it for more than a few minutes and use it to hide from our problems.

[Yukia]

Glad it looks like I thought it through :) Thank you. Why are you scared of the second one?

Your question caught me off guard because I'm not sure myself where the starting point is. I'll say 2 past years to be on the safe side. I don't want to count in the times when I tried to quit only to backpedal on it once it started feeling too difficult and scary. I could include those in a cumulative sense and say maybe 10 years, but that would be an extremely misleading and dishonest answer.

[Mils]

this is amazing, you've really thought it through! I'm always scared about the second one though haha

How long did it take you to quit MD?