curing MD: personal notes from a fellow traveler

[MDphonehome]

Fellow MD’ers,

Recently I’ve been contemplating a bit on my personal context of MD. I kinda analyzed it, and realized it might help others to share my experience or it might help me getting feedback on my case. So.. I’ll just briefly start with my story. I have Md since childhood. Maybe it originated from the rather troubled family I grew up in, with parents that spent most of their time in their head and not communicating with each other. I just remember I was already having grand fantasies of being a ‘special person’ while being a kid. 

Now that I’m approaching 50, I feel I’m through with MD, and I want to leave this condition behind me. If there was a pill I could take to cure me, I would take it. Why? Because I’ve come to the full recognition that MD is a dysfunctional condition. Just like someone who’s taking a snort of cocaine or smokes a joint, I MD because I want to feel GREAT about myself and my life. To be that special person, who’s adored by everybody and who surprises everybody with great creative inventions. That’s my MD in a nutshell. Now that I’ve spent a great deal of my life in my fantasies, I know I’ve come to the point I have enough of it. Because Md’ing feels more and more like a lie, and like something that takes away my freedom to be ME. Just like another MD’er remarked ‘we’re both the dealer and the junkie of our own thoughts’. 

 

So if we’re junkies to our self created fantasies, what does that imply for a course of action when we’ve decided we want to leave it behind? I think the first steps are quite similar to dealing with an addiction.

 

I think the best starting point is to have a nonjudgmental acceptance about the fact you have this condition. After all, did we ask for it ourselves? Did we start it consciously? No, off course not. It just emerged in our psyche, for reasons we can only guess at this time. Scientific research has only just begun, but the origins of MD shouldn’t really matter in our quest to get rid of it. But having MD doesn’t mean we’re crazy, or weird, though to other people it may seem like that. But other people don’t matter, only our own attitude towards ourself and MD is what we’re dealing with here. After all, if we’re the dealer and the junkie, than we are the only ones to fix this, aren’t we? 

 

So if we take the nonjudgmental acceptance as a starting point, were to go from there? I think we have to analyse our MD fantasies and write them down. In my case, there’s just a couple of stories that keep repeating over and over (I’ve described the most important one below). So you know them, obviously. The culprit however is, to become more conscious of the stories you engage in, AND also feel how they emerge in your system. And I say system, because imho MD manifests not only as stories in our heads, but the stories take over our full attention and energy. There’s an energetic component to it, which we mostly ignore because we et so fully emerged in our fantasies instantaneously, that we don’t notice the energetic shift that is taking place. 

 

So for instance: I have MD fantasies about getting into fights in public places because someone disrespects me or provokes me. I’ve observed that once these thoughts get running, my whole system gets into another mode. I can feel my energy shifting upward, feel the adrenaline running and the deep agitation and I’m less conscious of my body. It’s like a shift to another frequency, so to say. As I notice this, I just think ‘MD’ and take a deep breath. Just that. No judgment or beating up yourself. But trying to stay conscious of what is happening within your system. Not your fault, you’re not crazy, just a MD fantasy emerging in your mind. So this is really mindfulness I guess, but applied specifically to MD. If you have triggers, also write them down with your MD-stories, so you also become conscious of them. 

 

Let’s be honest, MD is very compulsive, and hard to resist. So I don’t believe in ‘beating’ it by will power. You can try it and maybe succeeding in keeping yourself free from it from a limited amount of time, but than it will kick in with even more impact. You don’t blame someone with OCD for compulsively cleaning the whole house, do you? It’s just sad this person has to comply with his/her compulsions to have some moments of relief. 

 

So it’s like with every addiction; start fighting the addiction and it’ll fight back. Don’t make MD your enemy. We have to accept ourselves knowing that deep down there’s nothing wrong with us, but we just have a habit of being compulsively intertwined with our fantasies. 

 

So start writing up your fantasies and becoming conscious of the context in which the fantasies emerge. The latter is perhaps the most important one. Because we are so identified with our fantasies, we are completely oblivious to the fact that they’re actually…..just fantasies. Sounds weird? Well, my point is, just like Eritheia says, we’re loosing contact with our real selves, because we’re so hooked on experiencing the feelings that are emerging from these fantasies. That is the nectar we’re craving for, just like a heroin addict is craving for his next shot. 

 

But the really strange thing with MD is, that it is taking so much energy and time, it derives us from the opportunity to experience those feelings in our ‘real’ lives. These feelings are already our feelings, otherwise, we couldn’t experience them, couldn’t we? But by experiencing those feelings in MD, we’re a bit like a snake eating it’s own tail. Because, we don’t realize what we want (the feelings/freedom/etc) is what we already have inside. We’re just very much accustomed in getting it from our fantasies. But by take that very route, we’re also telling ourselves that we’re not capable of experiencing those feelings in real life. Which is BS, anyway, and you know it. 

 

So leaving behind MD means engaging in a process where you:

• Become aware of triggers, story content and effect on your system
• Analyse how the conditon manifests, how it manifests and the overall effects on your life (I don’t mean: intellectual understanding, that will not help you any further. I mean a very objective interest in the manifestation of MD in your life)
• Understand how you trick yourself in constantly engaging into fantasy in order to really feel yourself
• Bit by bit, recover from it by step by step by becoming more aware of this process

Ok, just for an example. Let’s get right down to the nitty gritty of my own MD: 

I have fantasies about being very famous and adored. Basically this has been my ‘raison d’etre’ as long as I remember. I have a very strong passion for music, and am a professional musician. Although my MD tells me I’m actually on the same page with other very famous and creative people. Still, I’m not very famous and feel further away from my MD fantasies than I probably have been in a long time. Yet, I feel myself still clinging to these fantasies. They are very persistent indeed, although they change form, the main subject is still unchanged: disrespected and unrecognized artist realizes world fame after being kept from it by the ruthless and money oriented music industry. And by vile intentions from members from the music community. 

My journey consists of developing a unique new music style, that will travel all along the globe and putting me in contact with the cream of the crop of creative people.This is my deepest of deepest MD dreams, this one obsesses me the most. I’ve always labeled this ‘my mission’ or special assignment from God. So I do try to be creative as much as I can, and thankggod the fruits of the creative process DO turn to be good which is very, very rewarding. This is also the strange cointervention with MD: through music I CAN be in the moment and experience the very feelings I experience in MD. The thing is that MD also is active while I’m making music, and often at the very moment I hit the sweet spot, MD kicks in creating grand fantasies, and as a result of that…I loose the flow….still with me? So take a look at this paradox as I feel this is quintessential for understanding MD. 

I want something really bad, like being a great musician. Of course, that doesn’t emerge out of thin air, you have to work for it. Practice, listen to music, rehearse, write, arrange, etc. MD only focuses on the result of these actions: the moment everything blends together magically, and creativity emerges effortlessly and the whole audience including myself is lifted by this energy I create with the music. True bliss, actually. 

The very reason I want to get rid from MD, is that it’s existence keeps me away in realizing these dreams. In order to get there, you need objectivity, patience and perseverance, not grand fantasies breathing down your neck. The Md just doesn’t help, as it is taking the focus away that I need for realizing what I want in life. Like I said earlier: Md is really a disfunctionall condition. Because it gives you the feelings of what you want in life, but since those feelings only exists in your fantasy (or paralel reality as you might call it), the very MD inhibits you in experiencing those feelings in your real life. Which is, after all, what we all really want, don’t we? 

In my case, my Md makes me really obsessive about achieving the goals I’ve achieved in my fantasy. And that causes a lot of stress and also fear whether I will finally ‘make it’. I’ve realized countless projects that were based on MD fantasies, and even if they were successful, they did not fulfill me. Because the MD Is really based on a feeling, or set of feelings, and just chasing these MD fantasies will never make these feelings happen. Because, this is were I go wrong… We make these feelings our finish line instead of our starting point. The joy and freedom I crave from, I can also find in a simple afternoon of diligent practicing or just playing together with a couple of friends. It doesn’t have to be Carnegie hall, I mean. This is easier said than done BTW..I know it intellectually, but still hard to imply..:) breath in, breath out…:)

 

By chasing the fantasies, I become obsessed, stressed out, judgmental and fierce. 

And that very state of mind is because the world tends not to behave according to my MD fantasies. I’m beginning to see this now, and realize that I can change this. But I have to be very aware of not falling in the same pitfalls again. I’ll give you an example. Because one of my MD-cravings is being heard, recognized and adored, I’ve always looked up to people with successful careers. Because they’ve already achieved what I craved for. I also incorporated them  in my projects, with the secret desire to get their recognition and be their peer. It’s like craving for a sip from the holy grail and imagining they’re holding it or know where it resides. 

 

Needless to say, I’ve encountered countless disappointments and (perceived) humiliations in my musical journey. Not because the world is so cruel, but because my itinerary was just based on wrong assumptions. I stopped reaching out for fulfilling my fantasies in the world, as I very much realize, I will never find what I’m looking for in another place. 

 

Leaving Md starts and ends with a growing acceptance of yourself, stopping to believe in that fulfilling your fantasies is the ultimate solution for happiness. Like said before, happiness and contentment are the starting point, not the finish.

 

Before I will close this post. I'd like to bring the following Eckart Tolle movie to your attention. I think it applies very much to MD as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skFQck_gWT8&list=WL&index=2...

Hope this will help with your MD Journey.

 

All the best,