A letter from me to you (How I stopped daydreaming)

[Just Me]

Dear Daydreamer,

First, I would like to apologise for any mistake you could find written in this letter. English is not my native language. This text is long, but not as long as my silence has been.

I’m sad. It’s three in the morning, but I can’t sleep. Every year this happens, I get kind of nostalgic. “New year, new life” they say, as for me it means it’s time to look to the past, remember important events, remember those meaningful people in my life and those who are not, but somehow they appear in my sleeplessness. See how life has changed through the years, see that a lot of goals have been reached, but there is always this feeling about how great would it be to let everything down and go back to old days without any responsibilities.

I have a name but I don’t feel comfortable sharing it with you today, you may think that I mistrust you. Maybe I do, maybe I’m shy or maybe I’m just ashamed. Because this is the first time I share my secret with anyone: I have been a maladaptative daydreamer for eight years.

For the last eight years, I’ve been locked in the bathroom wearing my headphones, listening to music and enjoying that beautiful world that only my mind can create. The story has changed since the first time I went there, but the general idea is the same. I am strong, incredibly smart, attractive and powerful. I’m a fighter, and I have the best moves of my favourite characters in fighting video games. I have friends who have always been loyal, and of course there is a perfect love. In my world I share this with the people in the real world and they are proud of me, those who I don’t like envy me. Everything is perfect there, the only problem is that it is not real.

I think I’m sad today because of this. I lived a dream that made me very happy. But now I look behind and I see years of being locked in the bathroom, spending hours a day listening to music and pretending to be someone I am not while others outside were living, loving, kissing, having all I dreamt for.

I feel that I have let go many opportunities to be happy because of this, I have fallen in love in the real world but somehow I feel to shy to go for it, even when she told me she was in love with me. It is like, I’ve been so used to have the perfect life in my dreams that I just don’t let me be happy in the real world. It’s like it doesn’t fit. And I feel lonely even when I am not. 

Two years ago I started studying medicine. It took me a lot of work, and it is a huge achievement for me. But last year my secret started giving me more problems than just the feeling of loneliness. I must study a lot, actually most of the day. But I already got used to stay three or four hours a day daydreaming. So I started taking my sleep hours away to daydream. Hard study and just two or three hours for sleeping did no good for me, and three hours of daydreaming just let me exhausted. Sometimes got headaches for daydreaming, and after that I could not possibly focus in anything. 

Short story, end of the year it was about the time when I realized this is called maladaptative daydreaming and I was about to fail my most important subject. That would make me redo the whole year and I couldn’t afford that. Universities in my country are very expensive, my parents work to pay it for me so I can become a doctor. I just felt so guilty, that they must spend most of their money in me, just because I coudn’t stop daydreaming. So I decided to give this an end. 

A month before my final exam I delete all the music of my iPod, so I couldn’t locked me in the bathroom with music. Then I delete all the music from my computer, which were strong triggers (Mostly fighting games soundtrack). I stop watching trailers and fights on Youtube. I said to my self this was good for me, I needed it.

At the beginnig it was horrible, I knew it would be, it was not the first time I tried to stop this addiction. I wanted so hard to daydream. It was hard for me to find something to distract me, because the only thing I used to do was studying and daydreaming. I didn’t have any other activity. I tried reading, watching TV and cooking.

Fifty-one days have passed, almost two months since then. I haven’t locked me again in the bathroom to daydream. I passed my exam barely. I guess if I wouldn’t take this decision I wouldn’t succeed, probably I was waiting for this to stop it: Daydream or real life. It was not possible to keep them both anymore and I think I took the right decision. Although my life is more boring without the hours in the bathroom and the time goes slower.

Since a month I’ve started listening to music again (Not in the bathroom, that it’s still forbidden), sometimes I daydream a little when I walk while listening to music, just little dialogues with myself. But I do not go to my world any more. Now I expect to meet someone and be happy, let me have a relationship after all this years. After all I am smart and attractive guy, girls liked me but I didn’t want to let my imaginary love down. Now that I let her go I feel free.

I am sorry, for the long letter. But it’s the first time I open my mouth because of this. I hope you find strength in this words to get over this like I did. You will realize that real life is worth fighting and you can be anything you dream of and I’m telling you this because although it sounds obvious, it took me eight years to realize that. 

My best wishes and blessings for you,
A Friendly Dreamer Like You.

[Jennifer]

Oh wow...I feel like I just watched a movie. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is SO inspiring. I'm proud of you. Many of us aren't as strong as you. I've tried to quit many times, but I have never been strong enough to succeed. I can't even believe it's possible. :O

Congratulations, and best of luck to you in all of your endeavors. If you've conquered MD, you are capable of conquering anything.

-Jennifer Lynn xx

[Just Me]

Thanks, Jennifer! That is very kind :) I'm not sure if I'm strong, I mean, I tried many times but I couldn't make it until I was between the devil and the deep blue sea (Does anyone say that? In Spanish we say between the sword and the wall but this appears to be the translation. Sounds a little tragic the English version xD).
Maybe you could try something like that, make a lot of commitments that you can only finish by stop daydreaming, otherwise you let people down. Sounds awful but it worked for me :)

I thought I couldn't stop it too, until I did it. So you can do it too! 
Greetings :D


Jennifer said:

Oh wow...I feel like I just watched a movie. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is SO inspiring. I'm proud of you. Many of us aren't as strong as you. I've tried to quit many times, but I have never been strong enough to succeed. I can't even believe it's possible. :O

Congratulations, and best of luck to you in all of your endeavors. If you've conquered MD, you are capable of conquering anything.

-Jennifer Lynn xx

[Just Me]

Thanks for your reply Sarah!

When I was at high school, my daydreaming was very compatible I would say with my freetime. But at Med school it's not. I know what you mean. I used to daydream, then try to study but it was hard to focus, then I got but grades because of that. And what did I use to do when I got  those bad grades? Daydream more of course! To feel better about my self. It was kind of a vicious circle I needed to break at some point before it consumed me.

Thanks for you good wishes, I hope you will soon get over MD :)

sarah anderson said:

Two years ago I started studying medicine. It took me a lot of work, and it is a huge achievement for me. But last year my secret started giving me more problems than just the feeling of loneliness. I must study a lot, actually most of the day. But I already got used to stay three or four hours a day daydreaming. So I started taking my sleep hours away to daydream. Hard study and just two or three hours for sleeping did no good for me, and three hours of daydreaming just let me exhausted. Sometimes got headaches for daydreaming, and after that I could not possibly focus in anything. 

 the only thing I used to do was studying and daydreaming.

... this is exactly my story man!!... 

and after my 2nd year result i felt so bad about md ... i knew it that i could have got A1 without this md but it spoiled my record and this is where i started hating it ... and due to this hatered i lowered the md graph ... 

you talked about that love story of yours , same happened to me ... i was so much involved with my imaginary characters that i let go of the real life love ...

seriously , over here too many stories overlap ...

iam happy that you are going good with it ... best of luck ... and hey spend your free time with friends or family , else you will miss md like hell ...

[Just Me]

Sarah,

I totally agree with you about the "we fill the hollowness with imagination". That's exactly my thoughts. Something that helped me getting over MD is to analize my daydream and look solutions in the real world (With that I don't mean a therapist). I used to daydream I had good friends with whom I could share anything, in reality I didn't have such friend, not because I hadn't any friends but because it's very difficult for me to share my feelings or thoughts.

This year I made two great friends, and I've started to speak my mind although it made me very anxious (Talk about what I think always make me anxious, I'm afraid of people would think about it even with silly things people wouldn't mind). And my daydreams changed, my imaginary friends disappeared. I think because I was already satisfied with that aspect in my life, so I didn't need to fill it with dreams.

If you think it for a minute, you will realize all that almost all your dreams hide something you secretly want in your life. Or at least my dreams did. I dreamed with friends to share my thoughts, love, attention abilities I don't have (Playing instruments for example) or being the best in something. 

Maybe trying to get those thing in your life will help you stop daydreaming. I got over the friends dream by sharing with real friends and the musician dream by taking some piano classes at the university, it wasn't that cool like in my dreams but I stopped dreaming about it once I tried! I love hearing it but I find boring playing it. Once I didn't want to do it anymore I stopped dreaming about it.

sarah anderson said:

Ya i did the same in the starting. I used to dd more when something bad in the reality used to happen ... ya it turnned out to be a vicious circle and then i realized that md is consuming the good out of me and then i decided to change ... and iam sure that one day things would be much better because thaey have been better for quite a long time i.e, 1.5 months ... thanks for the good wishes ... and you said in mohsin kazi's discussion that you daydreamed because of anxiety and not vice versa ... i totally agree,,, a person enters md world to fill in the hollow space present in real life but the mistake we make is that we fill the hollowness with imagination and not the real stuff ...

[Just Me]

Hi Agent 53!

Wow! You are a medicine student too, and you stopped daydreaming the same date I did! Crazy, isn't it? I mark a cross in my calendar every day I haven't daydreamed. It's like my little price at the end of the day for hanging there, do you do the same? 

agent 53 said:

i havent daydreamed since november 23rd....i am also a mediceiine student.....hopefully one day i would be normal....

[Just Me]

Hi Kati Jo!

Thank a lot for that comment! It makes feel very good about myself (That helps me staying away from daydreaming!). I know you can do it! If there is so many people out there living happily, why wouldn't we be able to do the same? 

Pay attention to your daydreams. As I wrote in the comment above for Sarah, I think daydreams are the way your mind tells you what you want in your life. In my opinion filling this wishes in the real life will make you stopped daydreaming and avoid the triggers.

Best wishes!

Kati Jo said:

wow.... tears are in my eyes... You didn't need perfect English to get the point across. Thank you for sharing this story and I'd like you to know how proud I am of you for having such STRENGTH to do what you had to do, bless you. I will take some strength from this as well in my journey to transcend from the daydreaming world to the real world so that I can be happy and successful in reality too. This was so inspiring, again thank you. I wish you all the best, you deserve it. This shows us all, like Jennifer before me said (and maybe others) IT IS POSSIBLE!

[Gina Black]

Thanks for the letter :)

I recently managed to control of my DD, but still barely keep things that way. Reading your letter made me realize it is because I have filled my room with triggers. It is important, because I'm also about to write some university exams. I don't have the strength to erase all my videogames, but I'm shutting off the PC for the rest of the month. You helped me realize something important. Thank you :)