Who has been able to quit MD for good?

[Mevve]

I am interested to know how many people on this forum had MD, and have been able to quit for good?

And if you quit, how did you do it?

- Self help?

- Therapy?

- Medicine?

- Someting else?

[Mишка (Miska)]

Ah, now I understand... I don't know what to say. I get that way to. Like the fake you, you created is not the you, you were born to be...

[New York dancer]

The god thing was a metaphor. Not literal. It's about understanding how to have internal power over yourself.

If you lose touch with you are, and can't get out that is the problem. I can internally escape who I am sometimes when I'm over-stressed, bored or whatever. I know how to go in and get out. But I choose it. I know how to master my MD and I'm only encouraging another way to handle it. 

You said you loose contact with yourself when you wrote songs. Bingo: writing is a internal processes, it requires to go inside, retrieve something (emotion, experience, info) and pull it out in order to write it. THIS is a form of using Day Dreaming to help you.

Also every writer knows that characters that we create are pieces of ourselves wearing masks. They can be based on other people or whatever but at their core something about them connects them to you. Especially if specific characters live in you for a very long time. Fake you is still part of you. You created the characters and only you put them there. You did it for an unconscious goal. It's up to you to understand what that goal is. I recommend watching the movie "Drop dead Fred" because it relates to this internal goal I'm talking about. 

When it comes to a writer's mind frame, I think Stephen King said it best, "Why shouldn't writers be able to go bonkers and still stay sane." I have this posted on my wall. The guy is brilliant and is in total touch with that universe inside of himself.  

Be inspired guys, this is a talent. End it if you wish but you could be missing out. I'm just say...

[Mynx]

Mevve said:

When you say things like "Understand you are the god in your internal universe" you lose me very quickly. I don't think like that.  But I'll respond to some things you say.

When I paint or draw I don't daydream. I am being myself, expressing myself. I am very much in touch with myself.
When I used to write a song for instance, I usually daydreamed. Which means I lose contact with myself. I am no longer me.

Losing contact with yourself is what I consider to be unhealthy. When I talk about MD, I actually mean "losing contact with myself"; trying to escape from myself and my real feelings. I no longer want to fantasize, because I have a strong desire to be *me* at all times.

Being creative is good. But losing touch with my real self is something I no longer want.

I have never loved the me wanting to be someone else, because that's not who I am. It's not the person God created me to be.

This is exactly how I feel about md and when I paint and draw. Glad somebody understands :)!

[New York dancer]

Metaphor: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. Ditto.

[Mevve]

Perhaps our MD started in a different way, and therefore we have such opposite ways of looking at it.
You view MD as something that can be positive, as a talent even. But no matter how long we're talking, I will never agree with you on that.

And that is because I believe MD is usually caused by something negative (Maybe something major like abuse in childhood, depression, anxiety, being bullied, parents divorcing, etc. Or something 'smaller' like being ignored, having low self esteem, always being stressed, etc).

Therefore MD becomes a way to cope with negative feelings. Instead of facing real emotions, and undergoing a healthy healing process (such as therapy, or just good conversations with family/friends), you turn to a world in which none of these negative emotions exist and MD becomes a way to *avoid* real life emotions/situations.
Being creative is a talent, of course. Having MD, is not a talent. You can be born with creativity, but no baby is born with the need to avoid all negative feelings they have. That happens along the way. Usually after something negative.

Perhaps your MD didn't start after something negative, which explains why you view it as something positive. If it did start after something negative, I have a hard time understanding why you would still view it as something positive.

My MD started after sexual abuse in my very early childhood. Therefore saying "love all parts [MD included] that make you who you are", doesn't add up. I don't love the me that I became after my abuse. Because my abuse was never supposed to happen. The man who abused me changed who I was and how I dealt with the world. MD served a purpose for a while when I was a little girl; to not have to think about the negative experiences. But now that I am an adult, I have dealt with my abuse, as well as the aftermath (=MD). MD has no purpose, and I let it go.

I understand you have no desire to end your MD. I'm not here to convince you to do so, but I hope that you understand that for most of us MD is a burden; a cope mechanism that developed after something negative. We want to stay creative,  but we don't want to live in a made up world anymore. We don't just want to "dominate/control" MD (as you put it); we want to get rid of it. 

I, with the help of therapy and God, have been able to do so. Trying to convince people that MD isn't all bad, is in my opinion not the smartest move. I understand you view MD as something positive because it is a very creative activity, but you can still be *very* creative, without the need to avoid real life feelings.

Encouraging people to be creative is great. Encouraging people to have a casual daydream is alright. But trying to encourage people to  lose touch with themselves when something negative happens (stress, boredom, depression, anxiety, etc),   is not going to help them become a healthy functioning human being living in a world in which  "stuff"  often happens.

New York dancer said:

The god thing was a metaphor. Not literal. It's about understanding how to have internal power over yourself.

If you lose touch with you are, and can't get out that is the problem. I can internally escape who I am sometimes when I'm over-stressed, bored or whatever. I know how to go in and get out. But I choose it. I know how to master my MD and I'm only encouraging another way to handle it. 

You said you loose contact with yourself when you wrote songs. Bingo: writing is a internal processes, it requires to go inside, retrieve something (emotion, experience, info) and pull it out in order to write it. THIS is a form of using Day Dreaming to help you.

Also every writer knows that characters that we create are pieces of ourselves wearing masks. They can be based on other people or whatever but at their core something about them connects them to you. Especially if specific characters live in you for a very long time. Fake you is still part of you. You created the characters and only you put them there. You did it for an unconscious goal. It's up to you to understand what that goal is. I recommend watching the movie "Drop dead Fred" because it relates to this internal goal I'm talking about. 

When it comes to a writer's mind frame, I think Stephen King said it best, "Why shouldn't writers be able to go bonkers and still stay sane." I have this posted on my wall. The guy is brilliant and is in total touch with that universe inside of himself.  

Be inspired guys, this is a talent. End it if you wish but you could be missing out. I'm just say...

[Mevve]

@ Mynx

And I am glad to read that!
I think, because MD doesn't really have a clear definition, discussing it can be difficult sometimes. Maybe we all view it differently. But it's good to know you can relate to what I am saying.

[Mynx]

Mevve said:

@ Mynx

And I am glad to read that!
I think, because MD doesn't really have a clear definition, discussing it can be difficult sometimes. Maybe we all view it differently. But it's good to know you can relate to what I am saying.

I totally agree with your standpoint! Most people on the board, like myself, DONT WANT to MDD because it's causing them to block out reality and not have a real life because it derived from some type of trauma or empty space in their lives that has not been fulfilled. Im not implying MDD can't be turned into a good thing but most people on this board don't want to embrace their MDD they want it gone so they can learn other things about themselves and the world they have been missing out on because they have been too busy creating an entire new one.

[Mynx]

Mevve said:

@ Mynx

And I am glad to read that!
I think, because MD doesn't really have a clear definition, discussing it can be difficult sometimes. Maybe we all view it differently. But it's good to know you can relate to what I am saying.

You hit the nail right on the head when you said "I understand you have no desire to end your MD. I'm not here to convince you to do so, but I hope that you understand that for most of us MD is a burden; a cope mechanism that developed after something negative. We want to stay creative,  but we don't want to live in a made up world anymore. We don't just want to "dominate/control" MD (as you put it); we want to get rid of it. "  basically 98% of the people on this board summed up in a nutshell! :)

[Mevve]

Thanks for the feedback Mynx!:-)

[Satchi R]

IS therapy the only thing that works? Isn't there anything at all? OR is it just pure determination?

[Mevve]

Hi Satchi,  well I had tried pure determination before (twice) and I could last 2 and 7 days without fantasizing. After going into therapy it now has lasted 1,5 years and counting. I think therapy only works because there is an underlying cause why you started to fantasize. If you just quit fantasizing by pure determination, or using medicine, etc. you haven't dealt with that underlying cause. And I believe it will be very hard to keep yourself from fantasizing again.

Just like with depression,  if you take medicine for depression you don't deal with the underlying cause that makes you depressed. You just treat the chemicals in your brain. But a depression is so much more than that. Same with MD.

[Satchi R]

But once you know the underlying cause, then what? Like for me I think it's a number of things but primarily low self-esteem.Like how do you work on that?