Do you want to defeat this?

[Corinne West]

Do you? If you could wake up tomorrow with this gone would you want to?
In all honesty, I don't want to live without it. I don't think life would be worth living without it.
I'll give up everything else, my social isolation, eating disorder a thousand times before I give this up. I thought I may have been ready to recently, but I never had to imagine living without it, so no I don't want to give it up. *Sigh*

[kathleen]

its insane that there are so many people in the world who do this...ive alway felt like the only mutant on the planet. im nineteen and pretty sure i wish i had more of a handle on this thing. no matter how good it feels, it is escapism and getting lost in that cant be healthy. i dont know if this is just me but im filled with this desire to just ...live. to create. to do. something. Im not happy. that much i know. this drive and my inability to enact it, it hurts. it weighs on my chest and hurts my heart everytime i step out my head and realize that months have passed and i havent actually done anything.i get sudden panic attacks (or at least thats what i think they are) and cry and bang my head against the wall. im terrified of the thought of looking back twenty-thirty years from today and knowing that i had done nothing with my life and that i ultimately had no value.

***im sorry if that all sounded selfindulgent and pointless angst....i guess there are bigger porblems to have but it feels good to share.

[Cordellia Amethyste Rose]

This is NOT self-indulgent. This is REAL. Thank you for sharing. You just described what, for me, is the biggest part of this condition. I've been living with this my entire life, and the biggest problem is it takes me months to do ANYTHING. I've got mail that I haven't opened for years sitting around. I panic that it will be a bill & I'm not organized with my finances enough to deal with them, so I just put them away somewhere. I've got papers I've needed to turn in & tasks that are months and years old that I just can't bring myself to do. I'm 29, and I've wasted my life doing this. I never had friends or "fun" growing up because all I'd do was daydream. I don't have a driver's license & barely made it through high school. I'm back in college & struggling really hard. Even the most menial tasks takes a ton of motivation & pressure that I just don't have. My anxiety is so constant that I don't even notice it anymore. Every time I try to do anything, even make a list of things to do, my heart starts to race because I know what a struggle it'll be & that I won't get much of it done. Trust me, you're not alone. Don't ever feel like you're strange or that people will judge you here. In fact, you may end up sharing something someone else feels but was afraid to talk about or didn't know how to.


kathleen said:

its insane that there are so many people in the world who do this...ive alway felt like the only mutant on the planet. im nineteen and pretty sure i wish i had more of a handle on this thing. no matter how good it feels, it is escapism and getting lost in that cant be healthy. i dont know if this is just me but im filled with this desire to just ...live. to create. to do. something. Im not happy. that much i know. this drive and my inability to enact it, it hurts. it weighs on my chest and hurts my heart everytime i step out my head and realize that months have passed and i havent actually done anything.i get sudden panic attacks (or at least thats what i think they are) and cry and bang my head against the wall. im terrified of the thought of looking back twenty-thirty years from today and knowing that i had done nothing with my life and that i ultimately had no value.

***im sorry if that all sounded selfindulgent and pointless angst....i guess there are bigger porblems to have but it feels good to share.

[kathleen]

thank you.

Cordellia Amethyste Rose said:

This is NOT self-indulgent. This is REAL. Thank you for sharing. You just described what, for me, is the biggest part of this condition. I've been living with this my entire life, and the biggest problem is it takes me months to do ANYTHING. I've got mail that I haven't opened for years sitting around. I panic that it will be a bill & I'm not organized with my finances enough to deal with them, so I just put them away somewhere. I've got papers I've needed to turn in & tasks that are months and years old that I just can't bring myself to do. I'm 29, and I've wasted my life doing this. I never had friends or "fun" growing up because all I'd do was daydream. I don't have a driver's license & barely made it through high school. I'm back in college & struggling really hard. Even the most menial tasks takes a ton of motivation & pressure that I just don't have. My anxiety is so constant that I don't even notice it anymore. Every time I try to do anything, even make a list of things to do, my heart starts to race because I know what a struggle it'll be & that I won't get much of it done. Trust me, you're not alone. Don't ever feel like you're strange or that people will judge you here. In fact, you may end up sharing something someone else feels but was afraid to talk about or didn't know how to.


kathleen said:

its insane that there are so many people in the world who do this...ive alway felt like the only mutant on the planet. im nineteen and pretty sure i wish i had more of a handle on this thing. no matter how good it feels, it is escapism and getting lost in that cant be healthy. i dont know if this is just me but im filled with this desire to just ...live. to create. to do. something. Im not happy. that much i know. this drive and my inability to enact it, it hurts. it weighs on my chest and hurts my heart everytime i step out my head and realize that months have passed and i havent actually done anything.i get sudden panic attacks (or at least thats what i think they are) and cry and bang my head against the wall. im terrified of the thought of looking back twenty-thirty years from today and knowing that i had done nothing with my life and that i ultimately had no value.

***im sorry if that all sounded selfindulgent and pointless angst....i guess there are bigger porblems to have but it feels good to share.

[Heinriech Heisner]

I would never give it up. There were a few times I desperatly wanted it to go away, but those moments were short lived. I actually had an experience of what it was like not to have it and unfortunately it was at the lowest point of my life. Had things been different I might not desire it, love it, appreciate it and have an addiction to it as much as I do now. On the other hand, I still wouldn't give it up. I thought my original post was too long for here so I placed in in my blog instead. I think you can find it here: Life with and without it.

[Devonte]

I want desperately to defeat this. When I have my downs, my day dreams become negative and I become overwhelmed. Everything in my fantasy would can be peaceful at times, even most of the time, but when something frustrates me, I'm off to dreaming the world's against me or my friends are somewhere making fun of me or plotting against me.

The universal problem I seem to have come across with this group is time management. I feel I've truly succumb to my illness when I was suppose to study and fill out applications or invite friends over one day and I just daydreamed instead and got nothing done. Some days I just want to throw my hands up and say it's won and at least try to get some sleep and not work like crazy until 3 o'clock trying to make up for lost time. I'll just end up being sleepy and miserable and in the same condition the next day. I hate this! I've had issues with deppression before, among other things, but I'm absolutely sure the daydreams are making things worse.

I feel if I have to imagine myself being a celebrated person, some uber-successful singer or whatnot, then I must not be comfortable with my life. My life can suck like hell at times, but I have a few friends. I seem to lose friends daily, but with counseling I've gained the necessary skills to at least introduce myself to people and be friendly, even if I'm simply dying inside.

I just hate being alone so much. I'm often alone on the weekends and loneliness is a major trigger for me.

[phoenix62]

Sure...you know, for YEARS, it WAS gone, but I had another depressive episode, and the darn malady came back! Grrr!!!
I managed to stop for years....when I was in the service, and had a little one...too darn busy for much of anything, let alone MD;0D
I think if I stay busy, I can lick it again. I need to, it's not a good thing....

[Oxalis Wood]

I would love to give it up. For the same reasons others cite. I'm 39 and i'm not living the life i want to. I want to go for a walk and see real things, instead of realising at the end of the walk that i've been in my head the whole time. I want to be able to concentrate on books, learn stuff, to be able to listen to the radio instead of realising at the end of the program that i've daydreamed through it. I want to lead a real, satisfying life.

I do wonder though - what is going on in the heads of those who don't daydream? Would it make it harder to be alone? I thought i liked my own company, but may be i just like the company of my daydreams?

I can't imaging what it would feel like. Would we have lots of productive, interesting thoughts. Would it feel serene, calm - or would it be painfully empty?

[Swiss]

Hello all, new here but really glad I've found this place and put a name to "it".

Bit shocked some people don't want to leave the daydreaming behind although that's not meant as any sort of criticism. Daydreaming is the only time I smile, laugh out loud or experience anything even close to happiness but, at the same time, it's been a pretty major factor in why my life's in the state it's in and why I don't do any of those things in reality. If I could pack it all in tomorrow and never have another crazy fantasy then I wouldn't think twice about it.

The day I start daydreaming about a perfect life where I mooch about all day having bonkers fantasies and never accomplishing anything then I might rethink my view on this but it hasn't happened so far and I think that says something.

[Oxalis Wood]

Hi Swiss, yes, you're making sense. It's crazy to be living in made-up land. Though i understand for some people that it may be what makes life bearable.

It's an addiction though and i want to get over it. Have you heard of 'flo'. I think that's how you spell it? It's the state of being totally absorbed by something and not noticing time passing. But absorbed in something real like a hobby or pondering something - not daydreaming. Very rarely i get in that state when i'm doing something i really enjoy, but not something i care about enough for it to stress me. I want more of that.

Hope this site helps you in lessening the MD.

[Sophia Miller]

it does interfere with my life.....not to the extreme of some people. no i couldnt completely give it up. it really helps me. i would like to daydream less but still daydream. my saying here is "i want be able to control my daydreams not have my daydreams control me" its not about stopping its about doing it less and in a productive way

which by the way i have so far failed at -.-

[April West]

I keep telling myself "I want this to end/I want to change" but deep down I don't!!! I would love to stay in my daydream world and not have to worry about the "real world." I can do anything in my world, and it doesn't take any effort... Sometimes I feel that if I quit I will be losing a part of myself...?

But as another year ends, I look back and see that I have done nothing, absolutely nothing... I don't want to get to 40 and still be doing this....

[Katrina]

I know... it's sooo hard to pull yourself out of that world, to let go of its warmth and comfort. The real world isn't easy, it's not perfect, and in it your never the you that you want to be. who would want to trade instant happiness for pain? Except.. sooner or later, life in the real world has a way of waking you up and reminding you that your dreams are just dreams. don't you ever want something real?