Wild Minds network
Maladaptive Daydreaming: where wild minds come to rest
Life After Doing MDD
My maladaptive day dreaming has dwindled so much since I was 29. Now at 32, I have an even clearer head and can focus better on things. Regardless, I have absolute no idea who I really am. I spent many
years just sitting or pacing about while deep in a fantasy escape, but never in that time frame, did I really ever learn about myself around people in the real world. Of course, I did have several hobbies and interests that I always attended to, as well as my studies. Still, I was so very introverted that I rarely spared a moment to actually pay attention to real people. I rarely ever spoke a word and constantly kept to myself at an extend that nearly everybody disliked me. I found it extremely hard to develop friends and relationships, and spent most of my time solo. SO, these days, I feel like there's this big blank gap in my life that's never been filled. For instance, personality traits, people relations, verbal demeanor, world perception and other meanings in my life that I haven't even discovered yet. Basically, my day dream life is all I've ever known. Crazy enough, I even believed so much in my day dreams, that I convinced myself that they would come true. When really, I was so very naive, complacent and had no real word experience. It's just a screamer when I think about it. It's enough to kick yourself in the pants.
Has anybody ever experienced this situation after getting past the density of their MDD?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jui on
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Compared to you I am still very new to the “life after mdd”, I put an end to it last fall. Still I can relate to what you are sharing with us. I am in my mid-twenties and I feel like I wasted so many years dreaming away and not paying attention to reality. I feel like I am still missing out on important parts of life. I have no idea what I want to do with my life, where I want to work and with which people I want to share my life. All kinds of relationships have been difficult for me and all of this became clear when I stopped daydreaming and started paying attention to where I actually am in life.
Still, I wouldn’t want to go back. Daydreaming has been a way for me to cope with what was going on around me but it ultimately wasn’t a good way to cope with things. Things would be a lot better today if I had found a better way of coping earlier.
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Permalink Reply by Silver Swan on
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Yea, that's exactly it. Since I surpassed MDD a couple years back, I look at when I started this wave (around age 12), and since my mind has cleared, I wonder what has gotten into me back then. If I was still strongly into my MDD, I wouldn't have noticed and picked this up today.
I think of how I got sucked into my trigger. I guess, at 12, life was sort of lame and slow. I had trouble connecting with people, so I seldom had friends. I used my favorite TV programs to help me escape the unflattering issue that I faced at the time. Somehow it caught on with me, and I overindulged, and even started living in "other worlds" ongoingly. It carried on for many years that way and into my adulthood. I never bothered to find out what "I had." I could've looked it up online, but never thought of this once! It practically impeded with everything in my life; college, career, relationships, social connects, travel, interests, family ect. It also slowed down my capacity to learn new things everyday.
My mind is quite slow for my age and I have such a hard to getting myself read anything, especially complicated content. I have to really force myself into new things everyday that's not part of my routine.
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Permalink Reply by Dreamcatcher on
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Hi there. Thank you both for sharing. I really relate to both of your experiences. Interestingly, I haven't completely overcome MDD yet. I keep slipping into my habits of daydreaming through pacing or just while sitting down. However there are so many more moments during the day, as compared to my middle school to college years, when I am not daydreaming and am actively aware of my reality. It's during those moments that I feel exactly what both of you are describing.
I don't know who I am, what my personality really is, what I want to do with myself, and how to be sociable and maintain deep, authentic connections with others (though I badly want to)... Anytime someone in school asks me to tell them about myself or something interesting about me, I have nothing to say because I don't know. Now that I'm in the process of trying to overcome daydreaming (though I am not succeeding), I experience this combination of feeling pain and emptiness: so much regret over wasting my life daydreaming and not knowing who I actually am, but also wondering how strange and out-of-place I feel in life without my fantasies. How do I "restart" my life in reality or "recreate" myself being in my mid-twenties when I'm now expected to live like non-MDDers of this age?
My reason for starting in the first place is similar to yours and I also wish I had tried to find "what I had" of my own and stayed true to that self instead of taking this path. I feel so lost and I wonder how you guys were able to reach "the life after MDD".
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It's a nightmare. I honestly don't know what to do, but start from scratch. I'm very appalled. I thought my MDD was actually giving me hope about my future. Right now, I have absolutely no friends. My only best friend is going her own way now. I realize now that I had nobody to begin with because I lived in an alternate imaginary life. My career isn't going great either. I have a job that doesn't pay me enough and I still can't afford my own accommodation.
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Starting from scratch is a nightmare. I have somehow managed to keep some friends around me but it feels awful knowing that they have their lives all figured out while I continue to have no idea.
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It's the same with me. All my peers have it all figured out and are independent. So, I feel like an idiot, right now. My mind has been in a particular mental mode for nearly 20 years. I can't urge myself to do much. Well, I don't know too much.
Rest of my family is very worldly and skillful; they are big conversationalists too. Their cups have been filled well before mine.
I'm sure if I did the right thing (express myself ect.) people would have noticed me and wanted to be friends with me.
It's very freaky when you think about it.
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Oh goodness, yes. It hurts when I see how my peers or even those younger than me have their lives together, whether it's with their families, school, careers, social life, passions, spirituality, having their own personalities and being confident and comfortable with them. They're occupied and productive in such healthy ways. They have their "thing(s)" in life to focus on and much of it is stuff they have had or cultivated over years or since their childhood.
Then there's me. In the same time frame, I chose to daydream away all my pains, instead of finding something like art, writing, fitness, some sort of passion or form of expression which many others I know have used when struggling. Now I am paying the price. When I try to let go of my fantasizing, I have nothing. I feel like nothing. But I know continuing my daydreams is not the answer because it got me in this mess in the first place
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Same with me. That's why I stopped day dreaming. Some Life lessons can be tough.
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How were you able to stop though? Like what steps did you take to help you control your daydreams to the point of not doing it anymore?
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To tell you the truth, I can't control my day dreams to the point that I keep it from reoccurring at all times. That's impossible. After doing it all my life, for 32 years, I will always be getting "flakes" now and then. When your born with it, it's there with you forever! Many people who never day dreamed think that I am too weird, but that's their problem, I can't possibly help myself. It's like being mad at a psychic for being unable to consistently stay with the present!
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That makes sense. That seems impossible and unrealistic to do anyways, especially since I often feel a gray region between "thinking" and "daydreaming' at times. And a habit I've cultivated for decades won't just go away like that. But what were some things you did to keep yourself from chronically daydreaming as compared to before or to where it's not constantly interfering with your ability to live in reality?
I know it's something that it is a long-term effort and takes practice and discipline, but were there specific things you did everyday to help you come out of chronic MDD-ing, even if they were simple things? I think that is what I need help with. I keep trying things on my own, but it's not working as well.
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