Addiction? Mental Illness??

[Sam]

Does anyone on here consider MD to be a form of addiction?

I do.

I'll even admit that it's slowly ruining my life... but I don't want to stop. It has taken over, filled a void in my life and I fear and know that without it I would not be able to cope.

It is not innocent but it is my crutch, my security blanket. It didn't start out this way though. It creeps up on you. I use MD to cope with real-world problems including depression, anxiety and feelings of self-hate. 

I've retreated into my fantasy world where I don't have to deal with my own problems, socially isolated, aimless, apathetic towards real-life living and moving forward.

Mental illness runs in my family so MD may in correlation to other problems.

Do any of you consider MD as harmful to your mental health in the long run?

Do you feel that it has contributed or hides mental/emotional problems you are trying to avoid? 

I'm glad I'm not alone.

[S.A.]

Yeah, it is a form of disassociation and avoidance as a way to cope with underlying mental health issues. It's a symptom, or something like that. To deal with it, a person needs to address whatever those underlying issues may be. Trying to just figure out how to manage fantasizing won't help too much, especially not if you're dwelling on it.

Meditation/mindfulness is the exception, because it will help with the underlying issues as much as the symptoms. So will exercise and a vegetables-and-fruit, low carb-and-sugar diet. 

Otherwise, for treatment and therapy, focus on those underlying things. There's lots of information on this site about the different kinds of mental health problems that may be involved, so check that out. Search in the forum or look in the Groups section.

I'd say it has more in common to obsessive-compulsive type things than to addiction, which is its own specific mental illness. Addiction is also an escapism, though.

My advice is to not get lost in discussions about the content of your daydreams -- that just perpetuates all the distraction.

[S.A.]

The content is good for turning into actual creative work that you can share. Could be art, music, acting, dance, etc as much as writing. 

This was so hard for me for so long, because I didn't believe I was good enough and thought I had to do it in the supposedly normal way.

I suggest the play-around approach: don't take it seriously, nothing to lose, fake it and you'll eventually get somewhere ;) Experiment without any expectations about what it will turn into. 

S.A. said:

Yeah, it is a form of disassociation and avoidance as a way to cope with underlying mental health issues. It's a symptom, or something like that. To deal with it, a person needs to address whatever those underlying issues may be. Trying to just figure out how to manage fantasizing won't help too much, especially not if you're dwelling on it.

Meditation/mindfulness is the exception, because it will help with the underlying issues as much as the symptoms. So will exercise and a vegetables-and-fruit, low carb-and-sugar diet. 

Otherwise, for treatment and therapy, focus on those underlying things. There's lots of information on this site about the different kinds of mental health problems that may be involved, so check that out. Search in the forum or look in the Groups section.

I'd say it has more in common to obsessive-compulsive type things than to addiction, which is its own specific mental illness. Addiction is also an escapism, though.

My advice is to not get lost in discussions about the content of your daydreams -- that just perpetuates all the distraction.