Share your story!

[Varaa]

Hello friends,

If anyone of you is willing to, please tell me the story in your MD in as much detail as possible. I've had  several plot lines over years during my MD experience, but I have observed a common basic theme running through all of them (other than the very well known fact that the protagonist is a perfect person  ). So I was wondering if it is more or less the same story that is actually going on in all of our heads. 

[Jessica]

It's so nice to learn, that I'm not the only one.
The relationship has never been romantic. Not really. There have been moments, but never anything serious. Like.. There's a big age difference, his daugther is only one year younger than me. So it's like, you know, we maybe could have been, but have a silent agreement that we don't talk about it. God, to read it, is really strange, I feel so odd. Anyways... When I first started the whole Eminem thing, it was pure friendship, but as the story developed over lots of years, so did our relationship, and there are feelings, 100 percent, but there's also a deep respect and concern for the friendship.
I don't really have problems with this in terms with my real life relationship with my boyfriend. I keep reality and my dreams very separate and very secret. Like, when I come home, even though I know my boyfriend wont be home from work for hours, I will search the whole apartment to make sure I'm alone, before I start my daydreaming.
I said before, that I keep my daydreams to night time, and I just want to specify, that it is my "big" dreams I safe for when I go to bed. During the day, it's the light stuff like being interviewed for something because I'm a wellknown professor or an a-list celeb. Or I'll just relive surden moments from previous dreams that just felt really good, while i clean or cook or something. Really long posts, I'm sorry. It's just really great to finally get all of this of off my chest.

[Jessica Ballantyne]

You guys are very successful for somebody who daydreams a lot. I never would've done very well. How do you live two lives and achieve things? 

My mom blames my lack of a good and successful life on MDD. 

[Jessica]

Well, from the time I was 12 to 19 years old, I battled anxciety (don't know how to spell that one), stress, depression, multiple substanse abuse and anorexia... So that was my real life and I used my daydreams to escape that life, which felt good, but it probably also had me not dealing with all the bad things that was going on. But when I got clean and sober and started working on my eating disorder and other issues and part of my recovery was actually through daydreaming too. I would (and I still do) imagine that I was seing a theraphist and that I was in talkshows and documentaries about my problems. That helps me a lot, because the specialists in my daydreams are pretty legit and all. Now my life is actually pretty good. I don't know why I still daydream and I don't know how I control it. I just tell myself that whenever I'm alone I can daydream, and if I'm not alone but get the urge to daydream, I just tell myself that it has to wait until I'm in bed or doing the dishes or whatever.

[Jessica Ballantyne]

That's the thing. I didn't wait until I was alone to dream. I did MD all over the place, where everybody can see me doing it clear as day. Of course I was just a kid, so I didn't know any better. But I remember how everybody used to come up and comment what I looked like on the outside. Reflecting on everybody's reactions and feedback makes me more sick than the fact I did MDD. Although, I could've solved my problem and grew up well, if my mom hadn't been so very strict. She's like this dragon queen, and if I go wild and take off after my goals, without my parent's permission on where I'm going, and I mean leaving home altogether, I swear they'd call a search party. Apparently in this house, I have to earn my independence to do that, which I still haven't. And it's getting insanely embarrassing, because I'm already 34. I hate to think where I'll be at 40. 

[Jessica]

Well, I am no expert on the subject, but I think that it is very important that you forgive yourself and also everyone who had treated you poorly, for your own peace of mind. Another thing that has helped me a lot has been yoga and meditation. The meditation part can be very tricky, because it's so hard not to DM while you just sit there, but for that guided meditations can be a big help. Schedueling can also be helpful. Plan out your day in the morning or before you go to bed. When you do this, you get a clear overlook on when you can MD. Practice to MD while your doing stuff is key. So that you will be able to do grocery shopping, doing the dishes, walking the dog, whatever while you MD. I can't give you any tips on how to do so. Just practice, have patience, and figure out what you enjoy doing besides MD, and focus on that. It's much easier to control your MD, if you replace it with something you enjoy. Another thing: record yourself while you MD and act it out or at least talk it out. Later on, you can might convert your MD's into a book or a series of short stories. The last thing, your message made me think about, is your relationship with your mother. First of all, you're a grown ass woman, and both you and your mother needs to recognize that. Second of all, have you ever tried having a real heart to heart with her, where you could both share your thoughts and feelings? I used to have a strange relationship with my father, who was also very strict and he didn't trust that I could handle anything. I tried to please him for so many years, but nothing changed. But one day, I just thought "screw you, asshole" and I just did my own thing, not caring about how he would feel about it or what he would say. After a while, he just kinda realized that I was an adult and that his right and my right is not the same, but he accepted that and he accepted me. I hope there is something in this you find useful.

[Jessica Ballantyne]

Thanks for this advice. Though I have decided to quit MD completely. When it comes to my head, I have no power to live alternative lives, as I used to. My health needs much improvement and I need to focus on my real self. 

[Jessica]

That's beautiful. I wish you all the best of luck with that. I'm sure that your real self is just as magical as anything you could imagine :)

[Paul Rapp]

I am 63, married, and retired from a fairly successful career mostly in the space industry. I have been doing MDD since probably as early as age 4, so that's almost 60 years of it. Over all of those years I have had many different and varied story lines. Some of them have developed over decades while other are short little threads that exist independently. Some of them have included celebrities but they were never main characters in my story lines and most of those were in my teen and young adult years. They were not usually major, A list type celebrities. My fantasy romantic partners were usually based on real-people that I knew and had real-life romantic crushes on. There themes were most commonly science-fiction, fantasy or horror based stories. Others paralleled real-life events. I think if I had spent less time immersed in artificial worlds of my own creation and having imaginary relationships with imaginary people I might have been more successful in my real-life, but despite that I did have a successful life and now have a comfortable retirement. MDD doesn't have to destroy your life. It is something that you can live with.

[Jessica Ballantyne]

It's not that I can help it much. I have that kind of a head--if I do MDD--my mind loses concentration. My head used to feel like it went into a thick sleepy state if I got into it deep enough. I think my version of MD was prompted more by haunting emotions, since I am in fine arts and I tend to romanticize things about life. Like my MD tends to look something out of a mythical painting in a gallery or a gothic poem or book. 

Whereas you guys run MD like it's a comic book or a storyboard narration with many characters, while your somehow still successful in your career. I guess it really depends on how a person balances their real life agenda with their alternative life and how MD effects the activity of your head. 

What baffles me is how you guys do so well. Often when you do MD, you can't seem to listen and absorb what other are saying, or you tend to go quiet. You tend not to pay attention. People have always noticed when I was doing it. It was all in my eyes. 

Interestingly enough, I never knew there are people in the space industry and medical practice that actually do this stuff. I always pictured, only fine artists and writers ever do that. I guess I'm wrong. 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

I used to MD so often, and now my head hurts, so can't do it. Has MD physically impacted anyone's head?

[Varaa]

I have been daydreaming since ever and MDing since I was 15. All these years I couldn't stop MD just by deciding to quit MD even though I tried so many times.

And I feel that  DD turns into MD when you start holding a constant plot (although it gradually changes with time ) instead of having short bursts of mental emotional expression, because then it becomes your favorite soap opera, accessible at all times.

I also used to feel that if I am this successful despite MDing half of the time, how much more could I have achieved if this MD compulsion were absent. Yet, here I am, free from MD for around 2 years now but not seeing many profits of absence/lack of MD. I have come to think that, like drugs, MD actually makes you perform better. So, in my opinion, balanced DD is the best. And depression is not caused by MD as I can tell you- even after MD goes, depression remains if it was there already. In fact MD is a pain killer for that depression.

[Jessica Ballantyne]

What are you currently doing with your life? What made you start MD?