Introduction

[Jim Hunt]

Hey everyone,

My name is James, I am 39, from Los Angeles. I've had MDD since I was about 12, and it really kind of started with how I wanted my life to go. My mother kidnapped us when I was 6 months old, then when my Father finally managed to rescue us from the cult we lived a pretty normal life until I was 8 or 9 and my Father married an abusive woman. She was married to her from 1990-2010, so for the good majority of my childhood I had a childhood that was based in fear, intimidation, anger. While I was fortunate to never go hungry, there was a giant instability in the house... almost like living on top of an active volcano, you never knew when it was going to go off.

I noticed around age 12 that I started to create this fantasy worlds where I could escape the hell from which I was currently living: The physical and emotional abuse at home, the bullying at school. I did have a short attention span as a child, and to be honest was kinda lazy, so I did not get really good grades. Fast forward 27 years later I still have MDD. I'm not at all minimizing anyone else's trauma that they've been through, but I've been through a lot of myself including homelessness, and losing a beloved sibling to a murder, that I feel that MDD is my way to cope. But my earliest memories are of my Dad at 39-40, and I couldn't imagine my Dad having MDD with all that he went through.

I'd like to stop MDD so that I can work on success in my own life, but I don't know where to start. That's why I was thrilled to see that there are other people like me. Because I LITERALLY thought I was the only one Earth that did this.

On the bright side, MDD has taught me a lot about myself. And it has peaked my curiosity any many cases to allow me to expand my knowledge and get to know new things.

I hope to talk to you all more.

James

[Gabby]

Hi James. I'm so sorry to hear about all you've been through. I only found out what MDD was last night and like you I'm so relieved to know I'm not the only one!
Gabby

[Jim Hunt]

Glad to see you on here, and glad you discovered this place.

Gabby said:

Hi James. I'm so sorry to hear about all you've been through. I only found out what MDD was last night and like you I'm so relieved to know I'm not the only one!
Gabby

[Theaxe]

Hi James. Wow - What an ordeal you've gone through. I am one of those people who daydreams for pleasure and usually to soothe myself out of boredom or feelings of inadequacy. I can pinpoint some of the reasons from early childhood that continued into my youth, but nothing like what you've gone through. 

I found that one of the ways to get control over my obsessive daydreaming was actually finding out what MD was, and finding groups like this online. Once I actually could put a name on it, and read about MD, it was sort of diminishing its power over me as this mysterious, dirty thing that I felt like I was doing. I only found out about it in 2014 and I'm 46 now. 

Once I realized what it was, I shifted gears from doing it, to reading about it. That alone is one of the first steps to my own journey of coping. I may not ever have the strength or ability to remove daydreaming from my life, but I have learned to live with it, and manage it a lot better. I wish the same for you! :)

[Blanca Margatroid]

Hi James, I really wish you all the best. I'm sorry that life has been difficult on you, but things can get better. I hope in this forum you'll feel supported!

I was also bullied at school and had almost no friends, so I built a fantasy world to get what I wasn't getting in real life: friends, love, adventure. Like you said, you can find a lot about yourself from your daydreams. Therapy did wonders for me because I was given a lot of techniques to cope with all my past traumas, to develop more self esteem, and to be more assertive with people. There are a lot of resources here and online that can be helpful too.

Theaxe has made a good point; I also thought that I was doing something I should be ashamed of that I couldn't stop. When you find out that it has a name and that other people have it it's so relieving. I think it's the most common feeling upon finding this forum, relief.