I have rubber stoppers in my ears

[Jessica Ballantyne]

I doesn't matter what's on my mind. If I'm somewhere else, and someone is talking to me, it's going to be a big problem. For instance, I came down to the kitchen for lunch, and mom said she'll heat up the soup "twice." My mind was stuck on my freelance project. So I acted like I didn't hear a thing. And she brought it up with me, and said "Your mind's somewhere else. You didn't listen to what I said, twice. I said I'll heat up the soup first."

It's amazing when your mind isn't in the present, and you think of something in another place or event, if somebody says something to you. Your not there to absorb their words. My parents find me quite deaf, actually. 

I have a history of this as well. For as far back as I can remember, I had kids and people screaming at my angrily when I didn't listen to them. I can only assume, their minds were never somewhere else and they were socially interactive, which I wasn't, so they easily tensed up on me. For years and years, I've always wondered why I've never been in a relationship, never married, never reproduced—at 34—the answer could be I failed to communicate with others, because I didn't want to be in this world. 

Even my friends got impatient with me overtime, and my BFF I see less and less. Well she's just busy, but still, she reacted quite a bit. Both to my inability to listen up and speak up. Rest of the time, everybody thinks I'm so frickin weird and on another planet.

[Valeria Franco]

The noise inside our head can be loud, so loud we don't hear anything else.

When I was stuck in MD, I remember the odd sensation of getting out of a fantasy and experiencing the silence in the house... Actually there had been silence also before, but I had my mind full of noises and voices... and the impact of that silence was...something.

About relationships, I think they need to be fed or they starve. Maybe your friend don't think you are weird, but they just want some attention.

[Cain]

I agree. I am very much aware of silence  and nothingness when I stop day dreaming as well as the start feeling uneasy/discomfort. I always slip into daydreaming as soon as this discomfort increases.  It's like a reflex action to avoid that uneasiness creeping up. I madidate to try to be more aware about it and not slip into DD. 

Valeria Franco said:

The noise inside our head can be loud, so loud we don't hear anything else.

When I was stuck in MD, I remember the odd sensation of getting out of a fantasy and experiencing the silence in the house... Actually there had been silence also before, but I had my mind full of noises and voices... and the impact of that silence was...something.

About relationships, I think they need to be fed or they starve. Maybe your friend don't think you are weird, but they just want some attention.

[Daniel C Cunningham]

When I become aware of the "silence", coming out of MaDD, I sometimes also become aware of the ringing in my ears too. 

But, as far as not hearing what people around you are saying, I.M.O. that happens - to anyone - when they are thinking about something else, not necessarily just DDers. The trouble is - for us DDers - the things we are tripping on are often things that do not exist in the real world, or else not in real time (resenting past offenses and re-playing them with me coming out as the winner), or else future events (like my up-coming interview with the VA doctor, in which he will tell me they don't think the radical surgery is called for in my case... so I should just take some fucking addictive, harmful, ineffective meds = I understand that they figure I am too old to bother about since I will die soon anyway .... so I tell him what a useless quack he is and stomp out and they yell at me and the security thug comes after me and I heroically tell him to shoot me)... and then I have to come back to the dinner table and Thanksgiving dinner and happy conversation. But I feel excluded because I am not family here - just a friend of the hostess who invited me come stay with her so she could take care of getting me hooked up with the VA hospital in this city. So I could be kicked out any time and be homeless.

But I want to say that we DDers,most of us, did not get this way by our choice; we were driven into our fantasy world as an escape from the intolerable situation when we were children. Neglected, bullied, abused, discounted, ignored, whatever it was they did to us - it was not out fault. At thanksgiving when I was a little kid I had it thrown in my face that I should not have been born... that I was another mouth to feed when they were too poor to take care of the older siblings - so I should grow up and get out or die.

In our MaDD world we get recognition and acceptance and maybe success and justice and it is not all chaotic; life makes sense and a person can understand and cope with things.

Under duress, under stress, in anxiety, I go out immediately because that is my established behavior pattern. And then, maybe  silence - because someone is waiting for me to answer the question or, even worse, they are shocked to see me acting out strangling someone or just muttering some swear words to cut him down. 

We are supposed to get over this affliction on our own. We are supposed to fix the childhood trauma that warped our psyche? 

I don't see me achieving this is this lifetime.

It is hard to be able to even come up with a witty or appropriate remark to the conversation at the dinner table. To say  something that makes it seem like I was paying attention and does not offend someone to get me slapped down or insulted. It is hard now, just like it was hard all those years ago as a child not wanted.

[Jessica Ballantyne]

I've never been much of a talker all my life. As a matter of fact, I was extremely quiet. As far back as I can remember, people were always wondering if I was smart. So I never had a real relationship with guys. I've had relationships with a few girls, but we were just friends in general. Whenever I enter a new crowd of people, not only do they notice I'm not talking, but also I don't make good eye contact and my face is emotionally deadpan. I learned later that I must have Asperger syndrome. Most people don't want to date this. It's sad, but many of them assume I have no social life and romantic life at all. They are just so thrown off by my behaviour. It makes me feel so bad. For many years my MD was an escapism of this reality, so I made up alternative lives where I do have friends and love affairs, and I'm sexually active. I can do whatever I want and nobody has control over me. Bluntly speaking, in my fantasy life I'm not an atypical. I'm a girl who just wants to be liked and loved by other people. It's just so hard to look at reality, frankly. It doesn't give you everything your heart desires, so you have to escape.