MD and Shame

[Laya Jamali]

Hi everyone, 

It is overwhelming to find a community of people who experience what I go through! It's a bitter sweet kind of feeling that we are gathering here in community around a common pain (at least that's how I feel about it. I get for some it may not be as painful). 

I was wondering if anyone experiences shame about their day dreams. For the longest time I tried denying that I was daydreaming both for myself and when others pointed it out! I was so ashamed of not being present and thought that I needed to cut this part of me off. So as you can imagine, that was a double whammy when I dissociated from my dissociation!!!! Then my dreams became so vivid at night and that was  telling me I needed to take care of something in my conscious life. I allowed my dreams to guide my conscious life then and it has been an interesting journey that has brought me to this point. Recently, I am noticing, that I have one foot in reality and one foot in the dreamland. Tackling shame has been the most painful part of this process for me, and has caused difficulty connecting with my loved ones! Without knowing what my condition was and only by following my dreams, I have found that through art work, dance, storytelling, drawing, I could turn this part of me into something less disorganized and more beneficial. But I am so aware of the disconnect between myself and the world outside. I guess I need to grieve the fact I have lived my life up till this point in utter confusion. There have been moments of sudden awakening  with the bone deep painful question of "where have I been for my own life?", I have lived my life in a perpetual dreamland and I want to wake up... Wishing this group was in person.... 

[Cain]

There was a brief time where I was free of MD and could feel. And the first thing I felt was guilt for being away from myself and my loved ones.

[Valeria Franco]

Hello and welcome!

Shame, yes, it has been for most of my life a huge problem for me and I am still very private about my daydreams.

I have the impression that the sense of shame is very connected with MD, not only in the contents of what we dream about but as a general feeling.

Now I'm talking openly about MD and everything, but 5 years ago when I first found out I used a nickname and I was very worried about anyone finding out about my inner movies. But in general, looking back in my life, there has always been a sense of shame of myself, especially when I was very young.

[Kalliope]

Hello Valeria, hi everyone,

I think you're touching upon a very interesting subject. Precisely, I believe that, additionally to Eretaia's essential paradigm that MD stems from repressed emotions, another aspect of this is shamefulness.

So many feelings of shame are incorporated in MD, from the narcissistic contents over shame about MD; and as you say, shame at the very beginning of MD. Additionally, if trying out to merge the content of MD with real life, it stands in the way, if nothing else does.

Is it just one more of the negative feelings to experience, indulge in, and ultimately overcome in its negative influence on life, as Eretaia's paradigm goes? Or would you believe this to be an extraneous factor, additionally to all the emotions within MD? It is very difficult to tell apart, and I for my part don't have a clear answer to that yet.

Maybe the answer lies in separating the shame about MD from the one "causing" it. Are MDers ashamed of their own emotions, of expressing them? I feel like that would be a call to some Freudian burrowing into old repressed memories :-)

Valeria Franco said:

Hello and welcome!

Shame, yes, it has been for most of my life a huge problem for me and I am still very private about my daydreams.

I have the impression that the sense of shame is very connected with MD, not only in the contents of what we dream about but as a general feeling.

Now I'm talking openly about MD and everything, but 5 years ago when I first found out I used a nickname and I was very worried about anyone finding out about my inner movies. But in general, looking back in my life, there has always been a sense of shame of myself, especially when I was very young.