Is it incorrect to recognize Maladaptive Daydreaming as a psychological disorder?

[Yukia]

To those of you who believe in what the title says or similar, I want to hear your arguments in the comments.

The activity on this forum is slow and I understand this is a long shot. Plus the majority of my target audience doesn't even have an account here, but I want to try anyway.

None of it means that those who support the idea (edit: that recognizing MD as a disorder is correct) cannot comment. My personal opinion is that MD is closer to being a syndrome rather than a disorder, for example, but it still must be recognized to stop others from confusing it with schizophrenia or just a creative personality.

Thoughts?

[Jessica Ballantyne]

It's not, it's the inflations and the economy. I have a cousin who lives in a one-bedroom apartment he inherited from his grandmother. My sister is working on her Masters Degree, and I'm searching for jobs all the time, and doing whatever side gig I can get. So we both share a house with our parents. I do blame myself for not making very good decisions after high school. 

[Mils]

I always imagined telling people about it, and if I did, I would describe it as a disorder. It feels too light without it, and it's too complicated otherwise. If the conversation continues, I'll elaborate on it further. But for now, this is the easiest way to describe its severity and complexity. Otherwise it feels like I'm self-diagnosing myself with daydreaming-a-lot. It's a weird scenario honestly haha, but I'm glad someone else is talking about this topic!

[Jessica Ballantyne]

I don't daydream so often as I used to, and I'm well aware of what's going on in my life. Concern is that I'm not in the greatest of shape. When I was still MDD'ing away as a young adult, there were more open doors and I had the chance to build my life, and grow along. I think my cloud headed ways jilted all of this. So I started falling down, but had trouble back on my toes as easily. When the pandemic came along, it came like a huge wave, and flattened my chance to thrive better. It just made everything about my life even tougher. I even started getting lazy, and wasn't the sharp whiz I was at 22. Now I'm scrounging around polishing up my resume and portfolio, and going to all these interviews. My dad pops in 10 times a month to check my employment progress. Been this way for 2 years! I sometimes wish that I can travel back in time and change everything I didn't do right. Such as not start daydreaming. 

[Yukia]

That's what used to confuse the hell out of me when I was considering being open about it. It wasn't my daydreams but what pushed me to indulge in them in the first place. Despite missing out on real-life affairs, I still interpreted my MD as harmless because I appreciated its healing role while going through a rough patch. I didn't MD when I was genuinely happy for a month or two. When I wasn't, I couldn't share my difficulties with anyone because it is a taboo/sin and warrants punishment where I grew up. I seriously can't blame MD for any of it since in my case it doesn't feel like a disorder at all.

[Jessica Ballantyne]

MD was a coping mechanism, like a comforting blanket, when life felt cold, isolating, and uncertain. None of what went on in my head was true to life. It was all pure fantasy. Somehow it invaded where my life was going, because I found it hard to concentrate of important things, such as getting good marks, and entering a good college, and starting a decent relationship. MD made me happy at times in my youth, when really, it was making my life go on route to something very detrimental, because I wasn't growing, developing, and paying attention over the years. Now I have no place, no life, no career, etc. If I had just listened to people, I would've been fine, tough part is what I did before. 

[Jessica Ballantyne]

I'm really embarrassed lately. I spent years wrapping myself up in my own personal issues and getting lost in worlds. I sit with my family at the dinner table, and they are all worldly minded with interests in political affairs and events, and an extensive vocabulary. I make my younger sister sound like Kamala Harris. It puts me to shame, because I have nothing to say. I haven't read up on things, even looked at the news much. Because I've been more interested in fiction. Even my mom thinks I got no world sense. Not only this, I don't talk that much, so I make people think I'm really tired or really dumb. I do have asperger syndrome, and have motor mouth incapabilities, so you can't expect me to speak eloquently. But I've had people rub up to me, and wonder why I'm just not as talkative as the other person. Even give me a hard time, or stare at me for a quite a while. Frankly, I don't find this whole things fair. It's like I'm disabled that way. 

[John Alves]

I believe that excessive daydreaming is just a habit and should not be recognized as a disorder in itself, perhaps an addiction? Just as cigarettes and alcohol are also used to escape reality and daily stress, both being very harmful when uncontrolled, I believe that excessive daydreaming is an addiction that has the effect of causing various psychological disorders, perhaps itself ( excessive daydreaming) be caused by a previous disorder, let me explain, we became dependent on it, as it gave us a good escape from a real problem, perhaps in childhood? The fear of rejection, for example, some of us have had this fear since childhood, and so excessive daydreaming offered us comfort, perhaps if in childhood I had been introduced to some other substance, which allowed me to escape it, like alcohol, would result in the same effect on my life (personal harm), but for all intents and purposes, excessive daydreaming remains even more difficult to give up than any other addiction (I believe), after all, I can throw all the drinks and cigarettes in the trash , but with excessive daydreaming this will not be possible, after all it is in the mind, subtly linked to something totally inherent to the human being, the imagination, resulting in an excessive accumulation of disorders as we grow, in short, the damage caused by alcohol is for the liver, cigarettes are harmful to the lungs and daydreams are harmful to our personal abilities.

[alona]

but substance abuse is also a DSM-recognized disorder. addiction in itself is a disorder. 

[John Alves]

Addiction is a disorder, right? But from what I understood from Yuki's question, it is whether daydreaming can be considered a disorder in itself (syndrome), that is, without participation of our choices, for example, alcohol, which we can use as a form of escape, can or cannot become an addiction. That's what I meant. In my opinion, daydreaming is an "alcohol" that we decide to use on our own (without attribution of guilt, of course) and unconsciously we become addicted to something that undermines our power of "self-awareness" and without realizing it, we become emotionally dependent on it. But classifying daydreaming as a disorder in itself (syndrome) is a mistake. We are not born with daydreaming, we acquire it as we grow up, it becomes an addiction, which is a disorder like alcohol. Yuki believes that daydreaming is close to a syndrome. What does that mean? That we are closer to people with Down syndrome than to an alcohol addict? This statement seems exaggerated.

[Yukia]

John Alves, are you using the words disorder and syndrome interchangeably?

[Yukia]

That didn't make it any clearer. The sentence you wrote breaks off after "so I do it." I think it's because of the format you've used to edit it.

[alona]

i think on the most basic level, to be recognized as a disorder, the condition must cause significant disruption of multiple areas of functioning (social, academic, occupational etc). in my experience, and from what i've read about others on this site, that disruption is the reason a lot of us ended up on this site to begin with. like other disorders, MDD can be co-morbid with other disorders, or occur due to the presence of another disorder, or it may exist on its own. i think there's def certain aspects of maladaptive daydreaming that would qualify it as a disorder -- although i don't think research has caught up yet, so that might not happen any time soon.