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?

[Yukia]

> although i don't think research has caught up yet, so that might not happen any time soon. 

Yeah. Maybe the undefined timeline for Maladaptive Daydreaming to be officially recognized should be a bigger concern than the type of dysfunction it represents, I would assume. The best we've got right now is that it's a "mental health issue."

[Hazel Russman]

I think it's more like alcohol or marijuana than like heroin. Most drugs are addictive for everyone who takes them. You can't use them moderately. But alcohol is not like that. Most people who use alcohol aren't addicted to it; they just like a drink sometimes. Alcoholics are a subset of the drinking population and we still don't know why some people progress from social drinking to addiction.

It's the same with marijuana. Most people who smoke it aren't badly affected, so it's generally considered a harmless drug, but I had a friend who got addicted to it and it made her psychotic.

So there are people who are addicts and whose lives are ruined by their addiction. But there is a wider tranche who just indulge in the drug because they can afford it and enjoy its effects, but aren't hooked by it. Maybe a hypervivid imagination is like that.

Browsing around this site, I've seen lots of posts by people whose lives have been completely ruined by MD and I feel desperately sorry for them, but that hasn't been my experience. I've always been able to give priority to the things I needed to do to survive. It was the rest of my time that I spent on my internal narratives, time that "normal" people would have been spending on social life or romantic engagements, or raising children, which were all things which didn't much interest me and still don't.

I see myself as the MD equivalent of a social drinker. But maybe I'm just bloody selfish...;-)

[alona]

love that analogy!