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Post by skipperboy on Feb 6, 2020 22:14:32 GMT
I have maladapative daydreamed ever since I can remember. My mom told me I did ever since I could walk and my parents thought it was strange, but never looked into it. When I DD I pace around an empty room flailing my arms around in a skipping fashion. My family coined me the nickname "skipperboy" because of this. As a kid, I would "skip" hours at a time where I am literally drenched in sweat and looks like I did a full workout. I have always enjoyed DDing because it is an escape into my own fantasy world where I can make all of my wildest fantasies my short term reality. However, I have always been embarrassed about this habit because I have always known it wasn't normal. I am now 22 years old and I still continue to DD when I can. I only allow myself to do it when I am home alone because I fear any of my friends finding out about this strange habit of mine. For the longest time I thought I was the only person that existed that had an issue like this, but I was so happy to see on the internet people describing the same symptoms that I have. My main issue with DDing is that it interferes with my daily life and I find myself having the urge to DD whenever I am doing homework or am bored at work. It is hard to focus when all I think about is skipping around a room creating some sort of detailed plot in my head where I am the hero or something. A long term fear I have is never being able to break this habit, and finding myself depressed because I feel my life has no meaning. I am relatively mentally stable and live a happy life, but I worry that this addiction will slowly wear me down over time. In the short term, I get so upset that I have this thing because I can't focus on any of my school work and turn in late assignments because I waste time DDing. I hope people can relate to this post and can share some of their stories or advice with me!!
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Post by Sam on Feb 7, 2020 1:30:22 GMT
Welcome to the forum!
Repetitive movements while daydreaming are common in MDers. I, personally, pace up and down the stairs in my house.
While the line is different from person to person, its important to distinguish between regular daydreaming and maladaptive daydreaming. Even if you feel that all of your daydreaming is maladaptive, getting rid of daydreaming completely isn't a realistic goal. Everyone daydreams--it helps with creativity and problem solving and when used in moderation it can be a healthy coping mechanism. Our issue is that the normal daydreaming function has grown out of control to the point where, like you said, it interferes with our ability to live our lives. In general, I would consider the healthiest and most realistic goal to be getting to a point where we have a reasonable balance between daydreams and real life. That balance looks different to everyone and I think that even in one person, it fluctuates depending on your circumstances.
As for dealing with it, I usually recommend trying to recognize your triggers (you mentioned homework and boredom). Common ones are stress or other unpleasant emotions and media like music or tv.
Additionally, figuring out why you're daydreaming is good too. Its often (but not always) connected to what your triggers are. To use my own life as an example, say I'm watching a show and there's a really emotional friend/relationship scene. So that triggers my urge to daydream and you might say "well the show was the trigger." Which, accurate. But the reason why it was a trigger was because I feel lonely in real life and watching scenes like that brings up a lot of unpleasant feelings, so I want to daydream to get rid of them.
You can also identify your reasons for daydreaming by looking at the content of your daydreams. Taking my example from above, a lot of my daydreams revolve around having close interpersonal relationships. So I can logically conclude that one of the reasons why I'm daydreaming is because I'm lonely and feel disconnected from other people in real life. From there, I could take steps to address that, like talking to friends more often, so that I don't feel as lonely in real life and thus don't have quite as strong of an urge to daydream.
Hero daydreams, which you mentioned, are pretty common even in non-MDers. Everyone wants to feel like a hero. But if you look at it closely, you might find that you want to feel like a hero because you feel powerless in real life. As I said, once you know your core reasons for daydreaming, its easier to do what you can to address them in real life. Once you do that, your urge to daydream should lessen.
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Post by alvi on Feb 7, 2020 2:08:41 GMT
Welcome to the forum!
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