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Post by spaz119 on Feb 10, 2020 15:31:22 GMT
Hey, all I read is how MD is something to overcome. I’ve done it my whole life and while it has made me and frustrated , right now, I’m almost 53 and realize this is pretty much “it”. Used MD to cope with life until “Someday”. Just like everyone else. But I’ve never been unable to carry on with real life. I went to school, held a job, and I have friends and a boyfriend. But you know what? Why not daydream? Real life sucks so bad. I used to feel MD was harming me but lately I’ve decided to enjoy it. I’m not expecting it to become real but it does make me feel better. Now that I’ve put in perspective that is. I don’t let it become anything but an escape to make me feel better. Anyone else feel this way?
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Post by Sam on Feb 10, 2020 17:43:35 GMT
Everyone feels slightly differently about MD.
Out of curiosity, what part of your daydreaming are you considering to be maladaptive? Because daydreaming itself, even daydreaming as a coping mechanism, isn't necessarily bad. It generally falls into the maladaptive category when it interferes with your life.
As someone else who uses MD as a coping mechanism, I can understand how you're feeling. The real question is "are you getting what you want out of life?" If you feel like you aren't, daydreaming can be a welcome escape from that. But it can also prevent you from taking any steps to improve your satisfaction with your real life, which is why a lot of us want to overcome it, even if it helps us cope.
Its good that you're able to enjoy it. A lot of us have lost that ability.
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Post by spaz119 on Feb 10, 2020 21:21:20 GMT
Well, I feel that I’ve daydreamed my whole life. Constantly. Whatever was going on around me had a separate fantasy running along side of it. I think I feel it was MD because it kept me from accepting the reality of my situation. That, and it used to make me so that it wasn’t real. Now there is no chance I will ever be the person I imagined future self to be. I am who I am. I truly think excessive daydreaming has made life bearable . If I knew then what I know now, I don’t know how I would have gone on; Knowing this is where I’d end up. I think what’s made me think of this stuff is I found some old diaries. You know, the kind from 30 + years ago when there was still hope. . Am I getting what I want out of life? I guess. I’m functioning. I hate that I believed in a future that could never be. When I look in the mirror, I can’t believe what I see. Damn the years went by. I feel I became what I could only become. But accepting it...at least with daydreaming I can escape. . Maybe I don’t have MD. But I think it did keep me from taking more chances in life. It helped me stay the course because there was always “Someday”. Now I know there’s not but I have to do something to get me through the day.
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Post by wenderphul26 on Feb 10, 2020 22:59:42 GMT
I've done it since I was in high school off and on. I've gone periods where I haven't daydreamed. Usually, when I'm super busy, I don't daydream. In retrospect, I've used it as a coping mechanism, too. I think there are worse things I could turn to cope. I too sometimes enjoy it. Yes, I realize it's not reality. Sometimes, I wish I didn't do it. I try hard to focus and not go off on a daydream especially during the day. I try to reserve my daydreaming to night time. But, sometimes, it can keep me up so I've tried to limit that too as much as I can. Personally, I want to overcome it. But, it is hard as I've done for it a very long time.
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Post by kondiao on Feb 17, 2020 7:40:10 GMT
! This comes almost as a shock to me: it seems almost sacreligious. It seems sort of like at the many AA meetings I used to go to - if someone had stood up and said, "I have been a drunk all my life and I ain't worried about giving up out-of-control drinking. Maybe I will just continue on as I have been doing..." I don't have an answer for you. I am ashamed of my MaDD affliction and I would wipe it out of my life now and forever if I could. But if it doesn't trouble you then who is to say you should stop.? I would give my Disorder to you if I could - if you could handle a double-dose of it. I was at your age almost 20 years ago and I was ready to start on a new life path then. Having gone through a hell of a lot of therapy at the VA and gotten some training for a new career and means to make a living, on top of my diagnosis of PTsD I felt then that I was going to make it in life, finally. As for DDing, I thought then that I was the only one in the world and no one wanted to know about my problem; and I assumed this behavior would just fade out as I went on making correct decisions and achievements and getting my life together. And now, after more dreams that did not come true, I am ready again to believe that I can make it; deal with a couple life-ending medical conditions and sprint to the finish line; and drop the DDing along the way because there is no time for such nonsense. But your Post made me stop and think: Why not just go on coasting to the end? Why bother to stress about it? Yet I cannot accept the shame that goes with having to explain to people why I did not get some things done; what have I been doing - this afternoon, the past weekend, the past 20 years and previous 50 years..... or getting busted while Stimming. People could accept it if I were to say I got drunk or wasted all that time stoned on something but they cannot grasp out-of-control DDing. And I cannot make peace with it. BTW, I hope I have not offended you. I did not mean to. These were just the thoughts that came to my mind after reading your Post.
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z
New Daydreamer
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Post by z on Feb 20, 2020 7:48:00 GMT
I don't think MD is all that bad for the people who do it, but I do feel like in my situation it is bad for my family. It takes me away from them a lot of the time. I sometimes get so frustrated with my husband that I would rather dream about by MD lover who gives me what I want and understands me. I laugh when I think about telling my husband I daydream and play it out not only in my mind but sometimes out loud talking like it's real. He would look at me like I had two heads. I do wish sometimes I could stop doing this but I also enjoy it! I feel like sometimes it keeps me from going over the deep end. Life can suck but after I MD everything feels better. Just knowing that I am not the only one who does this is a relief. I think we would all make great actors/actresses.:>
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Post by formerlee on Feb 26, 2020 21:11:15 GMT
I have learned to accept my MADD as a coping mechanism for my depression and anxiety. But I have discovered that my 13 yo son is doing it and now I’m wondering what, if anything, I should do to help him? Is it ok for me but bad for him? This is not something I can talk about to my husband. I have only told one person (who I’m no longer in contact with) about my MADD. I only discovered it had a name last year. I started before age 8 and I’m 50 now. Thoughts on my son? Thanks
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Post by Sam on Feb 26, 2020 21:16:02 GMT
I have learned to accept my MADD as a coping mechanism for my depression and anxiety. But I have discovered that my 13 yo son is doing it and now I’m wondering what, if anything, I should do to help him? Is it ok for me but bad for him? This is not something I can talk about to my husband. I have only told one person (who I’m no longer in contact with) about my MADD. I only discovered it had a name last year. I started before age 8 and I’m 50 now. Thoughts on my son? Thanks You already know that you, personally, use MD as a coping mechanism. That's true for a lot of us here. So I would imagine it might be true for your son as well. If you don't feel comfortable talking about MD specifically, maybe you could try to figure out why he's daydreaming maladaptively and address that instead.
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Post by eurekaisgone on Mar 8, 2020 11:17:53 GMT
I've done it since I was in high school off and on. I've gone periods where I haven't daydreamed. Usually, when I'm super busy, I don't daydream. In retrospect, I've used it as a coping mechanism, too. I think there are worse things I could turn to cope. I too sometimes enjoy it. Yes, I realize it's not reality. Sometimes, I wish I didn't do it. I try hard to focus and not go off on a daydream especially during the day. I try to reserve my daydreaming to night time. But, sometimes, it can keep me up so I've tried to limit that too as much as I can. Personally, I want to overcome it. But, it is hard as I've done for it a very long time.
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Post by eurekaisgone on Mar 8, 2020 11:22:00 GMT
I've done it since I was in high school off and on. I've gone periods where I haven't daydreamed. Usually, when I'm super busy, I don't daydream. In retrospect, I've used it as a coping mechanism, too. I think there are worse things I could turn to cope. I too sometimes enjoy it. Yes, I realize it's not reality. Sometimes, I wish I didn't do it. I try hard to focus and not go off on a daydream especially during the day. I try to reserve my daydreaming to night time. But, sometimes, it can keep me up so I've tried to limit that too as much as I can. Personally, I want to overcome it. But, it is hard as I've done for it a very long time. Hey, I've been feeling the same thing. I mean I'm too young and too scared that I found out this is a disorder. This might affect my future because I daydreamed too much. Like if I don't have anything to do. I just daydream the whole day. I feel bad for being unproductive but I can't stop it. It feels like an addiction and I can't let go the characters that is inside mt head. It's like they are my life and my coping mechanism if reality sometime seems so bad to me. I want to change. I don't want this. Please help me. Because I'm trying my best to prevent daydreaming by being productive. But sometimes I reall cant help it. I hope someone would see this :<
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Post by Sam on Mar 8, 2020 22:42:07 GMT
Hey, I've been feeling the same thing. I mean I'm too young and too scared that I found out this is a disorder. This might affect my future because I daydreamed too much. Like if I don't have anything to do. I just daydream the whole day. I feel bad for being unproductive but I can't stop it. It feels like an addiction and I can't let go the characters that is inside mt head. It's like they are my life and my coping mechanism if reality sometime seems so bad to me. I want to change. I don't want this. Please help me. Because I'm trying my best to prevent daydreaming by being productive. But sometimes I reall cant help it. I hope someone would see this :< If you're using MD as a coping mechanism, one of the best things you can do to reduce your time daydreaming is to cultivate other, healthier coping skills to use instead. Some common ones are exercise, meditation, and journaling. If you have other coping skills that you can rely on when times are tough, its easier to resist the urge to daydream.
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Post by kondiao on Mar 21, 2020 18:14:08 GMT
To me my experience with MaDD, in the year or so since I found that it had a name and that there were other people with this mental disease I have gone from a determination and hope of overcoming it so as to get to the life I could have, miserable failure that it may be, gone from that positive attitude to absolute despair again. I have given life "one more chance" to start being right too many times. I wish now I had killed myself any of the times that I was close to doing so. I think the better plan was to have just gone on in Slab City, back in the early years of this century, in the desert in California where some of the other homeless losers were simply drinking themselves to death. I had gotten sober at AA before I discovered this abandoned dump inhabited by burned out veterans and squatters, drifted in, along with adventurous travellers through life. There I knew some who drank until the liver gave out or they fell into a fire or got shot by accomodating cops. Nothing that has happened since I left there has been worth the suffering and disappointments. Tonight, I have been lying in bed convulsed with acting out strangling people who have disrespected me, rejected me, disregarded my wishes, made decisions for me to run my life. I am old and life has passed me by and I am looking at senility and feebleness and worse disrespect at the VA hospitals, if I can make it out of SE Asia to the States, through the belligerent airport wannabee police to get to my country that has turned itself into a bad science-fiction movie. I thought there was a chance I could have some peace in my last natural years but it looks like I am going to be acting like Walter Mitty until the end. And I can't stand it. There is a theory that it was child abuse that caused us to escape into DDing to feel better about a fantasy life from the real miserable life we were in. I feel that it was the rejection that was put on me; the attitude that I don't matter, that no one gives a damn about my opinions and ideas and expressions and my existence was tolerated as long as I did not make too much noise... as a kid, being quiet, not asking for anything, working for a pittance though I was too young for the jobs I had, doing time, waiting to be big so I could be free to live and show the world I was something, sure that the day-dreaming thing, to escape from the awful world I was in would just go away when I became the success, like Walter Mitty in the movie did. Being told I was worthless and unwanted and unsupported - that was what made me get irrevocably lost in the dream world. Now I am afraid I really will never write my book or even be able to get a cup of coffee without being given a hard time by sullen waiters resenting my presence. Under house arrest in this country and looking forward to being under lockdown martial law in the U.S. and maybe get sick with the Plague and no doubt I will be told at the VA that I am too unimportant to receive treatment. And I cannot even get my mind under control enough now to get to sleep without drifting naturally into violent fantasies about f'ing people up. All the Mindfulness and meditating and affirmations and about the successes in my history - none of these efforts have made the changes inside my brain where the patterns are so engrained (maybe ) that I naturally go into dreaming about scenarios where I come out on top or at least get to hurt people who will not respect me . I will not become competent and confident enough to make it through the day's routine things that normal people do. That is the way it seems tonight. Make plans and set goals and start new efforts with enthusiasm ....and then ? it seems I just trudge on only because I don't have the energy or courage any more to put it to an end. A lot of people are in that space. But I have this shameful MaDD thing too and I can't stand it that I am so out of it. Another sleepless night so I will have another day of stupid and forgetfulness and being lost in space. Sorry if I bring anyone down by writing this.
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Post by hafss on May 19, 2020 6:27:14 GMT
Everyone feels slightly differently about MD. Out of curiosity, what part of your daydreaming are you considering to be maladaptive? Because daydreaming itself, even daydreaming as a coping mechanism, isn't necessarily bad. It generally falls into the maladaptive category when it interferes with your life. As someone else who uses MD as a coping mechanism, I can understand how you're feeling. The real question is "are you getting what you want out of life?" If you feel like you aren't, daydreaming can be a welcome escape from that. But it can also prevent you from taking any steps to improve your satisfaction with your real life, which is why a lot of us want to overcome it, even if it helps us cope. Its good that you're able to enjoy it. A lot of us have lost that ability. I have learned to accept my MADD as a coping mechanism for my depression and anxiety. But I have discovered that my 13 yo son is doing it and now I’m wondering what, if anything, I should do to help him? Is it ok for me but bad for him? This is not something I can talk about to my husband. I have only told one person (who I’m no longer in contact with) about my MADD. I only discovered it had a name last year. I started before age 8 and I’m 50 now. Thoughts on my son? Thanks You already know that you, personally, use MD as a coping mechanism. That's true for a lot of us here. So I would imagine it might be true for your son as well. If you don't feel comfortable talking about MD specifically, maybe you could try to figure out why he's daydreaming maladaptively and address that instead.
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Post by hafss on May 19, 2020 6:32:47 GMT
I think it is related to anxiety disorders and depression
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Post by Sam on May 19, 2020 18:13:26 GMT
I think it is related to anxiety disorders and depression It can be. We frequently use it as a coping mechanism for other mental health issues.
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