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Post by thedolphinbaby57 on Aug 13, 2020 6:35:13 GMT
Hello there. I have a question to ask anyone who's experienced this but what do y'all do when someone catches you spacing out or pacing? Whenever I daydream there were times where my mom would catch me pacing or standing in a certain spot in my room and I wouldn't notice because I would have my earbuds in listening to music and when I turn around she's at my doorway about to ask or tell me something. When this happened I would have a little jump scare since I didn't notice her and then I feel a hot flush of embarrassment run through my body and when I was pacing/fantasizing w/o music I would hear my mom's footsteps come through the hallway and i would quickly get on my phone or pick up something to seem like I was doing something else and she wouldn't see me walking around my room in circles. My mom would see me pacing around sometimes but she never questioned it and just thought I was listening to music or "dancing". Whenever she see me do a little jump scare she'd say "Oh sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." I never told my mom about this because I feel like she would never understand or actually listen and I feel like if she said something about it then it would make me feel some type of way and not tell her. My dad on the other hand has also noticed and has said something about it. Whenever he'd see me space out he would point it out and tell me to stop. This makes a feel a certain way and the way he says it makes me not want to talk about it at all. I really don't say anything I just nod my head and go on with my day knowing I can't stop. For example, one time my dad and I went to a doughnut cafe for breakfast with his girlfriend and one of her daughters and I couldn't stop daydreaming the whole time we was there. I barley ate any of my food and my dad kept telling me to stop. It was hard for me though and I tried to concentrate but it felt like I was going crazy. When my dad and I got back home that's when he sat on the couch and looked at me and said, "You need to something about your daydreaming" and that people were looking at me and that if I don't stop people will start to think i'm crazy and all that. My dad thinks I can just stop and go back to normal but i can't it's literally uncontrollable. I think he won't understand either and just think that I'm crazy or that it's not that serious to him. Do y'all know how to cope with this and do you come up with excuses to try and brush it off? I was really curious if anyone been in the same situation as me and how you dealt with it. Thanks for reading.
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Post by aimlessb on Aug 13, 2020 15:28:59 GMT
I feel extremely embarrassed to be honest with you. I got caught by my husband just the other day, but I have also recently opened up to him about me having MD. My husband doesn't seem to think too much of it. He just told me I should try to manage it. But then again, my husband is kind of emotionless most of the time. I've had MD almost my whole life, and used to hop around a tree a lot, and I didn't play with other kids at recess, because i would be in my own little world. I would walk around the playground talking to myself.. Of course, everyone in my family notices. I was the butt of a whole lot of jokes and was quite literally known as the crazy person in the family. They don't know what MD is, but they always knew I was different from everyone else; and I was constantly ridiculed for it. Now, I live in a different state than them, so they don't know I still do those same things as an adult. Funny thing is, the older I got, the more I noticed how stupid and crazy my family actually is much more than I am. I actually have more sense. I am not bragging about that. It's pretty  since I am the baby of my family. My advice to you is just go with it despite being embarrassed. Maybe try opening up to your mom. If you don't feel you can, then just open up to us. We are always listening. I don't know how old you are, but speaking based on my experiences and as a more than likely older person (I'll be 36 next month), people are going to call you crazy regardless; and most of them are crazy themselves just in a different way. Either that, or they are stupid. So who cares what they have to say. Tell your dad that. He would have no choice but to agree, because it's absolutely true! Remember that! . |
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Post by thedolphinbaby57 on Aug 13, 2020 16:38:48 GMT
Thank you for your advice! It's hard for me to open up in general and I want to try and cope with it since I'll be starting high school this year and I know throughout high school I'll plenty of work to do and I want to try and get good grades. What you said about people calling me crazy and people being crazy themselves is very true. I guess I'll just try and manage and cope with it and do the best I can and I know that myself that I can be pretty weird at times even when I'm not daydreaming but I'll keep what you said in mind. Thanks again for responding!
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Post by Bluejay on Aug 14, 2020 10:59:44 GMT
This thread is exactly what I needed right now. Thank you so much both of you. The exact same thing happened to me just today. I was waving my hand and stuff so my sister entered and I couldn't hear because of the music. I've been in a big flush of embarrassment ever since. She hinted that she thinks I have imaginary friends, this is so embarrassing. But reading this thread makes me feel so much better, thanks for the change in perspective, I really needed that!
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Post by thedolphinbaby57 on Aug 14, 2020 20:06:50 GMT
Thanks for your response Bluejay! It's nice to know i'm not alone when it comes to this. It is embarrassing but people always do embarrassing things. I hope someday we both can get over it and that we'll not have to face any more embarrassment. I hope you're doing well and just remember that we are all here. I need somebody to talk to anyways with the way things are.
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Post by Sam on Aug 14, 2020 20:20:41 GMT
I usually try to distract them by asking them a question or something. Like if my parents catch me, I'll ask where the cats are. It's probably not subtle at all, considering I have a habit of doing that when I'm uncomfortable, but it usually redirects their attention enough that I can pretend I wasn't daydreaming.
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Post by Bluejay on Aug 15, 2020 9:06:12 GMT
Thanks for your response Bluejay! It's nice to know i'm not alone when it comes to this. It is embarrassing but people always do embarrassing things. I hope someday we both can get over it and that we'll not have to face any more embarrassment. I hope you're doing well and just remember that we are all here. I need somebody to talk to anyways with the way things are. Yes, I hope so too. I still keep  about it now and then but you're right having an embarrassing moment is just being human. But my sister laughing at me every time she looks at me doesn't help. Hope are doing well too, keep sharing! |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2020 21:21:40 GMT
Oh yes, I get caught all the time and it's always embarrassing. I always "space out" when I'm walking around and I start smiling when I daydream, and my family finds it super creepy. They mention it every time and always ask what I'm smiling about. I usually say something vague that's completely untrue like "I'm  about ___" "I was about a joke I heard earlier" and even "nothing" (as if that could ever be true). I try not to smile in public but... my coworkers probably think I'm a creep. Today I got off work (I was tired) and I threw my nametag in the garbage and forgot to punch out so I had to come back\: (I was probably smiling to myself too) A coworker watched me the whole time. Didn't comment, but it was pretty embarrassing. I try to have a sense of humor about it and laugh with everyone when they comment + make jokes, but since it's actually something I struggle with all the time... It gets exausting. |
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Post by thedolphinbaby57 on Aug 17, 2020 3:00:25 GMT
It's hard living with this disorder because you have no idea when your fantasies will take over and you "space out" and who could be watching you. It's scary to be honest. I start school this coming Tuesday and I hope that I don't space out to much that someone will see me and think I'm a psychopath. I want to try and get good grades too but I don't know for sure how this year will turn out :/ It's hard focusing too but I can manage to focus but for certain period of time. Thanks for your reply. I hope you're doing well.
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kezdoesthings
New Daydreamer
Student who has been daydreaming for as long as I can remember.
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Post by kezdoesthings on Aug 27, 2020 22:49:30 GMT
I often daydream in my mother's room cause it's bigger than mine and there is more room to move. Also, cause I guess I feel safe in my mum's room. She'll often walk in a find me in there and at this point, she's stopped questioning it but she will often use it to punish me rather than something normal like grounding me or taking my phone away. She'll just say I'm banned from her room and I'll try to keep away but sometimes I don't even know how I ended up in there. Because she comes and goes so much I've learned how to pass off my daydreaming as just dancing and whatnot. I've told about how I have MD and i think she has it to a small extent too but I don't think she really understands how severe mine is cause she'll always ask me why I'm in her room rather than realizing that's what I'm doing. Suffice is to say you are not alone in having parents who don't understand. As for going into high school, I'm in Year 12 (Junior in America) and I have managed to keep my grades up, the key is having a positive attitude towards doing schoolwork, this is easier with something you are really interested in, if you don't think about it as a chore that you can avoid then it's not as hard to pull yourself out of your head to do it. Then again often times I choose daydreaming over work but I'm getting better. Make sure to set aside times for work and times for daydreaming usually work straight afterschool while your brains still in that schoolwork mindset and that way you get it out of the way so you can spend the rest of the day daydreaming if you want to.
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Post by delv on Aug 27, 2020 23:01:43 GMT
I don't handle this in the best way tbh, but I've learned how to look present and in the moment when I'm actually not. If I'm pacing in my room while listening to music and daydreaming, I'll often make it seem like I was looking for something I had lost, or I'd just say I was trying to plan out something (make up some random thing on the spot about what order to do homework in or whatever).
For scenarios when I'm in a restaurant or whatever, my daydreams typically form around my environment and I just kinda got good at laughing when everyone else laughs and giving really vague non-answers when someone asks me a question. I got good at going in autopilot basically, so everything I say to people is chosen from the following list of responses ("I'm not certain", "possibly", "oh wo w, I don't know", "maybe") and I smile when I see other's smiling. If you do it for long enough, you can mimic others' body language and they probably won't even notice. You can blame the not eating too much on feeling sick to your stomach or just not being hungry because you ate before you went to the restaurant, or flat out say you don't really enjoy the food.
A lot of people say they are pulled out of their daydreams by real-world interactions, but more often than not my daydreams just flow around those real-world interactions to hide the fact that I'm not really paying attention to what's going on around me.
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Post by bubblegum on Sept 25, 2020 1:25:39 GMT
Oh god, here we go. I live with my parents, and I don't have a lock on my door. They never knock, ever. I have very specific triggers (so I don't quite get the part about daydreaming in public), and they are: a mirror (the bigger the better), a lot of space to pace (specially if I can walk in circles) and a closed door with privacy. So when my parents open the door, chances are my face is an inch away from the mirror and I'm talking to myself. It is so common that my parents started saying that I'm "in the portal" and they laugh, but they don't know how true it is. I get embarrassed, but it has become so normal that I don't even know what to feel.
One of my daydreams, one of the intrusive ones, is that I'm being somehow recorded as I completely go nuts daydreaming and that it will be exposed to my classmates and colleagues. It's absolutely terrifying, to have a extremely personal part of my life exposed to people I have no intimacy with. Even my parents, if somehow they knew how many hours I spend pacing around in my room while whispering to myself the same 5 scenes, I would have to move out and create a different identity.
TLDR, I feel you.
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Post by inmymind on Sept 26, 2020 2:36:08 GMT
I currently live at home (thanks for that, corona) and my parents know that I'm daydreaming, but they don't...exactly...know. When I am having an episode I usually pace around the couch in the living room for hours on end, so its hard for them not to run into me at some point. I always feel a bit embarrassed and guilty; I always feel like I should be doing something important (schoolwork or something) even though this is an everyday part of my life and has been for years, and I can't exactly, you know, stop it. If someone who doesn't know me well catches me daydreaming, or I start daydreaming when I'm out of the house, I just play it off as being zoned out. When I'm in school my go to response is that I'm 'just ' and I try to divert the conversation to a non-existent crush (if I accidentally smile while daydreaming) or something that happened (even if it didn't actually happen). This can help explain my facial expressions and will make them less confused as to why I'm 'zoned out'. I just feel embarrassed and guilty, honestly. |
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since I am the baby of my family. 
about it now and then but you're right having an embarrassing moment is just being human. But my sister laughing at me every time she looks at me doesn't help. 
about ___" "I was 
