Post by pandora94 on Sept 26, 2020 21:50:58 GMT
Hi everyone,
I'm new to the forum and English is not my first language, but hopefully you can understand my post I just want to vent and wonder about something I've been about ever since I found out MD is an actual condition.
The thing is, my life's a mess. Not in any big, traumatic way... just in a way it's always been. There's a lot of talk about mental health, especially now during and after the pandemic lockdowns, and I kind of realized I never had a healthy mind. Sure I could manage enough to do the "regular" things: go through school, graduate college and move out to my own apartment (I guess this would make me even quite high-functioning), but in my head I've always struggled with excessive fear and anxiety. Like the hyperawareness often connected to PTSD: I have no trauma, but I'm always completely and painfully aware of my surroundings and terrified even if absolutely nothing weird is happening (been that way since I was like 5-years-old according to my Mom). Either that, or my completely in my head daydreaming and notice nothing. I've lived between these two extremes since I can remember. As a teenager I had therapy for panic disorder, which helped a lot with the eeling of constant danger everywhere. Lately it's gotten worse again. Between the pandemic and too few hours in my part time job, I have too much time to worry. I actually manage better when I'm busy.
Anyway, sorry for rambling. Now to my point: I've always been an excessive daydreamer. As a kid terrified of anything and everything, I was often just sitting at home very bored and daydreaming hours on end. I would just listen to music and rock back and forth completely in my own world. Without my Mom reminding me to go, I would have missed school more than been present simply because I lost track of time daydreaming even in the mornings. So, at that point in my life my dreaming was definitely messing with my day-to-day functioning. Middle school went like that, high school pretty much the same. I always enjoyed the academics, but never was too socially gifted. Interestingly enough, I was never socially ANXIOUS either (making a fool out of myself was pretty much the only thing I didn't worry about), just didn't care about the other kids. Between my family and school work I had enough to do. Freetime was for daydreaming: what did I need friends for?
At 18, I moved to an apartment in a bigger city and started college (my country doesn't have dorm housing like the US). My college years were the best I ever had: after 4 years of therapy during high school I almost seemed like a person. I found actual real-people friends, started new hobbies in improv theater and swimming. For those 6 years, I was actually mostly happy. Daydreaming was something I did sometimes as a treat (a bit like eating chocolate or drinking wine) and there was nothing obsessive or excessive about it then. A year ago I graduated, didn't find a job right away and everything came crashing down. For 6 months I was unemployed and again ALL I cared about was daydreaming... Now here's where I'm confused... Daydreaming is MD, when it disturbs your everyday life... but if you have no life to lead, that it would interrupt, is it anything bad? Or is just a brain trying to stay sane in the middle of endless days? There are certainly times that I've felt that daydreaming is the only fun/interesting thing I had. Even to the point that when I first read about MD, I was personally insulted: "How dare someone take the only thing that kept me sane and entertained in parts of my life and turn it into something half-way pathological?" Anyway, pretty soon I noticed that that is probably how alcoholics think about drinking and gamblers about gambling, so that might not be the healthiest way to think about my "harmless little hobby".
Sometimes I'm completely in my head and that can be anything from 5 minutes to 5 hours. But I've never lost reality so completely that I would have been in danger: even if I'm daydreaming while walking somewhere I still manage to register cars and other pedestrians enough to not to run physically into anyone etc. Whatever work I've had I've always managed to complete (and often been praised for it in my part time job and in the past at school too). I guess what I'm trying to ask is: What was the point for YOU at which you started "maybe this is maladaptive?" Because right now I'm : I daydream A LOT, but mostly there is not much real life going on it would interrupt or disturb. I do see this a bit like an addiction and part me wants to try to lessen it, but then I would have absolutely nothing to do with the time I daydream now. Plus every book I read and show I watch just seems to feed right into my daydreams lately, so they don't seem to work as a distraction.
Sorry about this monster of a message. I just needed to tell someone what I'm , because right now I'm not doing well. At all.
I'm new to the forum and English is not my first language, but hopefully you can understand my post I just want to vent and wonder about something I've been about ever since I found out MD is an actual condition.
The thing is, my life's a mess. Not in any big, traumatic way... just in a way it's always been. There's a lot of talk about mental health, especially now during and after the pandemic lockdowns, and I kind of realized I never had a healthy mind. Sure I could manage enough to do the "regular" things: go through school, graduate college and move out to my own apartment (I guess this would make me even quite high-functioning), but in my head I've always struggled with excessive fear and anxiety. Like the hyperawareness often connected to PTSD: I have no trauma, but I'm always completely and painfully aware of my surroundings and terrified even if absolutely nothing weird is happening (been that way since I was like 5-years-old according to my Mom). Either that, or my completely in my head daydreaming and notice nothing. I've lived between these two extremes since I can remember. As a teenager I had therapy for panic disorder, which helped a lot with the eeling of constant danger everywhere. Lately it's gotten worse again. Between the pandemic and too few hours in my part time job, I have too much time to worry. I actually manage better when I'm busy.
Anyway, sorry for rambling. Now to my point: I've always been an excessive daydreamer. As a kid terrified of anything and everything, I was often just sitting at home very bored and daydreaming hours on end. I would just listen to music and rock back and forth completely in my own world. Without my Mom reminding me to go, I would have missed school more than been present simply because I lost track of time daydreaming even in the mornings. So, at that point in my life my dreaming was definitely messing with my day-to-day functioning. Middle school went like that, high school pretty much the same. I always enjoyed the academics, but never was too socially gifted. Interestingly enough, I was never socially ANXIOUS either (making a fool out of myself was pretty much the only thing I didn't worry about), just didn't care about the other kids. Between my family and school work I had enough to do. Freetime was for daydreaming: what did I need friends for?
At 18, I moved to an apartment in a bigger city and started college (my country doesn't have dorm housing like the US). My college years were the best I ever had: after 4 years of therapy during high school I almost seemed like a person. I found actual real-people friends, started new hobbies in improv theater and swimming. For those 6 years, I was actually mostly happy. Daydreaming was something I did sometimes as a treat (a bit like eating chocolate or drinking wine) and there was nothing obsessive or excessive about it then. A year ago I graduated, didn't find a job right away and everything came crashing down. For 6 months I was unemployed and again ALL I cared about was daydreaming... Now here's where I'm confused... Daydreaming is MD, when it disturbs your everyday life... but if you have no life to lead, that it would interrupt, is it anything bad? Or is just a brain trying to stay sane in the middle of endless days? There are certainly times that I've felt that daydreaming is the only fun/interesting thing I had. Even to the point that when I first read about MD, I was personally insulted: "How dare someone take the only thing that kept me sane and entertained in parts of my life and turn it into something half-way pathological?" Anyway, pretty soon I noticed that that is probably how alcoholics think about drinking and gamblers about gambling, so that might not be the healthiest way to think about my "harmless little hobby".
Sometimes I'm completely in my head and that can be anything from 5 minutes to 5 hours. But I've never lost reality so completely that I would have been in danger: even if I'm daydreaming while walking somewhere I still manage to register cars and other pedestrians enough to not to run physically into anyone etc. Whatever work I've had I've always managed to complete (and often been praised for it in my part time job and in the past at school too). I guess what I'm trying to ask is: What was the point for YOU at which you started "maybe this is maladaptive?" Because right now I'm : I daydream A LOT, but mostly there is not much real life going on it would interrupt or disturb. I do see this a bit like an addiction and part me wants to try to lessen it, but then I would have absolutely nothing to do with the time I daydream now. Plus every book I read and show I watch just seems to feed right into my daydreams lately, so they don't seem to work as a distraction.
Sorry about this monster of a message. I just needed to tell someone what I'm , because right now I'm not doing well. At all.