Post by commonartichoke69 on Mar 30, 2021 3:23:48 GMT
Hello, I am 19 years old and I am a freshman psychology major finishing up my spring semester. I have just recently found out of about the term “Maladaptive Daydreaming” very recently through Tik Tok, funny enough. I was in absolute shock, for as I started looking more into after recognizing the familiarity, I realized this phenomenon is something I have been partaking in almost my entire life. I was extremely happy to finally be able to put a label on it because the experience itself always confused me as to why I would engage in it, and it was so freeing to finally be able to look into something that I’ve dealt with and finally be able to understand it for the first time ever. I hadn’t even though of it much recently though, because my MD habits have become MUCH more subtle over the years, and I can say I’m extremely happy for that. My first memories of MD take place at a very young age in my life, around 4-5 years old. I would walk around the rim of my grandmothers bathtub as I went there very often, and I would daydream about my own little movies and scenes for hours upon hours. I then moved from Florida to Pennsylvania when I was 8, where I began daydreaming while messing around on my mothers exercise ball. I then moved to the swing we had on a tree outside our house, where I would daydream and verbally speak out the quotes by inner characters that I would create. I was constantly making stories, and even from this age movies and music were my inspiration. Once I got older around middle school, I began staying in my room and would daydream while listening to music with my earbuds in and I would flip a small pillow with my hands and feet. I knew it was really strange behavior that I was very embarrassed about, so I wouldn’t have dared ever tell a soul. My parents would come into my room every once in awhile and would notice which was not only frustrating due to the fact that my daydreams were being interrupted, but also just incredibly embarrassing. They never asked me directly about my behavior, but I know they would speak of it and had agreed not to press me on the matter or speak to me about it directly. I was fine with this as I was already embarrassed being noticed, and didn’t even know how to explain what I was going through myself. I hated my ways and I hated these habits. As soon as I got home from school I wouldn’t start doing homework, or start painting, or start playing some video games. I would fantasize and daydream for hours and hours and hours. Not only did I want to stop because I thought it was strange and weird and embarrassing, but I knew how unproductive it was, and although it was pleasurable I felt as if I was wasting my life away. But it was all I wanted to do, and it was all that truly made me feel good, even if it was just for the moment. Once I got to high school my daydreaming habits started diminishing, and I was no longer flipping a pillow for hours while daydreaming. In fact I don’t use daydreaming as a means for stress relief or direct pleasure anymore. Even still, I realize how much daydreaming has truly been in my life. Even when I was just taking a shower, or taking a walk, or riding in the car, I wasn’t paying attention to the external world, but to the world of worlds inside my head. I would daydream about movies and tv shows and books I would create, as well as books and I created my own pop star. I also created a girl that I imagined I went to school with and she was very popular, pretty, smart, and funny. She was everything that I wanted to be, and I had been constructing her for years. I know that this was a projection of my obsession with perfection, and of my crippling insecurities. Although she was just in my head, she felt very real at times, and I sometimes even think about her to this day. She comes in my mind a lot actually. I don’t continue to construct her life story anymore, but sometimes I do think maybe what she could possibly be doing today. These are all extremely private things that I have kept to myself all my life, and it feels amazing to finally be able to sort of understand it and get some closure on exactly what I was going through. I have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder a little over a year ago, but I have never actually spoken to a therapist about my past daydreaming habits. I would like to though, as I still sometimes engage in the same daydreaming behaviors such as imagining myself as a youtuber and talking about story times, as well as imagining myself giving a Ted Talk type speech when I feel inspired. I would like to talk more about my experience as a maladaptive daydreamer in the future, as I really want to understand and grasp this disorder, as well as speak about it in a community of people who have dealt with similar cards. We see this as a very strange, uncomfortable and deteriorating habit, but I’ve come to find that it’s actually very beautiful to be able to find a world of emotions and stories and relationships and conflict and resolution all inside your own head. I think we must be very imaginative and creative to find enough pleasure in our own head to engage in it for hours upon end. I think we might also be able to use this disorder for some very great things, such as in-depth and intense story lines that I’m sure many people would love to hear, and using our daydreaming capabilities to think deeply into ourselves, as I believe this phenomenon requires the ability to think deeply and personally within ourselves. I would really like to speak on these things with other people, so please feel free to share your own MD story as well as your insights on it.
