Post by thekirubavictor on May 22, 2021 12:37:42 GMT
Hey there. I'm Kiruba, a 21 year old college student from Tamil Nadu, India. My MD started all the way back in 2012, when I was bullied and harassed for being socially awkward. Back then, I dreamt that I was this cool kid who was popular amongst everyone and had a ton of friends. Eventually in my 3rd year of college, I realized that this was a disorder but by then, it had done some damage in my academics, leading me to have 26 backlogs in college (only 2 standing now). Since then, I'm looking for fellow MDers who have experienced it in hopes of learning more about it as well as hopefully make new friends as well.
. My grades slipped and I stopped hanging out with friends because i’d rather be daydreaming. I used to ask my friends in around fourth- fifth grade: “do you ever ‘roleplay’ (yes I said roleplay) with yourself in your head?” And I received the same answer. No. Eventually, I just began to assume I was the only one in the world with this “thing”. One day, I was scrolling through tik tok, when I came across the #maladaptivedaydreaming hashtag. I was curious, so I researched it. The moment I saw what it was, I was like “holy crap.” That was me. Did I self diagnose? Yes. Can a doctor diagnose me? No. There isn’t an official way to diagnose someone, and when I tried explaining it to my mother, she laughed at me. I still do normal things, i’m a track and cross country runner, and I love reading and watching shows/movies. One thing I noticed is that I literally cannot read/watch something for more than 2 minutes at a time, before a continuous daydream pops in my head, using the scene/characters from that book/show/movie, and I have to physically get up and act it out. Do I hate maladaptive daydreaming. No. I used to not understand why no one had this, why I couldn’t have sleepovers, why I would cry and scream and even have panic attacks over daydreams, but now I honestly love it. I don’t care that I struggle to hang with friends, or do my schoolwork, or chores, or whatever. Maladaptive daydreaming has just become a unique part of who I am, and honestly, I don’t think I could live without it. How do people listen to music without daydreaming a plot that flows with every word of the song? How do they have sleepovers without wanting to hide in the restroom so your friends can’t see you making all those stupid facial expressions and movements? I just can’t see it. Anyways, so yeah, that’s me 
this is probably the first and last time i’ll be on here, because everyones like 20-30. So peace out, and remember what maladaptive daydreaming was like when you were my age. 
really, it feels more like a protective mechanism and I think that when I’m triggered by fears of being socially rejected/bullied again, then my daydreams really get more frequent. Caffeine seems to also stimulate it. I love learning that there are other people that struggle with this too