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Post by lillyred on Jan 22, 2019 13:53:21 GMT
Hi there. I'm in my thirties and live in the UK. It feels a bit odd to have only heard the term Maladaptive Daydreaming today considering the amount of time I have spent exploring my mental health stuff. I came across the term completely by accident on another forum and though I'm not so sure I am a big fan of the word Maladaptive in general (on the basis that in many ways it has been a very helpful adaption that allowed me to survive a lot of bad stuff) there is no denying that this is the best description I have ever found of what I do. Previously I have always put it under a general dissociative heading linked to derealisation and depersonalisation which I also experience.
I grew up in a traumatic household as a child and made a conscious effort to retreat into my daydreams or stories in order to escape that trauma. For many years (well over a decade) I maintained a single continuing narrative that I could trace back, but now it tends to be shorter narratives. In the past, I would often feel like I existed in two worlds and the daydream ran pretty much constantly with greater or lesser intensity. These days it is much more controlled though I still have bouts when it becomes overwhelming. Last week I had three days when it really took over and I pretty much stopped functioning, going into a sort of hibernation as I fell into the daydream. For one of those days, I could barely make it out of bed or off the sofa, not sleeping, just dreaming. This has been the worst I've had for a while now and I think it was a sign of me just being overwhelmed by other life stuff and needing some time out. I'm feeling much better now, though it's still there niggling at me.
I also have a fair amount of other MH stuff going on, but I've always felt the dreams came first and a lot of my other stuff comes out of this if that makes sense.
Anyway, that's the brief summary. See you around folks.
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Post by Dimmer on Jan 22, 2019 14:34:20 GMT
If it's any consolation the researchers seem to think the title "Maladaptive Daydreaming" is lame too XD. That name comes from the very first paper, before they knew anything about it, by the time they looked into it more the community and media had latched onto MD. Now-a-days it's officially termed "Daydreaming Disorder" (which I kinda don't like any better because 'daydream' is the word that annoys me rather than 'maladaptive'... just sounds so wishy washy and whimsical), though they did keep the MD part in parenthesis.. so... "Daydreaming Disorder (MD)" is the full name.
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Post by alvi on Jan 22, 2019 15:53:51 GMT
Hi Lillyred, welcome to the forum. I am also in my 30's and in the UK. I can completely relate to having days/weeks when my dd becomes overwhelming. I tend to go into auto pilot, doing the bare minimise in the real world and just curling up in a ball under a blanket to dd and escape from my real life.
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Post by Sam on Jan 22, 2019 18:27:17 GMT
Welcome to the forum. You're right that the daydreaming tends to act up when we feel we need an escape from real life circumstances. Whatever your opinion on the daydreaming is, I hope you find whatever support you're looking for here.
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Post by lillyred on Jan 23, 2019 8:40:16 GMT
Now-a-days it's officially termed "Daydreaming Disorder" (which I kinda don't like any better because 'daydream' is the word that annoys me rather than 'maladaptive'... just sounds so wishy washy and whimsical), though they did keep the MD part in parenthesis.. so... "Daydreaming Disorder (MD)" is the full name. Thanks for the welcome. It's interesting you say you don't like the term daydreaming because I admit in all the years I have done this I have thought of a lot of ways to describe it and the word daydreaming never even popped into my mind. I think that's way I hadn't heard the term before and realised there are other people out there who do it as well. To me daydreaming always seemed more like a general staring out the window having a nice imagination session about stuff, which I also like to do. The MD experience is far more intense and immersive. More like being split between two distinct lives and words than just having a bit of a daydream. I think it's hard to explain to someone who doesn't do it I guess.
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Post by lillyred on Jan 23, 2019 8:43:29 GMT
Hi Lillyred, welcome to the forum. I am also in my 30's and in the UK. I can completely relate to having days/weeks when my dd becomes overwhelming. I tend to go into auto pilot, doing the bare minimise in the real world and just curling up in a ball under a blanket to dd and escape from my real life. Hello! Lovely to have another Brit about. Yes, on autopilot is exactly right. Sometimes I am impressed at what I can do when my head is somewhere else completely.
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Post by Dimmer on Jan 23, 2019 22:50:25 GMT
Welcome, lillyred ! Like you, I dislike the word maladaptive. Like Dimmer I dislike the word daydream. I also dislike the word fantasy. To me, "daydream" seems to be something kid-like. It makes me think of simple-minded, airy-fairy-type of behaviour as if someone is in la-la land and happy to be there because they don't have the strength or intelligence to handle real-world issues. The word "fantasy" is at the other end of the spectrum to me, as I think "sexual fantasies" seemed to have hi-jacked the word. So any time someone says, "I fantasize about..." even before they finished their sentence, a lot of people will already get their dirty minds working. I usually say that I have a "session". Such as, I'll have a session in the car. I'll have a session in the shower. I'll have a session before I go to sleep. Yeah, lol, nothing really seems to capture the experience. I think maybe Dissociative Absorption is the best descriptor... but it doesn't lend it's self to personal labels well like MD does. I'm an EmDeeEr... I'm a DeeAyEr. She's a Maladaptive Daydreamer... he's a Dissociative.... Absorpterer?? Fuck, man, I take it back, who wouldn't want to be an Absorpterer?!
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Post by piphirho on Jan 23, 2019 23:40:04 GMT
I sometimes use the word "reverie", although that is not entirely accurate, either, as that implies a pleasant, happy daydream and let's face it, not all of our daydreams meet that description. "Fantasy" is a bit more accurate, if not the best term, either. I agree, I am not fond of the term "maladaptive daydreaming", either, but it will do until a better name comes along.
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Post by lillyred on Jan 24, 2019 21:20:56 GMT
I know what you mean by dissociative, Dim, but my first thought is how many people would just assume we have a mental disorder, that it's in line with dissociative identity disorder. Nothing seems to suit me as far as the MD part goes, and I don't remember ever saying that "I'm a(n) MD-er." Perhaps addiction is more or less what it is. Fantasy Addiction (ugh), or Daydream Addiction (ugh). Whatever the case, I'm addicted to it, I can't stop, and it has cost me time and money and has ruined some relationships I've had with friends, family, and romantic partners in the past because I've chosen the addiction over doing something productive. I'm sort of the opposite. I also experience derealisation and depersonalisation which both come under the general heading of dissociation and I do see my other world as in the same ballpark. When the real world gets too much my brain just prefers to switch it off and pop me somewhere else until things have calmed down a bit. It's a protective strategy. I don't think of it as an addiction any more than I think of my derealisation is an addiction or see the compulsions people experience who have OCD are addictions. Though now I think about it where does addiction end and mental illness start? On the whole, I am not a huge fan of diagnosis anyway as really it's all a bit vague and subjective. No diagnosis can capture the truth of experience and why we do or feel what we do or feel. I put off getting any sort of diagnosis for my MH stuff until I really was given no choice in the matter, for this reason, that and the stigma associated with them.
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Post by Sam on Jan 25, 2019 3:39:52 GMT
Personally, I don't have much of a problem with the term maladaptive daydreaming, since, at least for me, that's a fairly accurate description. Perhaps its because I'm younger than a lot of the other people on this forum, so the kid-like quality that's attached to the term "daydreaming" doesn't bother me as much.
However, maybe the term "obsessive fantasizing/daydreaming/other-word-used-to-describe-the-experience" would be more accurate. I have OCD and the obsession (thinking about daydreaming)-compulsion (daydreaming) cycle that I notice is very similar to the obsession-compulsion cycle that I experience with my OCD. Therefore, maybe "obsessive" is a better descriptor than "maladaptive."
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