melody
New Daydreamer
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Post by melody on Oct 24, 2019 19:03:46 GMT
Hello! My name is Melody. I'm a 14 year old female, diagnosed with ADHD, and I think that I have MD.
So... Where to begin?
First off, I don't have the... traditional MD that we usually see with maladaptive daydreamers. There's people who daydream about themselves as an idealized version of themselves, daydreams about an entire fictional world with characters, plot, setting, etc, and there's even daydreams about real-life people. But I don't have any of that. It's actually why I was so hesitant to self-diagnose or label myself with the condition before now.
Frankly, it feels rather embarrassing to admit, but you know what? We're all MD'ers here, so I doubt there's any judgement. Besides, online anonymity does wonders for my confidence in admitting things, thank god.
My daydreams are usually of high-emotion impact scenes, always with fictional characters from media, such as movies, books, etc. There's no plot. There's no story. There's not a beginning or an end to the daydream - it's always the climax, the point with the most emotion, but there's never any real... "closure" to how things end, and that's how I've always preferred it, too. Because I don't think I really daydream for the characters or the story -- I think that I daydream for the emotions in them; I'm not ignorant to the fact that I always feel good whenever I daydream, which makes me inclined to consider it more of an addiction than a habit, imo.
And it's also this that made me think that, "Hey, maybe I don't really have MD, after all?"
But you know...
ADHD actually made me re-think this position later on.
'Cause with ADHD, it's not necessarily the symptoms themselves that are problematic. By themselves, forgetting things, procrastination, etc, are things everyone deals with sometimes (which is why ADHD gets a ridiculous stigma of being "not real" but that's a whole 'nother rant). But here's the thing: when the symptoms chronically and persistently interfere with the person's daily life, that's when we call it a problem.
And so I thought to myself, "Couldn't that be the same for MD?"
I didn't showcase the stereotypical daydreams, yes.
But I do showcase...
"- difficulty completing everyday tasks - an overwhelming desire to continue daydreaming - performing repetitive movements while daydreaming - making facial expressions while daydreaming - whispering and talking while daydreaming - daydreaming for lengthy periods (many minutes to hours)"
I'm 99.9% certain that I spent at least four hours a day doing this.
And that's a lot of time to wasting away like this, and certainly isn't neurotypical behavior.
That lovely realization is what brought me here to you guys.
Frankly, I don't really know what I'm doing, and I can't be 100% sure that I have MD, but regardless of whatever I'm struggling with, I've decided that I don't really want to live the rest of my life like this.
I plan to go into the mental health field, either as a clinical psychologist or a psychiatrist, and both are gonna take a ridiculous amount of time and effort that I will not be able to manage unless I get a grip on this.
... So, yeah! That's my story. Thanks for reading it, haha.
I hope to get along with you guys. It's a pleasure to be here!
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Post by bee on Oct 24, 2019 19:33:50 GMT
Hey Melody,
welcome to the forum, it's a pleasure to have you here.
I sometimes dream only the climax of a story, but the story is always embedded in a fictional world, so it's different from what you describe. As far as I understand it, you seem to go only for the essence of one aspect of md (as I see it), the "high-impact" - emotions.
Fascinating, haven't heard of that kind of md until now. I hope you post more about it.
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melody
New Daydreamer
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Post by melody on Oct 24, 2019 19:48:18 GMT
bee Hey, Bee! Yeah, it is pretty interesting, isn't it? I haven't actually read about anyone with MD having this particular form of it, either. In general, I find MD rather fascinating. Everyone has different forms of it, after all, and the cause behind them can vary a lot. It's unfortunate there hasn't been more research done into the condition yet. I actually was similar - regarding the "high-impact" emotions bit. I haven't really delved a lot into it, though. I can think of different possibilities behind why, but I haven't really narrowed down the exact reason behind my MD'ing just yet. The fact that it seems to revolve around high-impact emotions seems like a big hint, but I haven't gotten it fully figured out just yet. My MD just... confuses me, honestly, .
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Post by Herro on Oct 24, 2019 21:20:15 GMT
Hi Melody, welcome!
I'm not quite sure if I get this right, but most of my daydreams seem to revolve around emotional scenes that are not part of a bigger story or a plot. Indeed I doubt if there ever was plot on my head. I usually jump through short emotional scence that focus on me and one or two other characters, with a peak point where I get to experience "that one emotion I'm dying to feel".
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Post by alvi on Oct 25, 2019 0:42:22 GMT
Welcome to the forum Melody.
I think all MDers are different, some need a full plot, some base everything on reality and others use fiction and its pretty common for people to daydream the most emotion inducing scene repetitively but I think you may be the first person I've met that doesn't need a bit of a back story or build up to these parts.
For me as well as having a few ongoing story-lines I also tend to replay the same scenes over and over again until they don't have the same impact on me before moving on to something else. I think its because I struggle with emotions in the real world and don't always feel very deeply and this form of daydreaming seems to be the only way I can experience these feelings.
There are certain sub-types of ADD that have 'prone to daydreaming' as a symptom, I think the main one is called Sluggish cognitive Tempo but it wouldn't surprise me if other types don't also have this as a symptom. I think I did a post on the 7 types somewhere and daydreaming as a behaviour falls into the inactive types of ADD.
With the things you listed it definitely sounds like your daydreaming goes into the category of maladaptive daydreaming especially as its for long lengths of time and because you also have stimming behaviours when you are daydreaming.
Looking forward to seeing ore of your posts and hearing about your daydreams.
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melody
New Daydreamer
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Post by melody on Oct 25, 2019 8:25:11 GMT
Hey, Herro! I see! That's pretty interesting... It reminds me of this article I read a while back, "Detachment isn’t a product of what we call MD. Numbness was already there – and MD was your way of dealing with it. You wound up numb and emotionally disconnected from reality because you became emotionally disconnected from yourself and MD was merely a response to this. Do you notice that the moment you switch the point of view from yourself to your daydream characters [or idealized you] and use them as receptors instead, you can instantly feel? Or rather, they can feel and you can feel through them. In other words, you are physiologically able to feel." I wonder if it's similar for the majority of others, too? (Here's the source, in case you're curious to read more: maladaptivedaydreamingguide.wordpress.com/2018/01/02/can-fantasies-ever-become-real/). Greetings, alvi! I suppose I feel it worth mentioning that it isn't like... there's no backstory whatsoever or anything? Because I usually just use already pre-existing characters from media, who already have a backstory with their own in-built struggles. I essentially just build off that to create the "high-impact" scenes that I mentioned previously. Honestly, it does make me really wonder if there's a link between MD'ing and emotional detachment/lack of emotional expression. Or perhaps it's a potential precursor to developing MD in the future? Idk for sure, though. To be honest, I've always struggled with feeling deeply, too - it has more to do with struggling with negative emotions than positive, though. I tend to... not really feel negative emotions properly; I don't really know how to properly express that type of thing, so the negative emotions tend to leak in other ways instead, unfortunately. I have actually never heard of sluggish cognitive tempo before! Smh, I did all this research into ADHD, and yet I never came upon the term -- I'll definitely look it up when I get the chance to; it seems interesting. I believe I'm diagnosed with the Combined Type? As in, both hyperactivity and inattention symptoms. Which is semi-funny to think about, considering daydreaming could be considered a presentation of my inattention symptoms, while the actual stimming during daydreaming could be derived from the hyperactivity, kek. But yeah! Thank you both for responding- I appreciate hearing everyone's thoughts, haha.
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