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Post by ivana on Dec 14, 2019 15:09:48 GMT
Hi everyone! My name's Ivana and I'm 25 and living in the UK.
I found this forum because I am finally facing the reality the I'm never going to stop my MDDing unless I start taking tangible actions as nothing appears to be working for me.
I've become trapped in an inescapable cycle of MDDing and desperately wanting to quit as I feel like I've lost my life. I want to stop more than anything, even if my 'real' life doesn't make me happy as I'd rather be there but the extreme guilt and depression I feel about how much I've spent of my life not living makes me want to MDD more to cope with these feelings. It become a never-ending cycle.
Now it's truly become and addiction which I cannot stop no matter how hard I try. I seem to have everything in life and there is no trauma in my past that would've specifically triggered this disorder but I don't even feel like a human being. During every social interaction I am finding it increasingly difficult to be present or concentrate because I can't wait to get home and MDD (pace around my bedrooms with headphones in, in the darkness). I left my whole life and moved countries (from Australia to the UK) as I believed maybe detaching from everything and starting over would assist me in curbing this behaviour but being alone so much has only made it worse. I love the experience of it in the sense of wishing it was my true life and giving me everything I feel like I am missing in terms of who I am, or wish to be, and the people around me, but also hate it more than anything because I have literally lost my life. Nothing in my whole world is real. I've been doing this behaviour for about twenty years (I remember doing it as a child in primary school very mildly whenever something wouldn't go the way I hoped, rather than doing anything about it, I'd just imagine the way I wished it'd gone) but now it's just massively escalated. It has ravaged every part of my life from my education to work, relationships both friendship, family and romantic but nobody knows about it because I keep it to myself as I feel they in no way can wrap their minds about it.
I almost feel like I need to get treatment or the only other way I can stop feeling the guilt/anxiety/depression of my life wasted would be to completely 100% submit to the MDD life and just in reality do the minimum to cover my survival and live in isolation because in my MDD I never feel lonely at all.
I can't spend any more years of my life dreaming away my days and achieving and experiencing nothing real as a result but hating myself and becoming consumed with guilt and shame at the way I've lived my life as soon as I take a break.
I feel like perhaps being open about it with people experiencing the same thing will at least give me the sense that I am doing something real and create a disconnect between the 'fantasy me' and the 'real me' to try to bring me back to the real world at least a little.
If anyone has any strategies or tactics to help control this behaviour please help.
Because mine has been going on for so long (20 years) my actually sense of reality is becoming skewed. In my MDD land, I'm in a relationship with one of my 'characters" and the storylines I make up based on this actually start to seep into my behaviour in the 'real world' and anything that happens in the real world - I'm completely indifferent too.
The only time I seem to feel something is when I think of my mortality (for example during some heavy turbulence in a flight or something - I travel a lot) and in those moments I feel a great sense of empathy for myself as I feel like a young woman who dreamt her life away because she didn't feel like she deserved to truly live but unfortunately this is fleeting and rather than delve any deeper the MDD returns and I close my eyes and in the seats beside my are all my "friends".
I know I need to stop - I feel like I'm losing control.
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Post by Sam on Dec 15, 2019 1:23:29 GMT
Welcome to the forum, Ivana!
Your experience is very similar to a lot of others. I also don't have a specific trauma in my childhood (that I remember anyways) that would have led to MD, though I have had severe anxiety since I was very young and it definitely contributed.
I can personally say that finding this forum and being able to talk to others who experience the same things that I do is very comforting. And its definitely real.
I always recommend figuring out your triggers as a first step. Well, first after realizing that your daydreaming is out of control and you want to take back the wheel--but you've already done that. Once you figure out what triggers you, you can deal with those triggers by either avoiding them if possible or learning other coping skills to use instead of daydreaming. I can help you with that if you'd like.
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Post by alvi on Dec 16, 2019 0:52:42 GMT
Welcome to the forum.
I don't really have any major suggestions on how to help you not dd so much but I'm sure if you look around the forum there will be many different suggestions and techniques for you to try.
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Post by rocksaltbubblegum on Dec 16, 2019 20:39:09 GMT
Hello! My name is Danika and I’m 27. I just recently started researching MDD and found this forum. I’ve been daydreaming like this since I think elementary school and I always thought I just have an overactive imagination. But it has ruined my life. And yet I can’t seem to stop. It’s really bad when I watch tv/movies and I can no longer just watch them, instead I just daydream in them. I thought I was addicted to watching tv, but it’s actually the MDD.
I also deal with social anxiety and I’m finding the MDD does not help. I feel that I have lost myself; split amongst my characters. I feel like I’ve lost time because of it days, weeks, even months. When it’s really bad I can daydream a whole day away. I struggle with friendships and relationships.
And with all of this a part of me doesn’t want to give it up. But I know it’s not healthy and I need to change. I have started taking steps to keep myself more present through meditation and breathing exercises. I’m glad that I’m not alone in this and others experience the same thing!
Thank you, that’s all for now I guess 🤷♀️
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Post by ivana on Dec 17, 2019 10:28:36 GMT
Welcome to the forum, Ivana! Your experience is very similar to a lot of others. I also don't have a specific trauma in my childhood (that I remember anyways) that would have led to MD, though I have had severe anxiety since I was very young and it definitely contributed. I can personally say that finding this forum and being able to talk to others who experience the same things that I do is very comforting. And its definitely real. I always recommend figuring out your triggers as a first step. Well, first after realizing that your daydreaming is out of control and you want to take back the wheel--but you've already done that. Once you figure out what triggers you, you can deal with those triggers by either avoiding them if possible or learning other coping skills to use instead of daydreaming. I can help you with that if you'd like. Thanks so much for your reply Sam, Yes the real aspect of it is something that really attracted me because due to my daydreaming a lot of my life doesn't feel real to me. I think figuring out my triggers will be helpful but it'd also be extremely beneficial for me to work on the addictive part of my MD because sometimes I feel like I'm at a crossroads where I could DD or not and I feel compelled to do whereas other times it'll almost creep in subconsciously. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I definitely need it!
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Post by ivana on Dec 17, 2019 10:29:05 GMT
Welcome to the forum. I don't really have any major suggestions on how to help you not dd so much but I'm sure if you look around the forum there will be many different suggestions and techniques for you to try. Thanks Alvi, I will definitely scope out the site for some options!
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Post by ivana on Dec 17, 2019 10:33:06 GMT
Hello! My name is Danika and I’m 27. I just recently started researching MDD and found this forum. I’ve been daydreaming like this since I think elementary school and I always thought I just have an overactive imagination. But it has ruined my life. And yet I can’t seem to stop. It’s really bad when I watch tv/movies and I can no longer just watch them, instead I just daydream in them. I thought I was addicted to watching tv, but it’s actually the MDD. I also deal with social anxiety and I’m finding the MDD does not help. I feel that I have lost myself; split amongst my characters. I feel like I’ve lost time because of it days, weeks, even months. When it’s really bad I can daydream a whole day away. I struggle with friendships and relationships. And with all of this a part of me doesn’t want to give it up. But I know it’s not healthy and I need to change. I have started taking steps to keep myself more present through meditation and breathing exercises. I’m glad that I’m not alone in this and others experience the same thing! Thank you, that’s all for now I guess 🤷♀️ Hi Danika, thanks for the comment! , I definitely resonate with what you're saying. All of it! I also used to think I was addicted to watching TV! Years of my life have slipped away with this toxic behaviour and now I'm feeling like I never really grew up and had the experiences I could of because I was never really living in the world around me but instead in the world I'd constructed in my head because it was safer and I was the mastermind of it. Even if I daydreamed "myself" into a bad situation I was still ultimately the "self" that I wanted to be. I just want to live my real life. I know longer want to deprive myself of the life I have been blessed with by living inside my fantasies and barely existing in my true surroundings.
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Post by rocksaltbubblegum on Dec 18, 2019 22:34:19 GMT
Haha I didn’t mean to post that on your thread. I’m new to writing in forums! But I totally get what your saying about growing up, it’s like constantly trying to catch up to the rest of the world. I totally get it!
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