Do you have maladaptive daydreaming?

[ms spock]

This has improved so much! It intrudes from time to time but really I am so much more here. I don't know how to improve on this, but I always find a way, and I always work it out.

 

[ms spock]

I have improved with this again, still an issue but much improved.

 

[ms spock]

I am still struggling with this, big time, but I have improved small step by small step. I have to continuously make the decision to be here in this now. I have to keep choosing other activities.

 

[Friday]

I am still struggling with this, big time, but I have improved small step by small step. I h...

Any relation to the lowering of corrosive self doubt?

 

[ms spock]

Could be @Friday! I think the lowering of corrosive self doubt is having a big overall impact.

 

[ms spock]

This is big for me.

 

[ms spock]

This continues to improve, still a struggle but I am improving with this.

 

[ms spock]

This has improved significantly. Still not easy. Maladaptive daydreaming is still a major feature of each day but it is much improved.

 

[ms spock]

Any relation to the lowering of corrosive self doubt?

I think that it does have a fair bit to do with that.

 

[ms spock]

So this is still there to some extent but I have made substantial improvement, and it is a more productive now, thinking about how I will manage having a job. It is a substantial thing. I have been a focused effort into this and it has really improved a lot. I am so much more present in this moment. I didn't think that this would ever get better, but it has.

 

[littleoc]

I'm still purposefully trying to call it back when under high stress. It feels better than real life, of course! :)

 

[littleoc]

I used to just assume there was something wrong with me, or it was some kind of weird quirk that maybe storytellers had or something. But then it got in the way of my actual life. I tried to ask an adult for help and no help was available. I referred to it as an addiction because I didn't know what it was.

I found the term maladaptive on my own, during one of my many searches for other people being forced to live in fantasy worlds (part of my trauma -- my ex wanted a fantasy world and long story short had me build it. I was well equipped for that). I was actually looking for people who "lied" and were forced but found maladaptive to really fit the bill. It explained half the story.

I had been taught that I wasn't as alone as I thought, so I knew then I couldn't be alone in that either.

But it took more than seven years to find something. So I think the term and concept is new. The article I had found on it was new, talking about a new kind of disorder and the author's experience with it (as a physically challenged child).

It made even more sense when I realized it had a lot to do with what I'd been through, too.