Worst mistake I made while quitting Maladaptive daydreaming

 

Quitting MD can be a huge pain; Very few people have ever managed to do it. Daydreaming urges strike at the time you least want them to: working on a new project, starting a new hobby, studying for a test… People with MD often assume that their urges are triggered by music, movies, books, situations… that is true, but, they are also triggered by any added stress and anxiety. You see, our minds have been conditioned over a long period of time, years, to escape from stress and anxiety through daydreaming. The more we have stress the more we daydream. The more we daydream, the less tolerance we have to added stress and anxiety… Yup, it’s a positive feedback circuit – The more we daydream, the more we are likely to get urges, the shorter our attention span, the weaker our will to begin something new, or finish something we have started. The less likely we are to accomplish anything. And if we don’t accomplish anything, then guess what? we have even more stress. That being said, there is something very important you should note here:

We have been conditioning our mind over years to HATE real life and LOVE daydreaming: This is why hating the fact that you daydream is not really much help in trying to stop it: you are hating/feeling bad about yourself when you are not daydreaming. In other words, you are associating depression/stress with real life – not with daydreaming = Feeling bad about daydreaming in real life will not condition your mind to dislike daydreaming, if anything you will want it more!

Okay, so back to our original topic: the worst mistake I made while trying to quit daydreaming: An example from my senior year in highschool:

“I worked all summer on adding accomplishments to my real life, I was able to manage my MD by the start of the new school term: I was dedicated enough to force myself to accomplish stuff I’ve never done before and I liked my accomplishments enough that they replaced my daydreaming – I would daydream less than 1 hour per day; Things I did: read self help books, workout daily, go out, a lot, partying (responsibly!!! Don’t drink and drive!), I learnt table manners and elegant fashion styling… you know stuff I would usually be daydreaming about dragons and wars instead of doing.😶
And for a while, my MD was soooo under control. Until exams time came: with my stress levels up again I went all out on MD, and barely studied for my tests after I swore I would never let MD control my grades again!!! It was devastating. “

After a couple of times going through the same process, I realized: We need to workout stress relief methods and anti-MD techniques for our stressful times not our chilling summer times – build our work tolerance – accept that things do not and should not come easy, no shortcuts through daydreaming – condition our brains to feel reward in the daily work not the final product of work; if we are serious about quitting or at least getting a handle on MD.

Some advice for the stressful times:

Golden rule: Never let things pile up, most of the times we set booked schedules for the day, but do non of it because we daydream – But you know that 1 thing on that schedule is an absolute must, that is the one thing that will haunt you later if it piles up, at least do that 1 thing.

MAKE SURE TO STAY CLEAR FROM TRIGGERS DURING AND 1 WEEK BEFORE STRESS PERIODS!!!

Leave specific MD breaks per day

Personal Interest-directed stress relief methods: I did star gazing

Reward yourself with daydreaming breaks or adventures and nights out.

PS: I discovered that reading self help books is an accomplishment that helps keep my mind grounded in low stress periods, but not during the more stressful times. I stop reading around my exams now. Same thing goes for meditation – sorry to burst your bubble 😦

PS: Taking a day off before stress periods is good: Go out, and do something. Taking a day off before stress times to daydream is bad, you won’t be able to stop!

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