Can't Stop Daydreaming? This Could Be Why. (Maladaptive Daydreaming Recovery)

In today's video, I'm going to show you a lesser-known mental health problem called

maladaptive

daydreaming

, exactly how it affects other mental health problems, and ultimately how I recovered from it Hello and welcome back to the power of mental health , so

daydreaming

is something very Normal it is something that we will experience practically at various times in our lives and

this

is because we commonly experience daydreaming when we are bored so in case anyone doesn't know, I know what it means The word daydreaming,

this

is when we are generally experiencing. some kind of boredom and then our mind starts to wander and we start imagining or thinking about things that are completely different from what we are doing at that moment and this is normal, this is what happens often, especially, for example, the people are at school.

Maybe they are at work and maybe something boring is happening at the moment so their mind wanders, that's pretty normal. The reason this is okay is because it is usually temporary and our mind will always find a way to recover or return quickly. reigns in our minds and we say let's go back to what we are doing now, that's okay, that's good and normal, the problem is that it becomes

maladaptive

and it becomes detrimental to a person when it becomes obsessive and essentially it becomes like an addiction and it becomes a compulsion that they can't

stop

, so on top of all the other mental health issues that I've experienced over the last 10 years and have essentially recovered from, which you'll see I talk about in my other videos that I won't get into.

Now, but essentially to recap different amounts of symptoms of depersonalization, derealization, depression, anxiety, video game addiction, there are probably others, but I can't remember them, but you'll see in the videos on top of all that, I was also experiencing maladaptive daydreams, etc. . Ultimately, this is how it worked for me and I think it's essentially the same for others, so at some point a person who has maladaptive daydreams will experience, say, strong negative feelings or an experience that is difficult to process and overwhelming. , so it can often be The person's strong negative feelings I can't really deal with because they are so painful, so for me this would lead me to dissociate the dissociative disorder I had, which was derealization from personalization, for example. what those symptoms would get worse and that was how it normally worked. strong emotions or would trigger anxiety that would worsen the symptoms of depersonalization or other experiences would trigger anxiety that would worsen the symptoms of personalization derealization now depersonalization is actually a coping mechanism and therefore dissociation is a way to cope with extreme levels Anxiety and negative feelings are overwhelming, so what would happen is that personalization was basically really scary and terrifying, the symptoms were like that and this would create more anxiety, so depersonalization creates more anxiety which fuels more symptoms of depression, so I think what happened was that my mind needed a way to cope with the existing coping mechanism that was becoming too difficult to cope with, so it created another coping mechanism which is maladaptive daydreaming, so it

could

be say that maladaptive daydreaming became a coping mechanism to cope with another mechanism. then you have strong negative feelings which would trigger anxiety and also depression, eh well more anxiety and depression which will trigger more depersonalization symptoms which will trigger day dreaming then my mind will start wandering to escape these experiences so when Daydreaming will eventually happen.

I would come back to reality and realize, oh god, I was daydreaming for I don't know how long, so it made me lose focus, forget things because I wasn't concentrating and then waste time, so I experience wasting time where it feels like time had just faded away and that's because I didn't always realize I'd been daydreaming, so sometimes the customization also created memory leaks and I went into that in another video. I'll put a link here. I would forget that I had actually only been daydreaming, so I would create the illusion that time had faded away and that would then lead and feed, either at that moment or later, more of these negative feelings that were overwhelming. and that they would continue this cycle. go on and on, so essentially maladaptive daydreaming is a coping mechanism, it's a way of dealing with our minds and essentially it's a form of dissociation because you're removing yourself from reality in that moment and therefore for some people can get to the point. where they can waste hours and hours of the day in their daydreams because the reality that they are experiencing for all reasons, whether internal or external or both, is too difficult to face, so it is too stressful, so what I discovered is that It was not.

Just for me at least, it's probably the same for others, wasn't it just a coping mechanism to escape reality or does it get really weird when depersonalization is already a way to escape reality then maladaptive daydreaming is a way to escape from that unreality, yes. That's weird, let's not get into that, so I also discovered that it was not only the way to escape from those experiences, but it was also a way to satisfy an unmet need and it was not just a way to escape because finally, after many years, I started to become more and more self-aware and really liked mindfulness practices.

I began to notice a pattern in the types of daydreams I was having, and ultimately, many of these daydreams were daydreams that made me feel safe. at that time or validated and there were several others, but those are the two that I noticed security and validation, so over the years I realized that these are the things that I must need, not just the escape, but there must also be underlying issues that meant those needs weren't met, so really the way I essentially got over this and do it, I actually realize that this is still a minor issue now, it's not a maladaptation, luckily now I notice that my mind has from time to time I again have a tendency to wander, but because I meditate every day, I've been doing it for about three years and I practice mindfulness and, in addition to meditation, it's very easy for my mind to automatically bring it back.

Usually it's a couple of seconds, maybe minutes max, and I'm back, so I can see that by retraining my mind, it's basically disappearing, so the way I did it was, first place, yeah, try to figure out what you're escaping from. An external reality are things that go on the side that are too difficult to face because they are overwhelming, for example,

could

they be strong feelings from the past that have not been processed and also check if they are your maladaptive dreams? If you have this experience, is there a pattern to what you are daydreaming about?

If we can understand what is creating these strong negative feelings then this cycle will probably continue so we really need to eliminate the underlying issues so things like therapy are really the best way or start talking to people about these experiences, and once this was removed once. these underlying problems were removed, the thing is that the habit still remained and I think this is because I experienced this for so long that it was now a habit in my mind to some extent, even after these underlying problems were resolved, so I had to retrain my mind through the practice of mindfulness through meditation because ultimately they keep you in your point of awareness and help us detach from the thoughts we have, so we remember not to. identify ourselves with thoughts or daydreams, as I mentioned.

In other videos we are not our thoughts, we are observers of our thoughts and that includes dreams, so it gets to the point where you can see a dream coming and you can observe it, but not, say, jump to it so you can see it coming . You may realize, oh look, a dream appears and because you don't attach to it, you don't identify with it, it just disappears, it takes practice every day, but eventually, because it's a mindfulness practice, you become every day. become more aware of yourself. and that ultimately means that you

stop

giving power to this habit and gradually over time it weakens, so it sums up maladaptive daydreaming and generally how I have been recovering from this, one thing to keep in mind is This can happen even in the middle of a conversation with people, so if you find yourself missing what people are saying, it's very possible that your mind is daydreaming quickly, then you come back and then forget about what happened, it's something which you should be aware of because this happened to me for years and I didn't do it.

I didn't notice it for a long time so thanks for watching and don't forget to like and subscribe if this has helped you, comment below if you've had similar experiences and I'll see you in the next video, take care.