So I looked up cure for Maladaptive Daydreaming. I found a YouTube video from a girl who records her daydreams. I have started recording mine. Here are some examples: "Betty Shabazz is my mother. After all these years, we figured out I have MDD. She accuses me of just saying that to feel ahead of my time. I try to tell her I didn't want this disorder, that there's a difference between being unique and being sick. But no, she won't hear me." "Mommy [West Africans call their mothers Mommy throughout life] and Julie [my older sister] accuse me of just wanting to jump in any sick bandwagon. 'You just happen to have this newfangled disease?' asks Julie. I try to tell her I already knew, but won't hear me." "Malcolm X wants me to acknowledge racism but doesn't give one wit about sexism." "Malcolm X is pestering me to stand up and fight back. He doesn't understand that I'm not heard and never will be." "Malcolm X is exasperated with me and is starting to bully me. He thinks I just always look for things to be upset about. He slaps me. I fall silent." "Hedonism is over Malcolm X's dead body. 'You live like an animal.'" I haven't heard from Betty or Malcolm in hours and hours. Every time I write it down, it stops, disappears, and never returns. I guess I'm releasing it from my subconscious. I also noticed a theme: being misunderstood or not being able to reason with people. I looked up How to Deal with Feeling Misunderstood. It's all about continuing to be yourself even if you're the first person in your family to be a certain way, even if you're ahead of your time, even if you're seen as a threat, like writers and artists of yesteryear. It's about not caring what people think. It's a bad idea to use this type of stuff as a rehearsal for dealing with real conflict and to practice talking back to them. It will NOT desensitize you to conflict. You will still be shocked and taken aback by some asshole in real life and you won't be as prepared to deal with it as you thought. Remember Caleb? Useless suffering. Hedonism also helps me heal past the pain and anxiety. For example, there's comfort food, which is global (Britain: bangers and mash; Italy: lasagna; US: fried chicken), as long as I don't pig out and get fat. There's the "fuggit" mentality about the bones I have to pick with society (everyone has a bone to pick with society. I feel bad for animal rights people, because almost no one cares). Finally, after talking about this with a friend last night, I realized that this is a very horrible rendition of people. Most people aren't like this. So I can be alone or social. Isolation is not the answer (assuming that's even realistic). It would just leave me alone with my thoughts, increase anxiety, and possibly cause me to lose my social skills.
