justanotherlittlethought

[justanotherlittlethought]

[justanotherlittlethought]

Shoutout to this guy for debunking the argument about the market regulating itself with a real life example

[justanotherlittlethought]

Please do your research! There is so much misinformation out there and a lot of lies.

Everyone should know the truth so please try to know as much as you can so you can spread awareness and help!

Free Palestine🇵🇸✌️

[justanotherlittlethought]

I think I have MADD, but I can't get diagnosed. I'm not in a position of talking to people about it, and I can't pay for any actual medical treatment. I've done some research (some sources were from you, so thank you!) and none of what I've found can help me treat MADD myself. I would rather try to do the habits to help deal with it, then not do anything at all and actually have MADD. I don't know what to do, can you give me some advice?

Focus on mindfulness, there are many free resources and exercises that come in many formats.  It can be practiced by any one at any time and in several ways which are simple to integrate into daily life.  Which is what you want to do.  You have built a habit of daydreaming over many years, working mindfulness into your daily life will help you practice being present.  At first it will feel silly and perhaps impossible, it takes a while to build a new habit and it will feel foreign for a bit.  Start very small, maybe trying it out only once a day. And remember; the point is not to clear your mind, you should not judge or admonish yourself for drifting off, let the thoughts come and gently redirect yourself to the present.  As you practice this skill and rewire your brain coming out of a daydream should become easier and faster over time.  This video might give you an idea of how mindfulness can be helpful, though, it’s not about MD specifically. 

[justanotherlittlethought]

Have you watched Kati Morton's new video about Maladaptive Daydreaming? What do you think about it?

[intro]

For years, I believed maladaptive daydreaming to be a form of dissociation, but it could also be added to the DSM as its own diagnosis, since it does have its own set of unique symptoms. Either way, at this time maladaptive daydreaming is not listed in the DSM as a diagnosable mental illness.

I was concerned because her last couple videos on the topic were very confusing to watch and seemed to conflate MD with the inner-worlds of DID.  It looks like she has done some more research on it and is going to make a more informed video. This is great and I deeply appreciate that she’s taking the time to do a proper dive into this. 

The closest diagnosis would be DPDR, or depersonalization derealization disorder. And this is the diagnosis given to those of us who struggle with dissociation. [explanation of DPDR]

Gonna need you to source that Katie, I’ve never heard an MD researcher say something like this.  When they talk about MD they call it a behavioral addiction with OCD features which is related to dissociative absorption (different from derealization and depersonalization, these two dissociative experiences are not particularly significant in MD, though they can happen.)

These experiences are extremely common. It's estimated that half of all adults have had at least one episode of DPDR. 50% of people. That is a huge amount of people.

Cool but not sure it’s at all relevant to the video topic. 

Also, it's important to mention that in 2016, four researchers put together the Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale, or MDS. This is a 14-item self-reported scale, meaning that you as the patient answers 14 questions based on your own maladaptive daydreaming experience.

It’s a 16 item scale now, it was changed very early on and has been 16 for years.  This is a very small and forgivable knitpick, just fyi. 

The MDS focuses on the content of our daydreams, how intense the urge to continue daydreaming is, and how much it impairs our ability to function in our lives, and the benefits and costs of our daydreaming. I am not personally familiar with this scale, nor have I used it in my practice, but I've linked the research article in the description if you wanna learn more about it.

A good description, and here’s that link again for anyone who wants to read about the finer details of this scale. 

When it comes to maladaptive daydreaming, it isn't just feeling out of body or environment. We can create very intense and detailed daydreams with plots, characters, and very lifelike issues and storylines. Some people will get the plots for their daydreams from their real lives, while others can create a utopian place unlike their current experience.

Yep, decent overview of content, though content doesn’t matter that much.  Also, use of “we”.  Is Katie Morton an MDer or was this a creative choice?  I don’t know, just a passing thought. 

We can find ourselves staying in these daydreams for various amounts of time. And some of my patients have reported staying in them for hours. And many of you have let me know that you struggle to get out of them at all, spending days in this other life that we've created.

Yep, good overview, but more importantly she’s listening to her patients and the feedback of MDers in her audience.

...there are many causes for this, and the first I wanna address is trauma triggers. If we've experienced a trauma in our life, things that remind us of that time or situation can pull us into a flashback, cause us to dissociate, or in many cases push us into our maladaptive daydreams.

When our brain and the rest of our nervous system feels overwhelmed and unable to deal with what's going on in the moment, it can pull us out of our current situation through dissociation. I always talk about that, like our brain pulling the ripcord. And it can also utilize maladaptive daydreaming. It's a way to cope or get through an overwhelming situation when we don't have other skills to help calm our nervous system down. So we just rely on what we know, and that can be daydreaming or dissociating. It's almost like this coping skill protects us from having to feel traumatized again and so it takes us away, you know, drops us into a much safer and happier place.

Trauma is always talked about first when people do overviews of MD.  She’s not wrong but just to add more information;  about a quarter of MDers report trauma, the other 75(ish)% don’t.  It’s a significant number but trauma is not the only pathway to MD.  Sometimes people walk away from these videos feeling like “well, I don’t have any trauma, maybe I don’t really have MD”.  That’s not a comment on what Katie has presented, she does go into other things below, just adding on.

Another cause or trigger can be high levels of stress or anxiety. We can slowly feel ourselves become more and more overwhelmed until our brain pulls us out of our reality and into a new one, aka our maladaptive daydreams. In short, we can want to stay in these daydreams to feel better and safer, but it can get in the way of us functioning in our life.

Yep

[audience anecdotes]

...Which is why even the term maladaptive daydreaming is used. Maladaptive means it's not providing adequate or appropriate adjustment to the environment or situation. So the daydreaming is only holding off the bad things. It's not actually making anything better or helping us process any of the upset. It's really just a temporary check-out, which can be helpful sometimes, but if it's happening all the time or making it hard for us to focus at work, school, or with our friends and family, we should find other, better ways to cope.

Exactly.

Which moves us into how we can better cope so that we don't get sucked into our daydreams for hours, days, or even weeks. And first up is mindfulness. Now, I know that term is overused now and super annoying but in order for us to know when we even need to use other coping skills, we have to know when the daydreaming urges are happening. So often we aren't aware of what we were feeling or thinking until it's too late and we're already pulled into our daydream. And at that point it's more difficult or even impossible for us to pull ourselves out. Therefore, we have to start being more aware of what we're going through.

[continues explanation]

Perfection.

And so next is figuring out ways to calm our system down. This can take the form of a distraction technique like going for a walk or organizing a part of our home, coloring, watching a show, playing a video game, you name it. These calming things could also be more process-based, things like journaling or talking to your therapist or a friend about it, or even using an impulse log. [Continues with calming things]

Good examples, MD researchers specifically recommend keeping a log.

We're also going to have to find some coping skills that we can use when we're starting to feel overwhelmed and wanting to go back into the daydream. Maybe we hold an ice cube in our hands, clap our hands, count the number of things in the room that are blue, brown, black… whatever works for you, do it.

Good stuff. 

And it's okay for something not to work. We just have to try it to know and then move on to something else.

Important point to make, happy to see this. 

Once we have a few things that work, write them down in your phone or on a post-it note so that you can see it and be reminded when you need it. We will also need to come up with some ways to pull ourselves out of the daydream. And I know this is gonna be harder and we may even wanna call upon helpful and supportive people in our lives to assist us.

Good advise. 

We could, because it's our daydream, right, we could put a big door in our daydream and we can choose to go through it and pull ourselves out, or have people in the daydream that remind us of our real life and tell us to go back.

A good suggestion.  Q, on the Parallel Lives Podcast (I can’t remember which episode off the top of my head), did something like this by turning to his characters and saying “ok, take 5 guys, we’ll pick it up at xtime”, and many people have found that to be a clever and helpful method. 

Now, I know this is really, really hard… which rolls into my final tip, which is to work with a therapist to heal from the trauma or to learn how to better cope with the anxiety or stress we're feeling. Working to heal or process through the reason our maladaptive daydreaming exists in the first place will ensure that we don't need it anymore.

Absolutely seek professional support if you can. 

... if we heal the issue we're struggling to cope with, the urge to use those unhelpful coping skills will go away altogether.

[outro]

I think this last point will frighten a lot of MDers.  It’s probably the brevity of the video that didn’t allow her to really expand on this, and I certainly don’t want to put words into her mouth that she may not have intended.  Don’t be afraid of losing your MD.  “Curing” Maladaptive Daydreaming does not mean “I’ll never see my world again.”  You’ll always have the capacity to daydream like this, you were born this way, but it *doesn’t* have to be maladaptive. Like overeating, you will never not eat, you will fix your relationship with food. 

Good video overall, brief but accurate and includes the standard helpful advise. 

[justanotherlittlethought]

These are brilliant!

[justanotherlittlethought]

I saw another one of those posts going around about how hiring cleaners is immoral and I just want to scream into the tumblrs for a second.

I have employed a cleaner ever since I got post natal PTSD. They used to come once a fortnight, but after my second child was born they came once a week. They’ve been with us for more than ten years now. They come every week and do one hour of basic cleaning - they vacuum, dust, clean the bathroom and mop the floors. That’s it. It’s one hour and it does SO MUCH for me because it means I tidy up for them. I make the house CLEANABLE which my depressed and adhd ass would not do unless I knew someone else was coming in to do something for me.

Also I pay them. Well. I pay them more per hour than I got as a teacher when I first started work. A LOT MORE. I recognise that they have travel and material expenses, and I put their pay up every year to accommodate for inflation. 

They’re amazing people, I consider them friends, we chat a fair bit when they come to do their jobs if I happen to be at home, we exchange presents on significant holidays. 

They keep me SANE.

If you treat workers well, NO WORK IS IMMORAL. My cleaners get paid well above minimum wage, obviously enjoy their work and are fulfilling a need. Is it a luxury need? Yeah. But guess what? I have disposable income and this is a luxury I choose to spend it on. Because I fucking hate cleaning, and I wouldn’t do it properly or consistently even if I didn’t. 

So fuck off telling me what I can and cannot spend the money that I’ve earned on. I’m not Jeff Bezos, and if I was I would treat my employees as well as I treat my cleaners. 

[justanotherlittlethought]

Things That Happened in 2020 That Don’t Feel Like They Did:

-The Witcher came out

-The movie Parasite wins at the Oscars

-Stickbugging

-Kim Jong Un “died” like three times

-Ray Bans Official Charity Sale For $26.99 Today

-The murder hornets appearing and disappearing in like a week

-The Sonic movie came out

-Jennifer Lopez pole dances at the Superbowl

-4/20/2020

-X Æ A-12 Musk

-UFOs are real apparently

-Plane flights were like $15 at one point

-For some reason, Clone High is making a comeback

-Leaving school in March for a “few weeks lockdown” and now we’re here

-Friday the 13th was the last “normal” day for a lot of us

[justanotherlittlethought]

“where were you during the coup?” on my couch in sweatpants because it was noon on a wednesday during month ten of an out of control pandemic

[justanotherlittlethought]

Stop vilifying adults that live with their parents.

We’re still deep in one of the worst economic recessions of modern times. For many of us its not a choice but a requirement in order to survive. For many of us we have disabilities that make finding accommodation that suit our needs a lot harder and a lot more expensive.

Many of us pay into the household. Many of us are trapped in abusive households because we don’t have the means to leave. We aren’t moochers or afraid to leave the nest. The world simply isn’t built to support us anymore.

[justanotherlittlethought]

Sources: 1  2  3  4  5

Jesus fucking Christ, look at these young, otherwise healthy people who had severe heart complications from COVID. But people still don’t give a shit, people are still going to parties and holidays because they think nothing bad will happen to them because they’re young.

God, please stay inside if you can until the vaccine is available to you.

[justanotherlittlethought]

I can’t believe they oblitered straight men like that

[justanotherlittlethought]

One thing that pisses me off a lot is the fact that the world is not made for single people. Ignore the fact that everyone and their dogs think it's wrong not to want a partner, I'm talking about practical things.

I'm talking about rent and mortgage in a city like London with only one salary. Yes, it's exactly as hard as you can imagine. Not easy on a single salary unless you're senior management level, want to commute two hours each day, or you are lucky enough to have your landlady be your best friend. Or you don't mind living in a shoebox pretending to be a studio. Otherwise, you'll be in a shared house.

I'm talking about holiday and travel, where either you go to hostel dorms of pay double price for a room in most hotels. And there are no packages for one, or barely any, and they are in singles holidays where the objective is not so much travel but stop being single.

I'm talking about doing shopping and producing more food waste than I'm comfortable with because everything comes in bigger portions than one person can reasonably eat. Even with freezing more than half of everything there will still be something that goes off because you were too slow to eat it if you do shopping once a week. Or you have to go shopping every couple of days and eat the same those two days.

It's not enough to have all media telling you you're wrong for not wanting a relationship, the entire world will try to push you into forming one by making it too expensive to be single.

[justanotherlittlethought]

May the 10 of Pentacles bless your account with more money than you can spend. 💵✨

[justanotherlittlethought]

consider: teenagers aren’t apathetic about everything they’re just used to you shitting all over whatever they show excitement about

[justanotherlittlethought]

My friend just sent this to me and said "you will appreciate this" and she was VERY correct