Maladaptive Daydreaming vs ADHD: Important Similarities Differences
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- Опубліковано 20 лип 2022
- This webinar with Nirit Soffer-Dudek was sponsored by ADDitude and Play Attention.
In this webinar, you will learn:
* How maladaptive daydreaming is defined and experienced
* About the link between maladaptive daydreaming and ADHD
* About the differences between maladaptive daydreaming and ADHD and mind-wandering
* How mental health clinicians can assess maladaptive daydreaming and treatment implication - Наука та технологія
It's been awhile since I've look into maladaptive daydreaming. I even volunteered as a participant in a study with Dr. Eli Somer when I was in high school. My maladaptive daydreaming is not as detrimental as it used to be maybe because I'm not in my high school depression years. Also I have more freedom and money now to put my focus on other things. I still daydream everyday but it's more controlled and plus the job I'm doing forces me to be more attentive on my task.
You're confused smh It's sad how people with autism think that they're normal...when ever they have to copy people (in public)
I volunteered for that study, too!!!
Oh, the things we do for love...
I even told my pschychiatrist your name, Dr. Eli Somer!!!
- Maria Lyubechanskaya; U of T student
Dr. Eli Somer... what helped me was writing a novel about my mental life.
I will send you a copy.
Perhaps there is merit to Dr. Jordan Peterson's loss of tenure. (It was my daydream to replace him. :)
- Maria Lyubechanskaya
Citalopram did not help my MDD at all, by the way.
Dr. Somer... I can't wait to email you my novel once I get out of my current mental hospital.
Thanks to you and your research, I was able to seek help.
My mother had great advice for me and I took it... WRITE A NOVEL!
(Yes, my mother also holds a doctorate in English Literature. I'm proud that she inspired me enough to go into NEUROSCIENCE!!)
Thank you, DSM... I finally wrote my own book. 😂
Lastly, I believe the next video series to tackle should be
"MDD vs ADHD vs Bipolar I" LOL 😅😂
I did this from about age 14 or so to late 50's, it just seems like I just stopped. I have no idea why? Not seeing mental health help. I used my daydreaming to go to sleep, or go back to sleep, when my life was stressful. It always involved a man of my dreams rescuing me, always the perfect man, perfect job.... I would get bored and move on to the next scenario, or I would daydream and change my past (do over) so that I wasn't hurt like I was or didn't make the same stupid mistakes. Very comforting and I never knew it was a mental illness. Now I'm realizing I have alot of childhood trauma to deal with and I'll be 61 soon! My daydreaming makes me think about Ralph Phillips, the little boy in the Bugs Bunny cartoons.
Thank you Mr Somer for the work you have done. I was beyond elated to find a term existed for what I was going through after researching my symptoms a few years ago.
I just want to tell you that for the past 2-3 years most of my daydreams have been negative and felt like reality (my body and mind responded as if I was in the actual situation so I felt the pain, dread, anxiety, fear, hurt, embarrassment etc etc that I would have felt had they been real).
So Maladaptive Daydreaming might be an « escape » to some but it’s more of an addiction because the experience of negative daydreams were not positive and good feelings that one would expect when « escaping from reality » through daydreaming.
Reality, no matter how bad, is MUCH BETTER than the negative daydreams that most times i COULD NOT STOP AND CONTROL though i tried to. They were catastrophic to the MAX.
I thought I might tell you this as it might be of benefit to your research.
Please write me at somereli @ me.com (delete spaces) what, in oyur mind, motivates you to have these negative daydreams.
@@SomerClinic done!
Hello, is this what the negative daydreams are like for you? I do the same but I think there is a purpose in my case and several benefits.
Do they relate to problems in your real life, but imagined as happening to somebody else with a different personality, lifestyle and social sphere? My negative daydreams are always related to whatever negative emotion I am already having, recontextualised in my daydreams and I find it cathartic, just as people find sad or angry music cathartic.
Also, the conversations the characters have often bring out ideas that I realise I can apply to my real situation.
Another benefit for both negative and positive daydreams, is that they allow me to experience an oxytocin boost from the comforting and caring and bonding experiences that the characters have. I am never a character, why would I be, I bore myself lol, I just want the oxytocin boost by vicariously watching these bonding experiences. It is not an ego boost cos I don't have or need a sense of self as others seem to describe one, it is just the oxytocin boost I enjoy, so it doesn't matter that I am never a character.
Finally, in both happy and negative daydreams, I prefer oxytocin boosts from my daydreams to seeking them from real people because it is on-tap, guaranteed to help, and efficient, exactly custom-made for needs in the moment. No need to hope someone says the right thing or has a good idea, or wait to speak to them. I just MAKE a character say the right thing if I already know what that is, or other times I let my mind play spontaneously with the issue in their conversations, and then eventually the insight I had not thought of but is what I needed to hear or think of, comes out of a character's mouth.
I am in control of the whole scene, unlike when seeking oxytocin hits from real people around me ruined, yet within that controlled environment I can still let my emotional creative mind play with the problem, as I described, coming up with real insights and even poetic articulations that feel like they came from those characters (whom I know intellectually are just phenomena generated by my brain). I just can't make my brain think directly about my real life long enough to get such wisdom out of it, cos I seems deeply bored by my real life, so I have to disguise serious thought about my real life as frivolous role play, lol.
Is this anything like what happens for you?
It only backfires when my diagnosed OCD episodes contaminate this process by making me obsess over whether my imagined main character - when they are a real famous person that I am intrigued by as an emotionally satisfying character to process my own emotions and experienced through, but have no desire to meet or interact with and never daydream about ME meeting them - is not an accurate enough depiction of the real person and their real life circumstances and history, as for some reason this feels very important when the character has been one that I indirectly process my own trouble through
@@compulsiverambler1352 thanks for sharing! I relate to some of the stuff you’ve shared. X
According to the DSM5 and a specialist that I've listened to on ADHD, distractibility in ADHD has to do with external stimuli more than internal stimuli. What separates ADHD distractibility and other mental disorders is that with ADHD the distraction comes from the environment, people with the condition do not have enough mental discipline to control themselves from being distracted by their surroundings, whereas with disorders such as anxiety and depression the distraction is caused by their thoughts. Since daydreaming is an internal distraction, wouldn't you say that this is what separates ADHD from MD. I find that this seems to be a very common mistake many people make with ADHD, and why so often depression and anxiety are misdiagnosed as ADHD. And so when it comes to distractibility I do not think that you can say that MD and ADHD are the same in that regard, because with MD the distraction is internal, whereas with ADHD it is external.
That is a misconception in the DSM. Research shows that the ADHD brain can't remember what it is supposed to be doing when what it is doing not inherently rewarding, and so it is a constant battle internally to remind the brain of the task and agonisingly drag it back to that task constantly, like a really stiff heavy steering wheel you have to keep turning to keep your rogue car travelling straight. Exhausting, torment.
What it happens to land on when it drifts off task, can be some external sensory input, or mind wandering activity, or for some of us maladaptive daydreaming once that has set in. It varies according to both circumstantial differences and individual differences. The problem is the inability of the brain to stay on a task that is not inherentky rewarding.
Erm, wrong conclusion. If people who have more mind wandering or daydreaming report to being not happy, that could mean, that mind wandering and daydreaming makes people less happy. But it could also mean that people who are not so happy, in difficult life circumstances have an increased likelyhood ot using mind wandering and daydreaming as an escape mechanism to escape having to think about the present undesirable situation.
Agree.
Many studies report that mindfulness and staying in the present make people more mentally stable , calmer and happier. So, I think their conclusion is the right one.
@@essraaahmed276 If you are a child in a neglectful, abusive home a bit of daydreaming, fantasies and mental wandering away from what is going to happen when you come home is helpful.
@@petrairene it's instantly helpful but saddness and dismay will ensue just like with drug addiction
Or it could mean both.
Thank you, Dr. Somer. Excellent work.
Surely just MD wouldn't attract an ADHD diagnosis if the clinician really listened to the problem and its consequences😳
Thank you for this
Hmmm, I most definitely have maladaptive daydreaming and it has certainly really affected my life negatively (like not working on projects with deadlines for months, missing deadlines)....but I would not at all say I want it to stop. So I don't think for it to be a diagnosable maladaptive daydreaming that one would want it to stop. Tho maybe not wanting to stop is its own thing,😅 I tend to have a pretty nihilistic and pessimistic view of this life.
I'm also a woman and self-diagnosed autistic. I have no doubt about it. As it's a spectrum, there are some autistic traits I don't have, like stimming. I do employ music and repetitive motion while I'm MD (riding my bike in big loops/circles, or pacing/sliding/running indoors), and it happens without intention when I'm in motion in everyday life.
Me too. Are you diagnosticed as an autism person ?
I don't know if this helps, but to me it's a kind of 'ego alter', auditory one that is engrained in me, mostly when I sleep and it's gives this kind of state, weird sensation and jumps on false stories. It's a crazy need for control and power, sort of manipulatior to achieve his MD goals. I'm trying to become more clear labeling it has been helpful,
So she would treat depression and diagnose as such over ADHD if someone were potentially showing both. Because she wouldn't want to give more than one diagnosis/Or too many. Then goes on to talk about rumination leading to anxiety and depression.
Wouldn't it make much more sense to treat the ADHD, to help with focusing and controlling your mind wandering/over thinking etc. Which In Turn would reduce the amount you ruminate, therefore reducing the depression/anxiety, which is caused by ADHD.
Also considering people with ADHD have chronically low levels of dopamine receptors, and their overactive brain/constant overthinking/analyzing would naturally have them ruminating and worrying, depression or sadness/worry is to be expected. So treating the depression/anxiety rather than the actual root of the problem ADHD seems bizarre to me.
You said what I was thinking
I have all the symptoms of ADHD and Maladaptive Daydreaming
So if I get treated with ADHD then maybe I can make my life a lot better than it is currently now
So I would not be dependent on my Maladaptive Daydreaming to cope with the negative things in my life
I can just deal with them straightforward.
I can just solve the problems instead of running away from them by Daydreaming
i have both
Thank you, Dr. Somer et al.
Excellent work.
(However, no one can hang out with Queen Elizabeth any more. Rest In Peace to her.)
so how come md is adhd, they're both different? why not one can be diagnosed by both? adhd have different criteria than md
MD can cause inattention and many people with MD have ADHD. However, they are not the same because most people with ADHD do not have MD. So there is probably one subtype of ADHD that is caused by MD.
@@SomerClinic Excellent analysis and reply, Dr. Somer. Please see my above replies to a comment by user GT-OD.
Thankyou Dr. Somer for your work. It is very relieving to know I am not the only one with MD. I recently got a diagnosis for ADHD , but I am pretty sure it is MD. However, the adhd medication (ritalin) definitely help with work. I am not really sure if there been any study on the brain scans or brain structure of people with MD ? Does anyone know if we are wired differently (like ADHD) or is it just a coping mechanism...
Unfortunately, there have been no brain imaging studies on MD yet.
I do think that it is somewhere related to the brain structure as well because as far as I remember I've always been day dreaming ever since i was like 7 or 8. Maybe even before that but I can't be sure.. then I used to day dream for fun as far as I remember..
And I am not talking about normal mind wandering. I used to have full fledged day dream scenarios as a 7 year old. And I did it consciously and deliberately like it wasn't by accident.
Then later in my teens I started using it as a coping mechanism.
Wow. You nailed it in many ways. How do I get your contact info please
soffern @ bgu.ac.il (delete spaces)