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Maladaptive Daydreaming | The Christian Reeve Podcast | #81 | · The Christian Reeve Podcast

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  It's another episode of the Christian we've podcast.
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  But are you subscribed? If not make sure to like, share
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  and subscribe, spread the word about the Christian Reef podcast
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  and enjoy this episode. Hello, and welcome to another
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  episode of the Christian re podcast.
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  Today, we are discussing maladaptive daydreaming.
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  I told you about five episodes ago that I planned on doing more
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  discussion based episodes and this is one of them.
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  So before I introduce Our Guest who has chosen to remain
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  anonymous, I'm going to give you a definition.
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  So maladaptive daydreaming is a psychiatric condition.
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  By Professor Eliza Soma. And it is characterized by
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  experience of experiences of Daydreams that involve the
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  invention of characters stories, insomnia and ability and
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  inability to control oneself and many more symptoms.
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  Now, according to our guests who I actually found through Reddit,
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  so I was very lucky to get this interview.
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  She describes it as being usually occurring as a coping
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  mechanism in response to trauma abuse or loneliness.
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  Us suffers create a complex, inner World, which they escape
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  to, in term in times of distress, by daydreaming for
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  many hours. It's a vicious cycle of
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  addiction. And she says that maladaptive,
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  daydreaming inevitably creates an emotional attachment to
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  characters and the life created, which often replaces the painful
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  real-life interactions between family and friends.
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  Okay. So we're dealing with a lot of
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  information here, but before we continue, I'd like to Welcome.
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  Our guest, who's chosen to use the name?
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  Kia, welcome. Thank you for agreeing to do
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  this. Thank you for having me Chris.
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  And the can I just say what a great introduction.
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  Say you did most of the heavy lifting for me.
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  Thanks no words. I mean, I do apologize to our
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  listeners because I just stumbled all over the, but I am
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  all over the place. So if this turns out to be a
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  terrible podcast, I do apologize.
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  I don't know what's wrong with me today.
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  However, on the plus side, I've done my research.
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  I've done a lot of research, I always do my research, everyone
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  knows this, but this is the reason that I wanted to really
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  go into detail with this. Is, I really wanted to get a
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  fuller understanding of this and also be able to ask you just
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  intelligent questions, things that people might want to know
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  like I'll be honest. I've never heard of it before.
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  I'd heard of sort of daydreaming type disorders.
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  Where someone might, I think there's one called is it like
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  sleeping narcolepsy or something?
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  Where people Looking kind of fall asleep, several times
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  within the day and it kind of reminded me of that.
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  But when I started doing the actual research, I sort of
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  realized this is something entirely different and it's so
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  I'm not surprised because it's I think the first published paper
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  was back in 2002 and then the head researcher kind of dropped
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  the research for a while because it didn't gain any public, you
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  know, like Fanfare. So then he picked it up again in
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  2010. So it's really, really in the
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  most newest way that you can Possibly think of.
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  So, I'm not surprised at all yet.
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  This, let's actually talk about that for a second.
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  So yeah, as you mentioned, Professor Eliezer, Soma
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  identified this condition in 2002 and also created the
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  maladaptive daydreaming scale, or MDS.
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  As it's also known, and it basically rates the following
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  five different characteristics. So, the content and quality of
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  Dreams, a person's ability to control their dreams and their
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  compulsion to dream. The amount of Distress caused by
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  daydreaming, a person's perceived benefits of
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  daydreaming, and how much daydreaming interferes with a
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  person's ability to carry out their daily activities.
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  So my first question to you is, where would you rate yourself on
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  this scale and how truthful do you think this is?
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  Because this comes directly from a health care.
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  I think it's Healthline. I used.
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  I also used this person's actual website.
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  Professor Somas website? Yeah.
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  But How truthful is this in terms of the reality for you?
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  Okay, so for me, I would scale myself somewhere between five
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  and six like the right in the middle because I do have
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  problems maintaining social interactions.
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  I have anger issues that have directly, you know, stem from my
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  addiction, and all this, but the same time, I'm also sort of able
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  to maintain a academic life. I graduated school, I have
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  participated at even became presence of clouds.
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  So it's not. Thank you.
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  It's not like a complete waste of time where I'm like stuck in
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  a hole and I can't get out of it.
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  So yeah, I would say somewhere in between and as per the
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  symptoms or sort of like the checkpoints that you have to
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  check. I would say they're fairly
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  accurate. Yeah.
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  They're they're very good. Like not every single person has
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  to check every box but you know generally speaking if it's
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  something that causes you to stress and it causes you to not
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  be able to focus. Focus on your life or fulfill
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  the things that you want to fulfill then it's automatically
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  a disorder. Yeah.
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  Like and it's interesting because there's some people in
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  the medical community that say that maladaptive daydreaming
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  shares some resemblance to schizophrenia and that should
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  bear bear bear with me for a second.
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  So yeah, go ahead with this. When I start to read up on this
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  and particularly with regards to what you just said, about, how
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  you can sort of still live a normal life and it's just
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  something new manage as opposed to being something that
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  overwhelms, you the straight away.
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  The thing that I realized was that it sort of comes down to
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  how severe you've got this condition and then, of course,
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  you know, maybe the drugs that you're taking with it or the
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  therapy that you're getting with it, like whatever you're sort of
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  taking will kind of The get, like affect your quality of life
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  and it's the same with schizophrenia, like, I've got
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  have got first-hand experience of this.
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  I've dated people and had friends who've suffered from
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  things, like schizophrenia and bipolar, and such.
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  And, you know, it's very possible to live a completely
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  normal life. So I think, in terms of the
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  similarity there, there is some truth to that.
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  However, and this is what I wanted to just lay up before.
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  I yeah. Yeah, let you give you a hug and
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  get into it conquers. Don't let me down.
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  Go ahead so professors, so much identified that it is not
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  actually similar. Because maladaptive daydreamers
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  recognize do day dreamers recognize that their Daydreams
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  are not real whereas sufferers of psychosis which is what
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  schizophrenia falls under cannot always do.
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  So Absolutely, I just want to add to that point where I would
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  like some people may have a, like, a problem visualizing or
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  trying to understand what is the distinction between the two of
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  them. And I would say, you know, mad
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  after dreaming is sort of like smoke addiction.
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  You don't just wake up one day and find a cigarette in your lip
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  and you're already smoking you know you get out of your bed you
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  know you open the pack, you take a sick and you light it and they
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  start smoking. So you know mad that tip in one
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  way. It is.
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  A compulsion. It's something that you it's an
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  urge that you have to engage in because you want that relief
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  from the addiction. But at the same time it is a
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  voluntary thing that you do when I'm like, when I'm feeling down
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  and I want to engage in some daydreaming so I can feel
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  better. I listen to music, I paced
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  around my room and engage in these behaviors.
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  That will enhance my dreaming because when I'm listening to
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  music, it blocks the outside world, like Yes, and also kind
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  of like it has his my world in the sense of like when you're
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  listening to music, sometimes you'll think of like an idea or
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  character doing something badass, you know you got any
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  like it helps me get into that. Like, mental pays I need to be
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  in in order to engage in my daydreaming.
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  So I would say it's not just that we can differentiate
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  between what's real and what's not real.
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  It's also the fact that we are volunteers Lee purposely
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  intentionally engaging in these behaviors, but unlike
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  schizophrenia patients, it's something that happens to them.
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  That's pretty interesting because you're kind of sort of
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  saying that there's like a positive element to this.
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  So it's I mean okay let's start with something else.
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  So dear, do you know other sufferers of maladaptive
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  daydreaming? Yeah, I'm not personally not in
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  real life but throughout the community, I do have online.
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  Friends that we don't know. Yeah.
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  And because it sounds to me like Your experience of it isn't
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  like. Holy - it's like you've kind of
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  managed to find like a positive spin on this, let's say, and
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  you've actually sort of acknowledge their that like by
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  acknowledging these Daydreams and kind of interacting with
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  them and actually, allowing it, it can help you.
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  So I'll get closer towards leading a normal life like, is
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  that true? Yeah, absolutely.
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  Again, I want to add more to this point and say maladaptive
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  daydreaming as of I think last month or something has been
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  recognized as a behavioral addiction.
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  It's it's like gambling because gambling is behavioral
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  addiction. It's like sex addiction.
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  It's like when you have food addiction, it's something that
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  can be managed with enough therapy with enough support
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  system, and with you intentionally doing or Curving
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  your behavior. You can have once again on
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  normal life, but I think for me and for others like me, the true
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  challenge comes from, you can't just turn off your brain.
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  You just, you can't just stop daydreaming.
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  It's something natural, that happens to you.
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  So, it's scary. It's kind of like, you know,
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  having a food addiction problem, you can't stop eating.
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  So the idea is, how can I still engage in this Behavior but also
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  make it healthy? And it doesn't ruin my life.
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  Yeah. This is the interesting thing
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  that I wanted to one of many things, but yeah, the first
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  thing I thought of when I was just sitting down thinking about
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  this in general is yet daydreaming just happens, you
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  know, sometimes you just sit there and you don't think of
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  anything and you start daydreaming, it's a sensation we
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  all go through and it sounds really scary to me, to kind of,
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  okay, let's say you're in a scenario where you're at work or
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  if you're in school or whatever the case may be, and then you
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  suddenly Only you're daydreaming but then it's taking over and
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  you don't have any control over it like what's the kind of
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  process that you're going through as this happens like are
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  you consciously aware of what's going on?
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  And you're you're sort of trying to play like tug-of-war with it
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  and pull it back? Or is it a sort of thing that
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  you sort of embrace and you think okay this will last maybe
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  this long just embrace it and it'll pass like when it happens.
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  What's your process? Okay.
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  So I just want to start by saying I am still for me
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  personally, I'm still in the early stages of my therapy, you
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  know, I haven't. Yeah, I haven't.
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  We'll discuss this later. But for now I haven't, you know,
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  controlled it fully so to speak. It's gotten better.
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  But I haven't, you know, I can't just stop it.
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  So to answer your question, a couple of few weeks ago, this
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  was right before, I think a week before I started my therapy, I
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  was having movie night with my family and While watching a
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  movie and this like this really interesting scene came came on
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  and there's like amazing music and, you know, like I said,
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  music for me, is one of my triggers.
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  So as I was sitting there, I had this Beijing idea like a
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  character doing something badass and I was like, oh I also want
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  to act this out but I was, you know, I couldn't just get up and
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  get called on, you know, Kyle come back into the 35 hours, you
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  know, just stay where you are. So I try to fight it but I
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  honestly could, I I generally try to fight this compulsive
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  urge to just stand up and go to the other room, stop
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  fantasizing, but I couldn't so I actually end up making an
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  excuse, you know, I was like I can't I gotta go and I ran up to
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  my room, you know, and start engaging in the day drinking
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  experience and I felt shitty just it felt really shitty.
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  So for me it's so hard to just control it if if I control it in
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  the day that I have to daydream in the night and if I could
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  Control myself at night without when I was people or outside
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  that I have to do a gym in the morning, it has to be one or the
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  other and that's why for me I was able to have a successful
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  school life but not a social life so I would study get, you
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  know, a pluses all that, you know, clubs great.
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  But then as soon as H2 is finished, I would I wouldn't
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  hang out with my friends. I would really go outside
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  because I'm stuck at home. They dreaming.
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  Oh wow. So it Chili just stops you from
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  doing anything at all. So like you had a percent,
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  right? I am 23 years old and I've had
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  like one friend and even that friend Les is like 4 months
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  because I just couldn't maintain the relationship and it's not
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  just friendship my family. It destroyed my like family
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  relationship not to the point where there's no you know,
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  there's no hope but you know because it's just not the same.
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  Yeah I wanted to ask about that actually like Before, actually,
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  before we get to that. Let's let's just focus on that.
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  When did this start? So you said your 23.
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  When did you discover that? This is a thing for you, okay.
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  So, do you mean like when I start engaging in the behavior?
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  Or do you mean when I had enough mental capacity to realize and
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  actually understand that this is something terrible?
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  Well, that's interesting because that would sort of imply that
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  maybe this is something that happened.
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  Deep in your childhood and then yeah.
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  Absolutely. In fact, most maladaptive
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  daydreaming starts as innocently as innocent, as are not 67 years
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  old. Okay.
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  Yeah, not all but for me, Stardate my other friends, my
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  online friends that I've been talking to most of them have
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  started around that range. Okay.
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  So it's did it. So, it occurred for you, in your
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  childhood, then when you, when you were six seven, eight,
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  something like that, okay? Seven between seven and eight.
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  And it's for me, it started as a coping mechanism, okay?
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  So I think it would help if I like the audience understood my
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  family, background soda, Okay. So my dad was very upset from my
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  childhood. He was away working traveling,
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  occasionally, he'd pop his head back in, drop off some money.
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  Say hello, once in a while and it just fuck off again.
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  But that left my mom to do, the raising had another job that she
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  was juggling too many hats. So she was often busy, which
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  left us kids together alone and I have five siblings.
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  So Was just us, siblings raising each other.
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  And, and for me, I've always been very different from my
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  siblings in the sense of, I'm an introvert.
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  I'm very not shy, but like, quiet.
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  I enjoyed my alone time. So, it just sort of when we kids
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  were left alone. Mom and dad are busy.
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  The kids, make my sibling started, you know, having fun on
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  their own. And I would, and I would sort of
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  not intentionally, but I would sort of alienate myself.
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  Put myself to the side because I just didn't feel like I could
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  understand them and they couldn't understand it because
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  they were loud, they're active, they were going out all the
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  time. I just want things to be quiet
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  and I want things to be organized.
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  And I just, you know, like I had this trades set of things that I
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  want done in a particular way. So we started, you know, having
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  fights and that made it, you know, made us grow apart even
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  further. So for me, you know, when I was
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  six seven, eight, I started feeling lonely.
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  I don't have Friends. You know, I'm not getting along
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  with my siblings. My parents are absent.
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  It just became this numbing feeling of loneliness.
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  So my brain in order to cope with that loneliness.
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  Started, helping me fantasize about a world where I have
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  friends I've accepted and I'm awesome and I'm doing all these
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  things. So it started off as an
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  innocent, you know, fantasy something, that was fun, and
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  help me, feel better. Yeah.
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  To be honest with you, I've heard about this before, like,
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  When children is sort of experience extreme trauma or,
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  you know, children who've been in, that's a hostage situations,
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  you know, Stockholm syndrome, that kind of thing.
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  They'll often do this, whether create a kind of world for
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  themselves within their mind to sort of cope with the current
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  situation they're in it. So it makes sense.
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  It's kind of like yeah it's the brains coping mechanism, you
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  know? Okay.
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  So it's sort of begun in your As you get into your teen years, is
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  there? A particular point where, you
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  know, you sort of realized? Okay, I got a problem.
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  Absolutely. Because, I'm sorry, I'm laughing
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  because that was literally my entire teen years were just me,
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  freaking out about this thing that I couldn't control.
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  Oh, so you said, is there a point?
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  I was like, yeah, like my entire team is Is it just me Lillian
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  freaking out and having panic attacks because I had this
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  fantasies I couldn't control. So yeah, that's why I was kind
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  of funny for me. Yeah, it started I think I'm not
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  sure because I also have depression and so my depression
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  makes me like, I have amnesia where I'm just just blocks of my
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  life are just completely missing from my brain because of the
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  depression, but anyways, yeah, it's a whole family thing.
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  Yeah, so I think it's sorted array.
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  I want twelve eleven maybe somewhere around there.
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  That I started to realize that I wanted to do things besides stay
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  in my room but it didn't really sink in until I was fourteen.
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  Fifty starting High School where I would miss out on school days
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  where I would fake being sick, just so I could stay home and,
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  you know, just fantasize and at the same time I was also
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  starting to display a sign. It's of anger and like sort of
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  aggression like unhealthy aggression, my mom at first,
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  sort of dismissed it as like teenage angst.
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  Like look at me. No, but I knew deep down in my
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  heart, I knew this was bigger than just, you know, the
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  hormones. This was, this was real anger.
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  I couldn't explain it because I was, I had six siblings and
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  they're all very loud and because they were so loud and
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  they just kept popping into my room.
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  They wouldn't let me finish my fantasy and because I don't know
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  if you've ever tried to pull a drink from it.
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  Ha, like they're just lash out on you.
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  Merely because they realize they're being denied.
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  The thing that's supposed to give them relief.
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  So when my siblings would pop into my room unannounced, or
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  would be too loud and I wouldn't be able to focus on my
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  fantasies. I would get this like, this wave
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  of like Fury just inside of me. And I would lash out, and I
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  would yell at them. I was, I wouldn't say I'm
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  completely innocent or like, you know, completely free of any
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  guilt as to Why my relationship created but yeah, but that's one
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  of them was no, no, I get it. I get it.
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  Like, it's, I don't think it's the sort of thing that you have
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  to feel bad about. I mean, the, the issue is Right.
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  Everything is intensified it's not being under a microscope
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  like You know, it's like okay this is a really out there
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  analogy, I don't know. Have you, are you familiar with
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  the Nightmare on Elm Street films by any chance?
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  Okay. Okay.
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  It's I don't know why I thought of this but I thought this was a
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  good analogy. So there's a character in I
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  believe, the Final Nightmare on Elm Street.
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  So it's Freddy's dies. I die comment by the name of the
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  film. But anyway, it wasn't.
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  It was the only one that they did in the 90s basically anyway.
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  One of the victims has like a hearing aid, it's got a hearing
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  problem and the whole thing about Nightmare on Elm Street is
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  obviously the guy gets you in your dreams and he uses like
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  your fears and your weaknesses against you, right?
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  So in this guy's dreams there was a particular scene where
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  basically Freddy is like torturing him by making like
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  really loud sounds. And basically every time that
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  It's it would cause this guy like Agony in his like, hearing
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  aids because it's like so intense and like not what he's
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  used to and yeah, they kind of reminds me of that.
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  It's like okay, you're in this situation where you're trying to
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  keep everything calm and then something comes in and disturbs
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  the peace and it kind of just throws you off balance and it's
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  like like to them, they probably think, oh, a bit of shouting is
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  fine. It's not that bad.
• 22:13
  But to you, that's intensive. I buy like 100.
• 22:17
  It and did, you know what? To be fair?
• 22:19
  I think every person has that to some extent, I mean, it's like
• 22:22
  if you're walking along your street and you hear like, I
• 22:25
  don't know, ambulance go past and it's deafening.
• 22:28
  I mean, everyone winces don't know that.
• 22:29
  Like, ah, and it's I think it's, I would argue.
• 22:33
  And again, I'm not, you know, I don't want to completely blame
• 22:39
  myself because this was a disorder, but I also kind of
• 22:42
  going to take I'm in the process of trying in my therapy.
• 22:44
  I'm in the process of trying to take Action.
• 22:48
  So I would say you're right about the ambulance where people
• 22:52
  just Flinch like naturally, but that sort of thing happens once
• 22:57
  in a while. So when it happens, you know,
• 22:58
  it's okay. But for me, at that time, my
• 23:01
  teenage years I was angry all the day long, like, morning
• 23:06
  afternoon night together. It's exhausting you cannot put
• 23:10
  up with someone who's angry all the time who snaps that you was
• 23:13
  just irritated. So you know, for me, that was
• 23:16
  the turning point where I realized Lies do shit.
• 23:18
  This thing is gonna destroy me and it's going to take
• 23:21
  everything that I ever wanted to accomplish.
• 23:24
  Let's talk a little bit about the family situation so
• 23:27
  obviously you discovered, this is an issue and presumably you
• 23:31
  go to your parents about this like hey I need help like you.
• 23:35
  No, no. Okay okay, where did you go?
• 23:38
  What did you do? What's your first steps?
• 23:40
  Nothing I think. Okay so I this is actually
• 23:43
  something that I wanted to take a minute to explain.
• 23:47
  Mmm, um, so as we've discussed earlier, in the podcast, you
• 23:52
  know, maladaptive daydreaming wasn't recognized until 2002.
• 23:58
  I was born, I'm 23. I was born in 1970, which, and,
• 24:01
  and when he recognized it in 2002, he didn't continue.
• 24:04
  We said she dropped it and he only picked it up in 2010 again.
• 24:08
  So by the time I was experiencing my teen years,
• 24:11
  there was not a single Paper, not a single mention of this
• 24:15
  disorder. So here I am.
• 24:17
  I am you know 13, 15 year, old 16 year old kid who has anger
• 24:21
  issues who has fantasies in her world where she can't control
• 24:26
  herself. Who is purposely missing out on
• 24:32
  on activities who is purposely starting fights just so she
• 24:37
  could go back to her room like I was in a really bad place in my
• 24:42
  teen years. So here I am completely self
• 24:45
  destructing myself and there's this Order that I can't explain
• 24:49
  that there. This urge that I don't know, has
• 24:52
  a name or even is a thing. So I'm thinking my I thought at
• 24:57
  that time where I'm completely crazy, and if I ever try to
• 25:00
  speak about this, they will lock me up and I will never see
• 25:03
  anyone ever again. And that wasn't like, that was a
• 25:06
  genuine true belief. Like in the same sense that I
• 25:10
  believe the Sun would rise. I actually believed I was crazy
• 25:13
  and if I ever try to talk it out or do something about it, I
• 25:17
  would be locked up and I would never see my family and I think
• 25:20
  a lot of that fear stems from the fact that there was like a
• 25:23
  bad representation in media about Bill Health, mental health
• 25:29
  issues. So, you know, because I did
• 25:31
  watch have grown a lot of those movies like movies, where I
• 25:34
  would see the person being as him crazy or like really
• 25:38
  unstable. And that just filled my fear and
• 25:41
  it gave me sort of justification to keep my disorder quiet.
• 25:47
  Only made me feel more alienated, which only made me.
• 25:51
  You know, like engage in the Day Dreaming even more those is
• 25:55
  completely backwards. But yeah, like I said, most of
• 25:58
  my actually I didn't I didn't start thinking about myself in
• 26:04
  the sense of like I need help until I was in my twenties which
• 26:09
  was a couple years ago. So in the last 23 years, that's
• 26:11
  when I realized Okay, this may not just be a me thing.
• 26:16
  This this Might just might be something bigger than that and I
• 26:21
  was starting to back that in my college Years.
• 26:23
  That's what I was trying to accept mental health as a as a
• 26:27
  way out. Because at that time, I didn't
• 26:29
  have a lot of friends that are experiencing depression.
• 26:32
  You know, I had a friend who try to not Frank, we want to
• 26:35
  colleagues / classmates, but what sort of clothes with they
• 26:40
  try to commit suicide? And after that incident I was
• 26:44
  like, okay. You know it just has like it
• 26:49
  came to me in the sense of like I don't want to end up in like
• 26:53
  that and if I keep quiet about this thing I'm sure that's going
• 26:58
  to be me couple of years. So basically what you're saying
• 27:01
  is that like for the majority of your life you've been suffering
• 27:04
  with this condition and you've not been able to seek help until
• 27:09
  within the last couple of years. Actually.
• 27:11
  Yeah, basically the last two 32 years so I was 20 One when I
• 27:17
  decided, okay? And even though I do start
• 27:20
  therapy to like last year so when I was 22 going to 23,
• 27:23
  that's when I started therapy. So 21, I started seeking
• 27:28
  communities online and making friends that have the same
• 27:31
  condition that I do. So this is what I wanted to go
• 27:33
  back to it. So basically, yeah, there wasn't
• 27:35
  any kind of input from your family.
• 27:37
  This is something that you saw out yourself.
• 27:40
  Yeah and obviously I do want to sort of clarify A fight and say,
• 27:46
  it's not like my family was completely hands-off and they
• 27:48
  just let me do whatever I want. My mom did try to talk me sort
• 27:52
  of, to seek help. She did actually urge me to seek
• 27:55
  help, you know, in the, when I was 18, 19, when she realized.
• 28:00
  Okay, this thing, this, this thing that she deemed as like,
• 28:04
  you know, my innocent child changed her made-up.
• 28:07
  Friends is becoming a problem. She did try to urge me to go
• 28:12
  seek help. But again, like I said, I was at
• 28:14
  that time. I thought of myself as genuinely
• 28:18
  a crazy person. So I was too scared to even
• 28:21
  contemplate, the idea and the rest of my siblings, we've
• 28:24
  always had a difficult relationship.
• 28:25
  So for them to approach me regarding this unspoken
• 28:29
  disorder. That we knew I was experiencing
• 28:32
  was, it was sort of difficult for them to do that.
• 28:36
  So it was mostly my mom that pushed me.
• 28:38
  But again, like I said, I pushed back and I said, no, I'm fine.
• 28:40
  I can do it, I can control it, but I could.
• 28:43
  So what about now is, has the relationship got I'm better like
• 28:46
  a you able to have like a bit more of a, normal relationship
• 28:49
  with them now. Yes.
• 28:53
  And no, I think most like for my mom, our relationship has
• 28:57
  improved by leaps. Like good.
• 28:59
  Yeah, we've managed to talk thing.
• 29:01
  We had several months ago, we had like this deep conversation
• 29:06
  where we both cried and we sell them cried.
• 29:08
  Again, it's a mess. We're a little.
• 29:10
  Oh no, it's good. It's good to let it go.
• 29:12
  It was good like it was good. It was very therapeutic.
• 29:15
  I got a lot of shit out of my chest you know?
• 29:18
  And she took some responsibility for Absence in my life and we're
• 29:23
  sort of managed to sort out our things, but as for my siblings,
• 29:28
  I would say I'm a middle child. So some of my younger siblings,
• 29:31
  I have a better relationship with because they weren't there
• 29:35
  for the worst years of my teen years myself.
• 29:38
  Somebody younger siblings, you know, were living with uncles
• 29:41
  and aunts world countries. So they weren't there for my
• 29:43
  worst years, but for my older siblings that, you know, took
• 29:47
  the brunt of my backlashes. I'd say we saw Long way to go.
• 29:51
  Like I know them as people like I know you're doing this and
• 29:54
  that but we don't really know each other.
• 29:56
  And again, a lot of it doesn't just come back to my disorder.
• 29:59
  It also comes back to my very different personality than that.
• 30:04
  They're very outgoing and outspoken like very like bubbly
• 30:07
  and you know, Sunshine. Well, I'm more like a rainy day
• 30:12
  kind of person I guess. Yeah I mean I think as time
• 30:15
  progresses it will yeah get better and I think that's just
• 30:18
  the nature of families for the most.
• 30:20
  You know, even if you do have difficult relationships at
• 30:24
  times, it's, you know, as long as you remember the
• 30:26
  fundamentals, and you're there for each other.
• 30:28
  I think that's all that really matters.
• 30:29
  But, yeah, that's the best of luck with that.
• 30:32
  I will say thank you. Yeah, I wouldn't doubt it that
• 30:35
  back for a second and just asked about what it was like at your
• 30:40
  school. Now, I know that you sort of
• 30:42
  sort of outline before that you kept this sort of stuff to
• 30:45
  yourself and whatnot. But did you ever reach out to
• 30:48
  the school? I mean, presumably, they must
• 30:50
  have have sort of been making a lot of comments about the fact
• 30:54
  that, hey, you know, you're missing a lot of school and
• 30:56
  you're not doing this and you're not doing that.
• 30:58
  What was the school? Like when you were there?
• 31:02
  Actually, they will come. I think, I think people would be
• 31:05
  surprised to see how well I can hide my problems.
• 31:11
  Like, I'm, I'm serious. I'm like, Mystique with this
• 31:14
  shit. I can completely shape-shift and
• 31:17
  like a whole new personality not even, you know, The only reason,
• 31:22
  my family knows about this issues because they they I was
• 31:25
  raised alongside them that live with me, you know.
• 31:28
  So that's why they know. But everyone else outside of
• 31:31
  those Intimate Relationships, they have zero clue.
• 31:34
  I had, it's not just my maladaptive disorder.
• 31:37
  I'm also very depressed, like I have been depressed since I was
• 31:40
  9 and 10. I've been carrying this burden
• 31:42
  for so many years but I've been, you know, outside.
• 31:45
  I know how to like I'm very well-put-together person, I
• 31:48
  have, you know, I aced my Tasks, I participate in clubs, you
• 31:55
  know, outside from the outside. I look like every parent's dream
• 32:00
  child. Like, I honestly did not pun
• 32:04
  intended, by the way. But yeah.
• 32:08
  So no, they had no idea. None of my classmates.
• 32:12
  And my teacher is another, the principal's nobody had any idea.
• 32:17
  Yeah. Okay.
• 32:20
  Well, it's weird. I feel like half congratulating
• 32:24
  you but was a sin. Like, damn, I wish you'd have
• 32:26
  you've sought help before, you know earlier.
• 32:29
  But you know, actually I would the way I see it.
• 32:32
  Looking back now. I were actually, I know it's not
• 32:36
  the healthiest but I generally proud of myself.
• 32:39
  The fact I was able to keep up appearances at the very least.
• 32:42
  Don't think most people would agree with that.
• 32:44
  It's exactly. Yeah, some people just, you
• 32:47
  know, and I'm not bashing them for but some we'll just let
• 32:51
  things loosen, it's all gone, but at least, at the very least,
• 32:54
  I could say that I had a sort of a meaningful academic life Okay,
• 33:00
  so I want to move it onto the treatment.
• 33:05
  Now you mentioned that you're receiving treatment at the
• 33:08
  moment but from my research that I was conducting via Healthline,
• 33:14
  it mentioned that some sufferers of maladaptive daydreaming will
• 33:19
  use fluvoxamine. Otherwise known as the livox.
• 33:23
  Which I understand is some sort of a drug that is sometimes used
• 33:27
  in connection with this. But according to health, There
• 33:30
  isn't actually, currently any form of official treatment for
• 33:34
  maladaptive daydreaming. So, are you or first of all, are
• 33:38
  you receiving that specific medicine, or have you been
• 33:41
  offered that what's been offered to you?
• 33:44
  And what does the actual and treat treatment involve right
• 33:47
  now? Okay, so, for the drugs,
• 33:50
  personally I'm not my case Isn't So severe where my therapist
• 33:56
  felt like I needed, you know, medication just okay.
• 33:58
  Keep me somewhat, you know, Bruce but and and other people
• 34:03
  that I've talked to honestly, and the community at most of
• 34:06
  them are non drug medication, sort of, and as, for my
• 34:11
  treatment, like I said, it's only been in recent months like
• 34:15
  and what I said, we said only like a couple years ago, I mean
• 34:17
  like 20, the two months ago, three months ago, or something
• 34:21
  like that, that dr. Sommer was able to clarify and
• 34:26
  say, we don't have a definitive course of treatment right now,
• 34:31
  but your best chances of beating this thing is to treat it as if
• 34:34
  it's a behavioral addiction, as if it's like a gambling
• 34:37
  addiction. So that's the best way you can
• 34:39
  curve it. And for me, I'm doing, like I
• 34:42
  said, behavioral addiction but I'm also treating the underlying
• 34:46
  cause which is my depression. Because I've been so lonely and
• 34:49
  I've had all these horrible, you know, numbing pain for all these
• 34:54
  years that I started to fantasize.
• 34:57
  So, I'm treating my depression and I'm also, sort of learning.
• 35:03
  I mean, cognitive behavior therapy, writing learning to
• 35:06
  just not, like, when I get the urge, how should I behave?
• 35:11
  How do I distract myself? When can I engage in this
• 35:16
  behavior? When shouldn't I?
• 35:17
  And Things like that is my treatment course and and in fact
• 35:23
  dr. Sommer you know recommends until
• 35:26
  we get a definitive treatment, this is the best course is to
• 35:31
  you know treat the underlying cause of your daydreaming.
• 35:35
  But also in addition to like treating it as if it's a
• 35:39
  behavior addiction do you feel like this treatments actually
• 35:42
  working? My depression?
• 35:46
  Yes. My daydreaming, I'll be honest
• 35:49
  with you, it's hard for me to not engage in that behavior when
• 35:56
  I still don't like because this dependent, make shut everything
• 35:59
  down and it's hard to make friends.
• 36:01
  Yeah, you know, it's hard. It's just, I don't even a job.
• 36:06
  I have a part-time job and I'm trying to get a full-time job.
• 36:09
  But again, because of pandemic, everything is shut down and it's
• 36:13
  just it's just hard to find a replacement for my date.
• 36:18
  Me because my therapist did say, if you want to beat this thing,
• 36:21
  you're not just going to need your depression.
• 36:23
  You're going to need an actual active life outside of, you
• 36:27
  know, your room and it's hard at this moment, it's hard for me to
• 36:32
  find a substitute when everything, the whole world is
• 36:34
  shut down. So my mother up to daydream a,
• 36:38
  I'll be honest with you, I wish I could do better, but right
• 36:41
  now, it's sort of a fluctuating thing.
• 36:43
  It's I've good days where I try or at least minimize the The
• 36:48
  hours that I'm engaging in, and there are some really bad things
• 36:52
  where I spent and it almost an entire day in my room
• 36:55
  daydreaming. So it's yeah, it's ups and
• 36:58
  downs. There are some maladaptive
• 37:01
  daydreaming software is that also have reportedly experienced
• 37:04
  ADHD, otherwise known, as Attention Deficit, Hyperactive
• 37:08
  hyperactivity disorder, obviously depression, which you
• 37:12
  mentioned and then also obsessive-compulsive disorder.
• 37:15
  IE OCD so have you experienced HD or OCD in connection with
• 37:20
  this. No, but I think there's a common
• 37:25
  misconception or, or not comment, but I sort of like a
• 37:30
  overlap which is because my doctor daydreaming so focuses so
• 37:35
  much on your inner world. It's hard for the person to
• 37:40
  focus on the outside, you know, attention demands.
• 37:43
  And that's why a lot of people confuse maladaptive as ADHD
• 37:48
  related, because I have that issue where And focus on
• 37:52
  something because I'm so busy daydreaming inside my head.
• 37:55
  But it's not because it's not because of ADHD.
• 37:57
  It's just because of my fantasies are so good.
• 37:59
  That I will stay inside my head instead of outside of it.
• 38:02
  So, to the untrained person or the untrained eye, it would look
• 38:06
  like something a PhD, you know, related but it's so far there's
• 38:11
  not like a direct link between two overlaps.
• 38:14
  Yes, absolutely. But not a direct link.
• 38:16
  The you mentioned something interesting there and we did
• 38:19
  touch on it earlier as well. You said that Sometimes the
• 38:23
  Daydreams are so good that you don't want to come out of them.
• 38:25
  Now that almost kind of implies that there's a sort of a
• 38:29
  seductive element to it like not sexual but like a kind of yeah.
• 38:33
  No. Like an Allure to it like, you
• 38:35
  know, it's as you said like it's being treated as a behavioral
• 38:40
  addiction. So you know like any other
• 38:43
  addiction, it's obviously when you're in you're stuck in it,
• 38:46
  about breaking the habits but understanding that you have an
• 38:49
  issue and trying to kind of break that habit, So for you.
• 38:54
  But what is so alluring about these, these Daydreams?
• 38:57
  Like, I really want to go into detail with regards to what
• 39:01
  these Daydreams are. Like, what they involve talk to
• 39:05
  us about that, okay? So again, I do not speak on
• 39:10
  behalf of the community. This is the specific
• 39:13
  specifically to me, okay? Which is for me as a child, it
• 39:18
  started because I was generally interested in the inner Worlds
• 39:21
  at a Be creative mind. I'm a writer.
• 39:25
  I adapt a little bit and, you know, comic books like I have a
• 39:28
  very creative mind. So for as a child, as a child, a
• 39:32
  lot of it was a to mask my loneliness but also because I
• 39:35
  was genuinely interested in the characters.
• 39:37
  The world's that I was building all that stuff, but As I Grew
• 39:41
  Older, and I've been doing this habit literally since I was 8
• 39:45
  and told 23. So that's, I don't like 20
• 39:49
  years. Yeah, or like something like
• 39:50
  that. Not not many years.
• 39:53
  My math is off like 15 like a decade's basically, I've been
• 39:57
  engaging in this Behavior. So today, it has become a
• 40:02
  compulsion. It's no long as it's fun.
• 40:04
  It's still fun but it's more of a compulsion than being
• 40:07
  intrigued by the world's that I'm creating.
• 40:11
  Does that make sense? I get that.
• 40:13
  I get that. Yeah.
• 40:15
  But what like what what exactly are you experiencing when it
• 40:18
  happens? Like what some of the things?
• 40:21
  What? What?
• 40:22
  Things that I particularly stand out for you.
• 40:24
  That maybe the average person might be like, whoa, like that's
• 40:28
  kind of out there. Like what kind of things are you
• 40:30
  tended to daydream about? Okay, so this is for me.
• 40:37
  My Daydreams are extremely personal.
• 40:40
  I'm not going to go into the details.
• 40:42
  Sure. I wish I could, but honestly,
• 40:44
  it's very personal I've attachment to them.
• 40:48
  I'm not really discussed them in full length, but I will say
• 40:50
  this. My Daydreams tend to reflect
• 40:55
  whatever longing for connection that I'm looking for at that
• 40:59
  moment. So for example, if I am lonely
• 41:04
  and want to have friends that I will most likely but not always
• 41:08
  but most likely engage in Beijing.
• 41:10
  Swear my character or me I have friends and stuff like that and
• 41:14
  if I'm feeling, you know lonely, but like, romantically lonely
• 41:19
  that I would engage in Daydreams where I have a loving partner.
• 41:24
  And if I'm having fights with my family, then maybe I'll create a
• 41:28
  world where my family loves me. So a lot of times, my Daydreams
• 41:32
  are a reflection of the emotion that I'm lacking.
• 41:39
  So yeah, it's pretty interesting because they say that, you know,
• 41:42
  standard dreams are supposed to be a reflection of that to like
• 41:45
  you. Obviously you got to take it
• 41:47
  with a pinch of salt, but there's a lot of people say
• 41:49
  that, you know, if you lose your teeth in a dream or You die in a
• 41:52
  Dream. It's supposed to be reflective
• 41:55
  of like, you know, maybe some sort of profound change in your
• 41:58
  life or something that's lacking from your life.
• 42:01
  I know that at times when I felt particularly yeah anxious or
• 42:06
  stressed out, I've had more kind of nightmare based dreams and I
• 42:11
  think it's that your body is kind of and Minds way of like
• 42:15
  telling you like you need to do something about this.
• 42:17
  This is not a good situation you know you need to change it.
• 42:19
  So it's sounds like there's a lot of It's--there between
• 42:23
  standard really? I think this this sort of belief
• 42:27
  or not believe, but more like ideas sort of go into the
• 42:31
  mind-body connection which is like your social interactions
• 42:36
  can manifest as physical illness and vice versa.
• 42:39
  Your physical was can manifest as like a psychological thing.
• 42:43
  So it's like you said, it's generally interesting, but I
• 42:46
  myself try not to get too into that because I'm scared Said
• 42:52
  that if I know not, that's good, but more like wary that if I
• 42:57
  make it sound like it's something out of this world that
• 43:00
  I will somehow absolve myself of responsibility.
• 43:04
  And I know it's something most people do like, well, it's not
• 43:07
  really your fault and but for me it would help like in the when I
• 43:11
  was talking to my therapist and, you know, and we were discussing
• 43:14
  a course of treatment. I would I tell her I told her
• 43:17
  like I don't want to pretend this thing is bigger than what
• 43:20
  it is. I want to knock It down to me
• 43:24
  being taken responsibility for it and just you know, like
• 43:27
  knocking it out of my life and regaining a social interaction,
• 43:33
  social life better. All right, I got it.
• 43:37
  Okay, yeah, I get where you're coming from.
• 43:38
  I think. I think I sort of represents a
• 43:41
  tremendous amount of Courage on your part.
• 43:43
  I mean, I think that many Outsiders looking in myself
• 43:47
  included, would look at that and be like, whoa how could you
• 43:49
  possibly blame yourself for it? It's just, it's It's, you know,
• 43:52
  it's a human mind at work and it's it can be for me.
• 43:58
  Sorry, I just want to like, sort of sort of give you an
• 44:02
  understanding of why, because I did was talking to people about
• 44:06
  what we're going through. I'm always bringing up the steam
• 44:09
  of like taking responsibility and a lot of my online friends
• 44:13
  have mentioned like you know it's a disorder.
• 44:15
  You know, it's okay. I was like no I need to phrase
• 44:18
  it this way because a lot of the most of my teen years I was
• 44:22
  deciding whether or not, I should seek help.
• 44:24
  I in my head, I tricked myself into thinking that it's, it's
• 44:29
  bigger than me and I would never be able to curb it because it's
• 44:32
  done. It's done, I'm over like, you
• 44:34
  know, I mean like there's no second chance for me.
• 44:36
  This is how I'm gonna live my life now and because I had that
• 44:39
  idea, I just sort of surrendered myself before I even gave myself
• 44:44
  the opportunity to fight. So for now it's important for me
• 44:47
  to say no, it's I can do this, it's it's doable.
• 44:52
  I'm going to put in the work and I'm going to put in the hours,
• 44:55
  we're gonna do this thing, we're gonna okay, but when I kick its
• 44:58
  ass when you when you obviously first started suffering from
• 45:02
  there. So obviously later, when you
• 45:03
  were a teenager, yeah, it's true.
• 45:05
  Mental health was stigmatized greatly and had minutes many
• 45:09
  negative connotations, and obviously was portrayed very
• 45:12
  negatively in the media and culture in the large.
• 45:15
  But nowadays, it's a very different story.
• 45:18
  Mental health is taken very seriously.
• 45:20
  I mean, I wouldn't say that it's Exactly at the point where we
• 45:24
  need it to be in society as far as understanding and stuff like
• 45:27
  that in freaks in spaces like the workplace and whatnot, but
• 45:32
  we'll certainly was going to say that we're slowly getting and my
• 45:38
  key point is that it's changed over that time.
• 45:40
  So I'm interested. Well, I'm intrigued because you
• 45:44
  know, you say like I want to take full control of this
• 45:47
  responsibility for this. I don't want this to be bigger
• 45:49
  than me and whatnot but like do you ever just feel like, well
• 45:53
  Society is changed? I can to some extent.
• 45:56
  Maybe lean on the Mental Health Community because there is
• 45:59
  support out there for me, and Society has changed in that
• 46:02
  regard. Okay.
• 46:04
  So a really good question because I was gonna go there,
• 46:08
  but also to answer to reply back to you, yes, I know.
• 46:14
  Okay. So let me explain and the sense
• 46:16
  of, you know, how we portray and accept, mental health issues, we
• 46:23
  have done a lot of progress, a lot of accepting, especially in
• 46:28
  the last 23 years, you know, there has been this overwhelming
• 46:33
  sense of like, it's okay roll here with the Hue and it's
• 46:37
  amazing, it's completely liberating.
• 46:40
  It's just, it's just nice to have that support.
• 46:42
  So in that regard, I have absolutely no problem talking
• 46:46
  about my depression. I have no problem talking, or
• 46:50
  mentioning and, you know, previous suicide attempts or any
• 46:54
  things like those deep subjects that you people would say, it's
• 46:58
  taboo. I don't have a problem with it
• 47:00
  because the world sort of Sit sit.
• 47:03
  And you know, we went on a great job of understanding that
• 47:06
  depression is hard and like we overall as as a global
• 47:11
  Community, we have all sort of rally behind people who have
• 47:15
  depression and anxiety and we all say go on, you know, keep up
• 47:18
  the good fight. So in that regard, I have no
• 47:21
  problem discussing my depression.
• 47:23
  But you come to my Mad Doctor daydreaming and I have this
• 47:26
  sense of overwhelming shame. And it's not just me.
• 47:30
  It's a very common theme among You know, among our community,
• 47:34
  and a lot of it has to do with the fact that my doctor
• 47:38
  daydreaming, a still extremely new thing.
• 47:41
  It's not even recognized as an official disorder, that's how
• 47:45
  new it is. It's if you flip through the
• 47:48
  diagnostic manuals of Psychiatry you will not find my adapted,
• 47:53
  redeeming at all. So eight, it's not recognized.
• 47:57
  So how can they calculate expect the world or like average people
• 48:02
  to accept us if scientists or researchers?
• 48:05
  Don't even acknowledge our disorder in our like suffering
• 48:09
  so it's extremely new and be if something that's inside our
• 48:14
  heads and I would say people have a better time understanding
• 48:24
  like Mental issues that manifest themselves in a physical way.
• 48:29
  Like if there's, you would have a better understanding somebody
• 48:32
  who suffers from say drug addiction.
• 48:35
  Then you would have somebody who suffers from daydreaming
• 48:38
  addiction because drugs are something tangible.
• 48:42
  There's a physical manifestation of his pain of his suffering.
• 48:45
  It's something you can see. Could touch it helps, it helps
• 48:49
  you understand, but when most of your suffering, it's inside your
• 48:53
  head, it gets scary. It's generally a scary and hard
• 48:57
  to understand sort of territory. So I would say and and Like, I
• 49:07
  would say we still are not there we have accepted the oppression
• 49:12
  because people have been campaigning or no Champion,
• 49:16
  depression and supporting people have depression for so long that
• 49:20
  it's now, sort of mainstream. But this thing is extremely new
• 49:24
  there, like a bunch of us in the community.
• 49:26
  There's like 40 papers on this, on this disorder.
• 49:29
  How do you expect the world to just be like, we understand you
• 49:32
  and completely accept? You you're not crazy, come here
• 49:35
  and give us a hug. We get together mean.
• 49:38
  Like I don't know if that but I feel like I'm going to challenge
• 49:43
  you on this. I think let go ahead and
• 49:45
  challenge me. I would love you to change my
• 49:47
  mind. Well, I think that if you take
• 49:50
  things like just like gender identity, for example, like I
• 49:57
  was reading up on this the other day and one of the things I
• 50:01
  realized straight away is that there's so much I didn't know
• 50:04
  and like I'm Still rocking. My brains about it but the point
• 50:09
  is that's an area that hasn't been fully outlined.
• 50:12
  Yeah, it was only in I believe 2013 that they actually started
• 50:16
  properly having conversations on your side Chris, Chris.
• 50:21
  Can I just say one thing? Sure, you're right.
• 50:26
  You know it's like the last couple years that there's like
• 50:28
  scientific papers and all these efforts but it's not a
• 50:32
  completely foreign and new idea. No no of course not.
• 50:35
  Is about gender related issues has been around since the 60s
• 50:39
  and 70s, but this specific just under people, right?
• 50:43
  You know, can't you know, like Champion for their cause since
• 50:48
  like a decades ago but I'm talking about a very specific
• 50:53
  fantasy prone disorder that very much.
• 50:58
  Not resembles but has sort of same kind of characteristics as
• 51:02
  like schizophrenia which a lot of people People tend to see as
• 51:07
  something scary and it's just as soon as you say, I have dreams
• 51:10
  in my head and I can't control them, people just shut down.
• 51:13
  Even I have a hard time not accepting but like discussing it
• 51:19
  with other people because it's it all sounds scary.
• 51:23
  And again if it's not just me a lot of people in the community
• 51:27
  would say oh I have no problem discussing it with you guys, but
• 51:31
  I would never dare tell my coworker.
• 51:34
  I would never tell tell my Then why have six kids Worth to get?
• 51:38
  I mean the thing is that again I still disagree with you.
• 51:42
  Yeah, I think that good. The thing is And the reason that
• 51:46
  I brought up gender is that obviously.
• 51:49
  Yeah, you're right. It has been something that's
• 51:51
  been campaigning for many, many years, but this specific part of
• 51:55
  it. This third gender idea, and
• 51:58
  everything like that. That's only a new idea within
• 52:01
  the last seven or eight years. And here's the thing, we're
• 52:05
  still not 100% on that, as far as like, changing Society in
• 52:12
  such a way that it's just part of society.
• 52:14
  And every like there, Parts of that.
• 52:16
  For instance, I understand it's law.
• 52:18
  Now, in Canada, that you have to ask for people's pronouns and
• 52:23
  stuff like that. Yeah, I see some of that in the
• 52:25
  UK here, with regards to giving people that option on things
• 52:29
  like job forms and stuff like that surveys.
• 52:32
  So that is happening but it's not concrete because we're still
• 52:37
  learning about all this is happening because that's what
• 52:39
  I'm trying to say you in the media you have.
• 52:43
  Can I just like let me finish my thought in the Media where the
• 52:46
  movies or YouTube were YouTubers or Instagram, whatever media
• 52:52
  platform that people consume, you have some elements of, you
• 52:57
  know, gender like these people that are like he, you know,
• 53:00
  doing this, you have elements of it in society, they're all lost
• 53:04
  for it. You know, people are being more
• 53:07
  outspoken about it but I urge you to find a single law or a
• 53:12
  single like a, you know, like anything concrete.
• 53:16
  Regarding my deductive thinking you know, what's not?
• 53:19
  I've got to push straight to my the point.
• 53:21
  Yeah, only two is that if this would be pushed a bit more,
• 53:25
  like, if people such as yourself would come out more and speak
• 53:28
  about it, it would be embraced. I think we're living in that
• 53:31
  Society hundred percent, right? And that's, I'm not arguing with
• 53:34
  you, I would say, hopefully, my goal is one day that I would be
• 53:41
  able to. And, you know, I sort of For
• 53:48
  lack of a better phrase come out to society regarding my Mad
• 53:55
  Doctor daydreaming. That is my goal, that is the
• 53:57
  goal that I'm working towards in the future.
• 53:59
  And I want to raise awareness, I want to actually campaign and
• 54:03
  get people to talk about this thing and I want to start, you
• 54:06
  know, community centers where we can have physical meeting
• 54:11
  because most of the meetings, I do now or most of the community
• 54:13
  bonding that I do. I know it's all mine.
• 54:16
  Line, which is nice but it's not a substitute for physical
• 54:19
  presence. Feeling another person's warmth,
• 54:22
  okay? It's not, it's not substitute
• 54:24
  for it. So my goal is not like I'm
• 54:25
  saying. I will never come out and I will
• 54:28
  forever be a shame. I'm just saying it's hard and I
• 54:33
  do encourage people to come out, but I also don't want to
• 54:36
  minimize the very real feelings of shame but also backlash that
• 54:42
  could come from it. I am a graduate.
• 54:46
  And biotech I work with Labs. Do I work with science?
• 54:52
  I work with a lot of very sensitive sort of materials.
• 54:59
  I bet you if I told my boss hey I have depression and also I
• 55:07
  have fantasies in my head and I can't control them and sometimes
• 55:10
  it's a compulsion. I guarantee you he would view me
• 55:14
  in a very much different way. And he would maybe think of me
• 55:18
  as a person who's unreliable. Yes, it's not just a shame.
• 55:22
  It's also like physical real, you know, like there's
• 55:25
  consequences for me coming out. I don't disagree with that.
• 55:29
  Like I said, yeah, had me before I said that, you know, as a
• 55:33
  society we're getting there as far as accepting mental health,
• 55:37
  but it still exists as a stigma in the workplace, you know, it's
• 55:41
  the same as it's like, if you have been arrested before, or
• 55:45
  and you have to, Glad that on the foot because in the UK, I
• 55:47
  don't know about other countries but in the UK.
• 55:49
  Yeah. Declare that.
• 55:50
  If you have any mental illnesses, if ya have, you know,
• 55:57
  any kind of prison convictions, anything like that, you have to
• 56:04
  declare. All of that way is interested.
• 56:05
  Apparently, in the state's you don't have to do those actually
• 56:07
  illegal to to ask people, to disclose any information.
• 56:11
  Says, interesting here in the UK that I'm finding that out, but
• 56:15
  You know, irrespective the point stands that yeah.
• 56:18
  You're right that there is that God always going to be that
• 56:20
  stigma. But I mean, here's the thing.
• 56:23
  Here you are, you're a, you want my podcast, you're talking about
• 56:26
  it? It's this is, this is that first
• 56:28
  step and you said that, like you have these goals moving forward
• 56:32
  of that. You want, you want to eventually
• 56:33
  come out and talk about this and and help people with regards to
• 56:37
  this. So how come you don't choose to
• 56:41
  be that you choose to be anonymous right now?
• 56:43
  Like is that because of Family and work and everything that you
• 56:47
  just laid out or is that more to do with the fact that like you,
• 56:51
  you need more time to kind of build something with this.
• 56:57
  Like, what what's what's the reason behind that particular
• 57:00
  decision? Both a and a have sort of
• 57:06
  discussed it with my family, but we haven't had that, you know,
• 57:09
  that all revealing conversation where we can talk.
• 57:15
  Truly accept each other. We still haven't had that
• 57:17
  conversation. And a, I'm still in the middle
• 57:19
  of my treatment, I'm in the early stage of my treatment to
• 57:22
  so how can I come out with? I don't even know what it is.
• 57:26
  Or don't even know how to cook to give me.
• 57:28
  It's, it's kind of hard for people could Champion a cause
• 57:34
  when they're still in the middle of literally figuring it out.
• 57:37
  I can't tonight circus, I'm still doing research.
• 57:41
  I am still, we're still trying to come up with.
• 57:43
  Okay, this thing work, maybe we should try this and I'm still in
• 57:45
  the process of it, and I'm also still in the process of
• 57:48
  accepting myself just because I said, I want to take
• 57:51
  responsibility doesn't mean this feelings of Shame just suddenly
• 57:54
  disappear poof, they're done, you know, I'm still a lot of it.
• 57:57
  I'm still struggling with shame and, you know, those years from
• 58:02
  my teenagers where I generally believe I was crazy.
• 58:05
  All those years thinking that isn't going to suddenly
• 58:08
  disappear just because I have a diagnosis now so it's I was
• 58:12
  still in the process. I would say you mentioned a few
• 58:14
  times. Shame there.
• 58:16
  What do you have to be ashamed about?
• 58:18
  Understand that I know you do. I know you don't.
• 58:23
  And I wish I had that sort of privilege where I could be.
• 58:26
  Like I don't understand why people don't just come out.
• 58:30
  I wish I could just say no no no I don't, I don't, I don't mean
• 58:33
  that. That that I understand, I just
• 58:35
  meant that particular word. You said, you know, this having
• 58:40
  this condition. That's what I don't understand
• 58:44
  for me. Okay, so my sort of the cars or
• 58:50
  the underlying cause from my chain comes a lot of it from the
• 58:54
  fact that I Come From Another very, but like a mildly
• 58:58
  conservative background. Okay.
• 59:00
  Yeah. So there's again, my fam, my
• 59:03
  direct family, even my awesome answer extremely accepting of
• 59:09
  mental health. Like the people I directly have,
• 59:12
  you know, a connection with are extremely Think of them.
• 59:15
  Probably even, as I said earlier, my mom even.
• 59:18
  She literally begged and cried. Literally cried for me to just
• 59:21
  seek, help style. I will do whatever you want me
• 59:24
  to do. I will pay for whatever
• 59:26
  treatment course, anything you need.
• 59:27
  Just, just go seek help. So, it's not a matter of like,
• 59:32
  my family except me, but I environment.
• 59:34
  I'm in or the people surrounding me is not like very accepting of
• 59:41
  mental health and at the same time, I'm also worried about Out
• 59:46
  my, my work, i-i'm genuinely my work.
• 59:53
  I handle not super sensitive, but like I do handle, you know,
• 59:57
  bacteria and viruses and stuff like that.
• 59:59
  So I, I worry if I tell my co-workers, if I come out and
• 1:00:03
  say I had fantasies about compulsion, it, would you trust
• 1:00:06
  someone? Like, if I say, if I say I have
• 1:00:10
  a gambling addiction. Would you trust me around?
• 1:00:13
  You know, like highly sensitive. Yo, I got it.
• 1:00:17
  I got it. Exactly.
• 1:00:19
  So again - my Shane comes from my conservative background.
• 1:00:24
  It also comes from having a very sensitive job and having no
• 1:00:28
  friends to talk to our side of the community, obviously, but
• 1:00:30
  like having no friends that I could hang out with just not
• 1:00:33
  having that support system makes me feel like, okay, you know,
• 1:00:36
  it's maybe it's not like maybe there's something still
• 1:00:39
  fundamentally wrong with me. And again, I'm still working
• 1:00:42
  through that process and last Ali.
• 1:00:45
  It comes from all those years where I had this completely
• 1:00:51
  wrong ideas of what it means to be a person with mental health
• 1:00:54
  issues that it largely stems from that.
• 1:00:58
  So I know I bring up, you know, responsibility and shame and
• 1:01:02
  it's a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm still trying
• 1:01:05
  to accept myself and also just just slowly chipping away at my
• 1:01:12
  environment and slowly trying to make people accept.
• 1:01:15
  And again, this is, this is still very early for me.
• 1:01:18
  Like I said, I only started started thinking about therapy
• 1:01:22
  21, and I only started therapy, 22.
• 1:01:26
  And I'm 23 now. So it's, we're not talking
• 1:01:28
  decades here. We're talking to three years.
• 1:01:30
  I got that, I got that. Yeah, let's talk a little bit
• 1:01:33
  about the maladaptive daydreaming community.
• 1:01:36
  So you mentioned that you got some sort of online friends in
• 1:01:38
  this community. That what have you discovered,
• 1:01:40
  how big or large is the community talk to us a little
• 1:01:44
  bit about that? Okay, so I do want to clarify, I
• 1:01:50
  sort of okay otherwise it's hard.
• 1:01:54
  I okay, so when I first met, my thoughts are all over the place.
• 1:01:59
  I'm sorry when I first stumbled upon maladaptive daydreaming, it
• 1:02:05
  was through this fund article. I think it was, I'm not sure but
• 1:02:08
  I think it was the Atlantic or something like that.
• 1:02:10
  It was, it was an article. I read it.
• 1:02:13
  I said, holy shit, it sounds like a lot like me.
• 1:02:15
  Start googling went down the rabbit hole and I make friends.
• 1:02:19
  So I joined this website, I forgot its name but it's like
• 1:02:23
  this very famous website where all the people with mad active
• 1:02:25
  go. All right.
• 1:02:27
  Yeah, it's I forgot its name but I think I have it somewhere in
• 1:02:30
  my like my not notes like where you keep your logins and stuff.
• 1:02:37
  Yeah it's somewhere around that so that's why I started.
• 1:02:40
  That was my sort of introduction to the society so to speak and
• 1:02:45
  Make some friends there and then we slowly moved off from the
• 1:02:49
  forums and we sort of made our own chat and it will usually
• 1:02:54
  chat to Discord. And that's where we talk.
• 1:02:57
  So, if you're talking, if you're asking me about regarding the
• 1:03:00
  mental state, or like nothing, but like the words, the
• 1:03:05
  community is that right now, I am not the most informed because
• 1:03:08
  I haven't used the forms in, like months.
• 1:03:11
  I've been money mainly using Discord and video.
• 1:03:15
  Not be the Charlie Bullock audio chatting with friends and
• 1:03:18
  texting here and there so I'm not completely 100% engaged in
• 1:03:23
  the forms but every now and then I pop in I talked to some people
• 1:03:26
  read some articles, read some people's stories, you know and
• 1:03:30
  not giving thumbs up and like go ahead, you know continuing to
• 1:03:32
  fight you champion and then that's it.
• 1:03:36
  I'll, I log out because I don't want to spend too much time in
• 1:03:42
  the forms. I would rather have instead that
• 1:03:45
  one No one bonding know that closer bonding that I can talk
• 1:03:49
  to people on like actually hear their voice text them.
• 1:03:52
  You know, I would rather have that than just this main less
• 1:03:57
  people and a form. Yeah no I totally get that.
• 1:04:00
  I totally understand that. Okay, now you don't have to make
• 1:04:04
  say any specifics here but I wanted to know what is your sort
• 1:04:09
  of countries particular Outlook or approach to the condition,
• 1:04:12
  like how is it considered? Or recognized is it taken
• 1:04:18
  seriously you know like what's your particular countries
• 1:04:21
  Outlook and then also to allow our extent like what other
• 1:04:25
  countries it's all about looks as well.
• 1:04:31
  Okay. So I am from Sweden Stockholm
• 1:04:35
  but I did jump around sort of moved around with with my
• 1:04:42
  family. We went to different, we went to
• 1:04:45
  Asia for a bit went to Africa for a bit and I want to do
• 1:04:48
  states for a bit. So my if you're giving me if
• 1:04:54
  you're asking me to give you a specific analysis of the single
• 1:04:56
  country, I also don't know because most of the time I kept
• 1:04:59
  to myself but Now that I'm back in, Sweden have been for a while
• 1:05:03
  now. Like I said, a lot of mental
• 1:05:07
  issues that are more common in the mainstream.
• 1:05:11
  Media are accepted, like depression, anxiety, sexual
• 1:05:14
  assault pdsd. I call these things are much
• 1:05:18
  more accepted, but I have not tried and discussing maladaptive
• 1:05:26
  daydreaming, and I've not attempted even, and I don't even
• 1:05:29
  think people, I know it's in fact, when I was started my
• 1:05:34
  therapy, I literally had to explain, and this will explain
• 1:05:38
  my own disorder to my therapist. So that was a fun conversation.
• 1:05:46
  Yeah, when I first started, I was like, okay, I know I'm going
• 1:05:49
  to sound crazy, but bear with me.
• 1:05:54
  Yeah I'm sorry. I wish I could give you a more
• 1:05:56
  definitive answer this this this and this.
• 1:05:59
  But I've been jump, you know been hopping around the globe
• 1:06:02
  for so long. I don't have a single beat on a
• 1:06:06
  single country and say, okay this country is like this and
• 1:06:08
  this country's like that. And again I was mostly kept in
• 1:06:11
  my own room so yeah. Okay.
• 1:06:14
  That thank you to talk us through.
• 1:06:18
  What was like a typical day or week, like for you.
• 1:06:23
  Okay, so typical day I have a job.
• 1:06:28
  A part-time job at a research facility sort of sort of close
• 1:06:32
  to my house. So I work mostly night shifts.
• 1:06:38
  I worked is that by choice. No, that is the only job I could
• 1:06:43
  get. I actually asked for like a
• 1:06:45
  date. I cook regular everyday eight
• 1:06:48
  work but they said the only job we have real but Moment is my
• 1:06:53
  ships. Okay?
• 1:06:54
  This is I was, you know, strapped for money and I was a
• 1:06:57
  fresh graduate with very little experience.
• 1:06:59
  I couldn't say no so I was like, fuck it.
• 1:07:01
  I'll take it. So please get that back.
• 1:07:04
  Yeah, I was like just let me get some experience first.
• 1:07:07
  So right now I'm working evening and night shifts whenever they
• 1:07:10
  need me. They just say okay so this is
• 1:07:12
  when you're going to start working and it's less my work as
• 1:07:16
  for my day-to-day life, I would usually wake up, you know,
• 1:07:21
  around 10 ish, have breakfast and scour.
• 1:07:25
  All mine. Literally that's like 90% of.
• 1:07:27
  What I do is just all my I did try to take walks every now and
• 1:07:32
  then but it's it's hard. Not just like, because we're
• 1:07:38
  pandemic, it's just, it's my depression makes me extremely
• 1:07:42
  lethargic and like with no motivation.
• 1:07:46
  I think that's the most surprising thing for me was my
• 1:07:50
  depression makes me. Extremely, extremely lethargic
• 1:07:55
  and no motivation, no nothing. I don't even want to get out of
• 1:07:58
  bed. So yeah, it's basically me just
• 1:08:01
  hanging out in my room every now and then I'll come down to spend
• 1:08:05
  time with my family. It's not because I want to is
• 1:08:07
  because my therapist said, okay, you can't spend all day between
• 1:08:12
  room and work and even my job. I usually isolated my own you
• 1:08:18
  know like laboratory sort of please she said no, you
• 1:08:22
  actually. We need to start interacting
• 1:08:25
  with people. In fact, she said this
• 1:08:29
  experience. Sorry, it's funny.
• 1:08:31
  Because we were talking to the okay, from now on, we're gonna
• 1:08:35
  start on your reintroduction to society.
• 1:08:39
  All right. Yeah, it's funny because I felt
• 1:08:44
  like those animals that they were injured.
• 1:08:46
  And then now, yeah, like they're being reduced.
• 1:08:52
  But it's it makes sense because like I said, most of my
• 1:08:55
  childhood my teen years, my somewhat, my college Years I was
• 1:08:58
  mostly alone locked up in a room or in my own apartment.
• 1:09:02
  I didn't have a lot of interactive so it actually makes
• 1:09:05
  sense for her to phrase it that way she said, we're gonna slowly
• 1:09:08
  start your reduction society and you're going to start making
• 1:09:11
  friends and you're going to start tolerating other people's
• 1:09:14
  presence because you know my anger issues and I just unpacked
• 1:09:17
  my angry. I'm also very irritated by other
• 1:09:20
  people's just presents even though Yeah, that's what I said
• 1:09:27
  might be a stream. That's just being human man.
• 1:09:30
  Yeah, people are very so, my is locate once in a day you're
• 1:09:38
  going to have to go down and talk to your family.
• 1:09:41
  You're gonna have to sit for more than 10 minutes.
• 1:09:45
  So yeah, that's basically me. I'm at my room you know, online
• 1:09:50
  chatting doing Some writing and then once in a while go down to
• 1:09:55
  have like one meal to meal maybe a conversation here and there
• 1:09:58
  and then I just you know, start writing my progress, I Journal.
• 1:10:02
  Any thoughts that I might have? And then again next day Edge,
• 1:10:05
  bring it up in therapy and we got it from there.
• 1:10:08
  Okay. Yeah and one thing I didn't
• 1:10:13
  really press you on before, but I'm kind of intrigued by as you
• 1:10:17
  mentioned obviously Within These Daydreams that characters
• 1:10:22
  Exists. I want to know a little bit more
• 1:10:24
  about that where that comes from what exactly these characters
• 1:10:28
  are like I know that you said before you're not willing to go
• 1:10:30
  into specifics as far as like personal stuff.
• 1:10:33
  I completely understand that, that's fine, but I'm more
• 1:10:35
  interested in like just the concept rather than specifics to
• 1:10:39
  be honest. I just want to kind of do like,
• 1:10:41
  where does that emanate from? Is it bait?
• 1:10:43
  Other characters based on real life or are they just fiction or
• 1:10:48
  talk to us more about that? Sure.
• 1:10:51
  Okay, so before I start, I do want to say the our terminology
• 1:10:56
  is pretty things. I'm going to say they're like us
• 1:10:59
  actual terminologies, okay? Not by the research Community,
• 1:11:02
  but like the community Tumblr and like the people are talking
• 1:11:05
  to each other. Okay, there's a terminologies
• 1:11:08
  for the words, but right now, like I said, I don't use them
• 1:11:10
  often. I don't know what they are,
• 1:11:13
  they're not on top of my head. I'm sure if I Google I can find
• 1:11:15
  like a bunch. But um so basically I think it's
• 1:11:19
  called paraneoplastic Make something like that.
• 1:11:22
  But basically, as a child, most of my fantasies were me as like
• 1:11:29
  Kia, the person with my face and my body, and things like that,
• 1:11:33
  it was me. But as I grew up and started
• 1:11:38
  watching movies, you know, started having more interaction
• 1:11:42
  with the world that I started to drift towards adopting a
• 1:11:49
  character. Or not attract an actress and
• 1:11:51
  actors body so it's them. But it's my conscious.
• 1:11:55
  I don't know if that makes sense.
• 1:11:57
  Okay, their face but it's me inside of that face.
• 1:12:02
  I don't know if that makes sense.
• 1:12:04
  But yeah, so it was like that for a while and that And then
• 1:12:09
  after a couple of years in my 20s, I started to sort of this
• 1:12:14
  like that kind of not taking but like interaction.
• 1:12:23
  I would I started to towards more having characters are
• 1:12:27
  completely independent from the be myself.
• 1:12:30
  So it's like the Chris Rock is in my head but he's acting as
• 1:12:36
  Chris Rock and it's his conscience not mine.
• 1:12:39
  So, yeah, for it, my character and my world buildings, they
• 1:12:43
  actually went through phases with me as I Grew Older, but
• 1:12:49
  it's not always one. It's not like, it's not like I
• 1:12:52
  have three unless place like, it's not like it's just one
• 1:12:58
  mode. It's not like it's it's just
• 1:13:00
  Chris Rock all the time. Sometimes I switch him out for
• 1:13:03
  somebody else depending on the fantasy and whatever emotion.
• 1:13:07
  I'm trying to fulfill Well, sometimes if I'm feeling really
• 1:13:11
  lonely and I need and I really and I really need to feel
• 1:13:16
  better. I sometimes I treat my
• 1:13:17
  Daydreams, like a pick me up. I'm like, okay, that's bullshit
• 1:13:21
  day. Let's start fantasizing about
• 1:13:24
  something amazing. Yeah, some people are like, you
• 1:13:28
  know, self-care, they're making bathtubs.
• 1:13:30
  I'm like, nah, I'm Gonna Roll My Sleeve my okay.
• 1:13:33
  I'm gonna engage in a six-hour faces.
• 1:13:35
  The excuse me, I need to feel better.
• 1:13:39
  Yeah, that's interesting. So you can choose how long you
• 1:13:43
  engage in this the yeah. Yes.
• 1:13:46
  And no. Okay, so sometimes the fantasies
• 1:13:51
  come to a natural conclusion for the on their own.
• 1:13:53
  Like my example, I'm feeling very lonely.
• 1:13:57
  I start fantasizing that my character is like this actress
• 1:14:01
  and everybody loves her and people just standing all over
• 1:14:03
  her and it feels good. But after a while, you know,
• 1:14:07
  once I start to feel good, I Okay, I don't need to, I don't
• 1:14:11
  know, longer feeling as lonely as I was feeling a couple
• 1:14:13
  minutes ago, I can stop now. So I stopped I go back to
• 1:14:17
  whatever I was doing before I started daydreaming and the
• 1:14:20
  other times where I haven't engaged in the behavioral
• 1:14:25
  addiction for so long that I started that starting to become
• 1:14:28
  as a compulsion like for somebody who hasn't been
• 1:14:31
  drinking or somebody who couldn't drink because they were
• 1:14:34
  so occupied with something else suddenly, when they have the
• 1:14:37
  first three months But they immediately started, you know,
• 1:14:41
  like, they take out the can from the fridge and they start
• 1:14:45
  drinking because they haven't done it for so long, but their
• 1:14:47
  body is jittery, it needs like alcohol, so it's the same for me
• 1:14:52
  sometimes if I don't engage in the behavior for so long because
• 1:14:56
  I'm preoccupied with something else.
• 1:14:58
  I actually get the sense of urgency in my body that I need
• 1:15:02
  to fantasize now. And that's when I can't control,
• 1:15:05
  how long I fantasized, sometimes it's an An hour sometimes it's
• 1:15:10
  literally the entire day and I'm talking about, literally, from
• 1:15:13
  morning to night, it's the entire day.
• 1:15:15
  Have you ever taken recreational drugs?
• 1:15:19
  I don't know, maybe cannabis something like that and if so
• 1:15:23
  did it have like a profound effect on your daydreaming like
• 1:15:26
  positive or negative? No I haven't tried drugs.
• 1:15:30
  And I have no intention of trying any sort of weed or
• 1:15:36
  because I have not me It people that I know have overdosed, so
• 1:15:42
  for me. Okay.
• 1:15:43
  And yeah. So for me, this whole drug thing
• 1:15:44
  is scary. It's just scary, it's not that,
• 1:15:47
  I'm surprised. It's just scares the crap out of
• 1:15:49
  me now, that's fair. No.
• 1:15:50
  I the only reason I asked is because I was, I was interested.
• 1:15:53
  Go ahead just in our people, some who allegedly self-medicate
• 1:16:00
  with weed and I say, allegedly, because the science does not
• 1:16:03
  support weed as a source of like a relief.
• 1:16:07
  And I'm like, Brazil. This just say that you like to
• 1:16:10
  smoke and get on with your day. What's this interesting?
• 1:16:13
  Like because obviously the way that I understand this man of
• 1:16:17
  that to daydreaming, as far as like how you experience it is,
• 1:16:20
  it's like something that you kind of sit down and do on your
• 1:16:24
  own in a kind of a safe space and obviously, you know, it's
• 1:16:28
  the same with drugs. Like, that's what if you were
• 1:16:31
  going to do cannabis like you would want to be in a safe space
• 1:16:34
  and you'd want to you know, me so you can enjoy the experience
• 1:16:36
  and yeah. You're daydreaming would require
• 1:16:41
  attention. I think again, we go back to the
• 1:16:44
  whole, remember earlier, when I said some people have a problem,
• 1:16:48
  focusing on outside demands because they're so busy focusing
• 1:16:51
  on the inside. My fantasy is really require me
• 1:16:54
  to pay attention. Like I said, I can just sit
• 1:16:58
  there and it's just running in the background.
• 1:17:00
  I have to be engaged. My senses have to be engaged, I
• 1:17:04
  have to be pacing and listening to my music so it's extremely
• 1:17:08
  hard. For somebody to maintain focus
• 1:17:10
  when they're completely High out of their mind, how are they
• 1:17:12
  going to do both? So that's why I said, allegedly
• 1:17:16
  some people say they self-medicate with it and if
• 1:17:18
  that actually works for you, go ahead, you know?
• 1:17:21
  Like do whatever that helps you but I have very big doubts as we
• 1:17:28
  draw things to a close for today.
• 1:17:30
  I just wanted to ask what kind of final thoughts.
• 1:17:33
  Do you have that you'd like to share or maybe do you have some
• 1:17:35
  advice that you could give to other sufferers?
• 1:17:38
  Of maladaptive daydreaming, anything you just like to share?
• 1:17:43
  Sure I would stay if you know somebody who sort of displace
• 1:17:53
  any of the symptoms or has sort of an isolation or like
• 1:17:57
  something that you can't explain or are too afraid to approach.
• 1:18:00
  Please please show them nothing but support and love and tell
• 1:18:04
  them that you're there for them because for me a lot of it.
• 1:18:07
  What kept My reason, I kept my disorder hidden for so long is
• 1:18:13
  because I did it feel like people would accept me.
• 1:18:14
  So just if you might actually prevent them from things turning
• 1:18:20
  worse, if you just show a level of care and say, hey if you're
• 1:18:25
  ever going through something, please talk to me, I will
• 1:18:27
  understand. Even if I can't understand, I'll
• 1:18:29
  pretend to understand. And also, I would to any parents
• 1:18:34
  or anyone expecting a child, if they Art to display like this
• 1:18:42
  childhood fantasies were, your kid is talking to a made-up
• 1:18:47
  friend. I would say keep an eye on them
• 1:18:51
  again. It's not it's not a cause for
• 1:18:52
  alarm. You don't need to panic and rush
• 1:18:54
  them to the first Psychiatry because you can find.
• 1:18:57
  But again, a lot of my mad active started as me talking to
• 1:19:02
  myself and engaging in my own world.
• 1:19:05
  So I would just say keep an eye and make sure they don't spend
• 1:19:09
  too much time on their own because one of the key factors
• 1:19:12
  for how you're mad. Active starts is isolation when
• 1:19:15
  you are given the freedom to do whatever you want.
• 1:19:18
  You don't have a reason not to daydream.
• 1:19:22
  And lastly, my last thought is, I genuinely hope this has helped
• 1:19:27
  you sort of understand and accept a little bit better of
• 1:19:34
  maladaptive daydreaming if you are.
• 1:19:38
  Involved in the academic sort of world.
• 1:19:44
  I please pick this topic as your pieces, we need more research on
• 1:19:50
  this. We need people talking about it,
• 1:19:55
  and if you're not involved in the academic world and you're
• 1:19:59
  some innocent bystander, you want to help in some way,
• 1:20:02
  please, please, please give us your funding, because we need a
• 1:20:06
  lot of it. Like, I It really does come down
• 1:20:09
  to money because a lot of the reasons that we can't get
• 1:20:12
  anything done or can get the word out there is because we
• 1:20:16
  don't have the resources that we need.
• 1:20:18
  We have the experts but at least we have some of the experts but
• 1:20:21
  they themselves don't have the funding and the resources they
• 1:20:24
  need. So please just donate your
• 1:20:26
  money. You can donate your time, even
• 1:20:29
  there are some forms that accept people outside of the community
• 1:20:33
  and you can just talk to people about it.
• 1:20:35
  So just just I hope you. And I hope you can help us sort
• 1:20:43
  of become more accepted in this world.
• 1:20:45
  Those are my final thoughts. The thank you very much for
• 1:20:48
  sharing and yeah, just in general for sharing your story
• 1:20:52
  and for being a part of this, this podcast I feel like we've
• 1:20:56
  done something very good here and I think that this is because
• 1:20:59
  I feel good about it. Yeah, I think it's going to be
• 1:21:01
  very good and useful and yeah, just want to say a massive.
• 1:21:04
  Thank you for that. I think it's so much and props
• 1:21:08
  to you. You for handling this topic, in
• 1:21:11
  a very sensible, but also very, you know, entertaining way.
• 1:21:15
  I genuinely enjoyed the questions.
• 1:21:17
  There are some points where you press start and I was like,
• 1:21:19
  okay, that's a good catch. It caught me there, but yeah,
• 1:21:23
  it's just a good interview. Thank you, man.
• 1:21:26
  No problems been my pleasure and to everyone listening to the
• 1:21:29
  Christian weed podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode.
• 1:21:32
  If you would like to see more discussion based content Center
• 1:21:37
  ideas in, send some topics You'd like to hear us discuss on the
• 1:21:40
  show if you're someone who would like to actually share a
• 1:21:43
  particular topic. Get in touch with me.
• 1:21:45
  My DMs are open. I'm always open to discussing
• 1:21:48
  anything on the show. So please contact me and yeah.
• 1:21:51
  Just in general, make sure to like and share and subscribe on
• 1:21:55
  YouTube. Make sure you drop us a follow
• 1:21:57
  on Spotify up or podcast Google podcast everywhere.
• 1:22:00
  You check out the Christian route podcast and as always be
• 1:22:03
  safe. Be well, I'll see you in the
• 1:22:05
  next one.