been a while since i've posted on this blog. hey y'all! hope you're all good. not sure if the madd community is as active as it used to be, but i just wanted to dip back in and say some things.
i started this blog in 2018 as a way to cope with chronic maladaptive daydreaming and find community with others. i was lonely, despondent and thought that i would never find the connections i craved beyond the characters i made in my own head, never have the life i'd meticulously crafted in my own fantasies. in fact, owing to other mental issues i was struggling with and a very difficult home life, i didn't even think i would make it to adulthood. the world was a depressing, exhausting place to be and i wanted to no part of it.
eight years later, i couldn't have been more wrong.
i live independently in a gorgeous city far from where i grew up. i have a wide social circle of people who love and uplift me. i have interesting hobbies that make my life fuller, as well as a successful career enabling me to do the things i enjoy. i even studied a writing degree to help me put the ideas in my head onto the page!
and guess what? i still daydream.
not a single day goes by where i don't put my earphones in and pace. my paracosms are still there for me, always evolving as i do. my paras have changed faces and names a thousand times, but they follow me through every high and low i experience. my mind still runs at a hundred miles per hour through all these scenarios, just like it did when i was a young teen.
i say all this to provide a tangible testimony for one simple statement: it gets better.
madd CAN coexist with a happy life. it can be tamed, bartered with and managed. it's so easy to believe that it can't, that true fulfilment will never be possible alongside a disorder that's so all-consuming - there was a time where young me couldn't even fathom being a successful adult with madd. but you can. i promise. is it always easy? no, absolutely not. but you have the strength within you to get through those obstacles, madd included, even if it seems like there's no hope for you beyond daydreams. i am living proof of that.
like i said, i don't know if the madd community is around much anymore. i don't even know if anyone will see this post. but on the chance that you're someone who's found the madd community and are finally able to put into words what you've been going through you're whole life, fearing that the world will never be as wonderful and colourful as it is in your head: never lose hope. joy is possible. you just have to believe it. you just have to believe in yourself.
and to anyone i connected with in the madd community, whether it was on tumblr or discord, whether we only interacted briefly or we still talk to this day: you picked me up and gave me strength at a dark time in my life. i love you, i carry you with me every day and i hope you're doing well <3
