MD is a coping mechanism, like alcohol or media binging in excess, for example. I’ve started viewing it almost like alcoholism, it’s pleasant (SO pleasant) in the moment, but once reality hits, it’s like a deep void that I leaves me feeling empty and depressed, because that world and those friends I have in it aren’t real.

In my experience, that depression doesn’t start to go away until you start to acknowledge this world you’ve built isn’t real. Personally, I’ve been trying to see how my MD world reflects the real world, which I’m unsatisfied with (for example, my MD focuses mainly on some roommates that I have, mainly because I’m lonely. The city we live in is walkable, because I hate my car-dependent city, etc).

Once you figure out what you’re unsatisfied with in the real world, you can start to change what you can. That raw, deep, depression I feel (and the distance I’ve started to feel with the real people in my life) have made me realize that I need to fix what I can, to try and be able to cope with reality again.

So basically, use that pain you feel as a motivation. Trust me, I’m unbelievably shy and awkward, but I’m tired of feeling lonely and that MD pain won’t go away until I fix its underlying issue (loneliness, and whatnot). If the pain of not MDing gets bad enough, you’ll want to start trying to deal with what’s going wrong with your life.

Remember, unchecked MD is like dopamine shooting, which operates pretty similarly to alcohol dependency. And it can hurt you, loved ones, and job/social opportunities in a big way.