2005-04-11
just go with it
Okay, so I finally did it and began to tell Martha (the therapist) about how I live in my head. The fantasies I create and play out almost constantly, I'm assuming in order to avoid reality - the irony of course being that while the escape is fulfilling, it makes my reality even less tolerable. And practically speaking, I look around and think that my reality really isn't THAT bad - okay, financially, it's pretty dismal, but it's not as if I'm homeless. Yes, creditors are calling repeatedly but still, there are far worse situations, right?
Anyway, I never lose touch with reality in this whole living a separate life in my head thing - but I don't know. It does make reality horrible, which I suppose is part of why it is so addictive. But I often feel as if I am living outside of my life - I think it was Carrie Fisher or someone that wrote a line about how they were watching their life but they couldn't feel it - which is often true for me except that there are these moments that I do feel it, and I'm suddenly and immediately overwhelmed with the most stifling depressive feeling, that horrible finality of awareness that there is no escape. And somehow, I can cut that off most of the time and disassociate - either by slipping back into my head or merely by stepping back into the role of observer.
I suppose there is always the possibility that if I just stayed in the game for a while, I could get past the lack of escape trauma and feel my life in a manner that was not so overwhelming. But I'm not confident of that and I'm not sure it's worth the risk.
And the most confusing part is, I don't really want to stop living in my head. I don't want to stop the addictive nature of it - I prefer it, I enjoy it. The only thing that concerns me about it is that I might look back 10 years from now and feel that I missed out by not living my life - that I missed the important things b/c I was secluded into my own mind in a world of my own creation that, while satisfying in the here and now, doesn't leave you with anything tangible.
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