Fantasy vs Reality

10.19.10

 Mood: Depressed

 Positive thoughts: Talked to Erica, had a breakthrough at group

Today was very hard and very emotional at group. I had a breakthrough about why I am scared to get better. I don’t want to deal with reality.

Reality is scary. I can’t control reality. I can always control the fantasies in my mind. I can escape into them whenever I feel alone or scared or depressed. I can always depend on them to keep me company and help me cope with the big bad outside world. My fantasies were my defense. They helped me cope even when I didn’t even know what they were for. They just happened out of a need to escape. I had a vivid imagination so it was a natural way to escape.

 They really helped in middle school and high school when I didn’t have a lot of friends and I was teased a lot. I could sit in the back of the class and hide in my own little world. I could make up my own friends that liked the same things I did and liked me for who I was. They protected me.

The fantasy world continued in college when my roommate/best friend and I weren’t speaking. I was still able to get my work done and keep my grades up and still have enough time to continue in that wonderful world.

When the job years came it became a little harder to disengage into my own little world. I had more responsibility and less time to let me mind wander. Work became harder and harder and I couldn’t resort to my defenses to help me get through it. I found jobs that allowed me time to myself. Whether it was driving deliveries or just a job with not a lot to do, I found a way to have my fantasy world.

When I couldn’t use my fantasy world to escape, I just escaped. I could only take so long in a job before I had to run. There was always something about the job that was so unbearable that I couldn’t see staying there any longer. Whether it was a boss or a situation or a particular task I hated doing. It would get to a point where it got too hard to stay there. I could not see myself going to that job day after day after day anymore. Reality became too real and long. It was just easier to somehow unconsciously sabotage myself and quit or get fired. Then on to another job and the process would repeat itself.    

Now I am here and I can’t find that world anymore. It is not there. Even if I could find it I still couldn’t live in it. I have a job where there is no time for another life inside your head. There isn’t even time to go to the bathroom! I can’t find the world anymore though. It is gone. TV no longer helps me find it. I can’t read my books anymore. I am lost without my best friends.

I don’t know how important this world is to me. It had become second nature to me. Is it really that big of a problem that I lost it? I am not even sure I need to get it back. Maybe it was like my alcohol. It was my way of coping with my reality.

 And now it has deserted me in my darkest of times. Or maybe it needed to…I am not sure. I am so depressed and anxious all the time. And I still have to work. I am barely surviving at work right now. Where are those fantasies that made me so happy once upon a time? Now my way of coping is sleeping. It is the only way I know to escape my reality. And my reality has become so unbearable that I just want to escape all the time.  

Am I just sabotaging myself again? Am I that afraid of reality?