Obsessive Avoidance, My Drug of Choice

I have been spending an unjustifiable amount of time reading blogs. And some of the folks I read are absolutely amazing writers. It has been amusing and edifiying and moving, and while I would not call it a waste of time, I must admit, it has been an escapist revel.

With me, escapism isn't a harmless little psychological trick to get me through a rough patch. No, with me, escapism is a way of life. Its a PTSD thing. And actually, the correct term is probably "Avoidance".

Call it what you will, when my demons raise their ugly little heads, I find something totally removed from them to obsess over and escape into. To the point that I very often come to a dead stop in my own life, accomplishing absolutely nothing that isn't required for survival. Sometimes I can actually muster the self awareness to recognize that I am in avoidance mode. Usually, someone has to point it out to me, and then have the tenacity to overcome all of my objections and rationalizations until I will look at my behavior and realize they are dead right. Then the even harder question needs answering:

WHY?

What has got me so triggered and freaked that I can't cope unless I disappear into the latest bad distraction technique?

(Bad distraction techniques past:

• Home Shopping Club
  
• Ebay
  
• Insanely detailed historical research for novels only half written and probably never to be completed
  
• Research just for the hell of it (I have this twisted need to know everything there is to know about topics that fascinate me)
  
• Reading
  
• The internet (research, mail lists I lurk on, blogs I read & write)
  
• Eating (though surprisingly, NOT drinking, because it is the family pitfall I refuse to fall vicitm to)
  
• The dogs (and now, maybe, the kid???)
  

These are my chickenshit law abiding substitutes for genuine substance abuse, but they have the same effect-- they allow me to zone out.

Look how neatly I dodged the big question by listing all this stuff...

Why am I freaked? What triggered me?

The blackout-- specifically, the tales of elevator rescues, and the one stupid ass news anchor who felt it necessary to lead the audience in a visualization exercise about being trapped in a little black box... Eeeeewwww. I am starting to flash just thinking that...

Die Gedanken sind frei, wer kann sie erraten
Sie fliegen vorbei wie nachtlichen Schatten

OK-- there's another stupid distraction technique-- trying to remember words to German folk songs, or conjugate irregular German verbs...

Ironic, because the particular song is "Thoughts are Free", and basically is about how you can beat me, lock me up, etc., but my thoughts are MINE, and you can't control them.

Except, in the wake of PTSD, that is no longer Truth for me.

I don't control where my mind takes me.

And that is the most terrifying ride of all.