Asylum. Longing for asylum. Escape from danger. A safe haven. Protection. I understand how you are feeling. All Alone. Different. Wrong. Hurting. Lost. Angry. Black. Moody. So so Sad. I used to think I must have been a changeling...someone left in the wrong world, to the wrong people, lonely and always longing for home. I have spent my life as a manic-depressive. Many years. I'm old now. 61. I didn't start meds until only 8 years ago, so I spent most of my life bouncing between "I can do anything! What can I buy now? To hell with what you think, I'm doing it! Rules? What rules?Let's go!..." and "I wish I would die! I hurt so bad and it's so black! I hate myself! What's the use in trying? Why am I so alone? Maybe I should kill myself so the pain will end."
To survive, I discovered how to "escape" when things get too bad for me to handle...places I could go to, little hidey holes where I could recoup my energy, feel safe and then gather my courage to face the world again. Most of these places are only inside my head, my own inventions, though some are actually based on real memories of places or moments I've been in before.
One of the favorite escapes to is a place I invented long ago and keep in my head in a little drawer: a little off-white room, low gravity, no furniture, springy bouncey rubber walls and floor with soft goose-down padding. I imagine bouncing around as hard as I want to, yet not gettin hurt by anything. or floating like a mist wraith, resting on air currents like smoke. Music quietly fills the room, echoing my ongoing moods. I can rage or mope, scream, swear, cry myself to ribbons, sleep or dream. And I am safe there. It is MY place. to go to or not. to stay in or leave. When the REAL World starts getting to me, stressing me out, angering me, hurting me, I imagine going there for a while, and being comforted by the simplicity of it all.
Another place I visit, quite often, is really just a moment I once experienced while out in the woods and mountains on a hike. It was an overcast day, cool and gray. I was heading uphill, breathing hard, listening to my heart thumping in my ears, and I came around a corner on the trail; and then I saw it! It was like being struck by lightning! Time stopped. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I was happier than I had ever been before! I wanted it to last forever. What I saw was this tall, ragged, old, lightning-struck, fire-blackend stump, all by itself, silouetted against the dark grove of trees behind. A single stray ray of rich golden sunshine, escaping through the clouds, was streaming down, engulfing it in glowing molten fire . This stump had been ripped open recently by a bear, exposing its' heart, which contrasted starkly red against the black burnt wood surrounging it. ...such un-naturally ethereal beauty...rich, woody chunks of tree heart, tumbling out of the torn crevices...one yellow blossoming goldenrod stalk at its' base also caught and held in the sunbeam. Everything else was grey, receding, unimportant. An instant, a moment...then the sun was gone. I'll never forget it, and I go there in my mind often, to see it again. and time stops again, and I remember. then, I feel better for a while.
And, I dream. Literally. Sleep and dream. I love my dreams and my dream-worlds, which seem just as real as the so-called real waking world. I go to these dreamworlds, these mindplaces, and recognize them from other dreams I've had. They are comfortingly familiar lands, and strangely, the events which take place there, have become actual real memories for me. I can recall them at will, and in doing so, remember more and more and more; I can think about these dream memories while awake, and go there and relive them. Sometimes I find myself traveling to and through these dreamlands, noting subtle changes, looking forward, remembering, linking to previous dreams, exhilarated by the adventures. I dream in color and stereophonic sound, with all my senses alive! If I wake up, I can return often to that exact place, and resume the dream. Even the scary dreams. ....I've learnt to find the challenge there, to test myself, to explore the fear, and eventually to conquer that fear. (Sometimes it takes many trips, in recurring nightmares, to those fearful places to beat it.) They no longer bother me as they once did. In fact, I relish them. they are exciting puzzles I'm supposed to figure out! (the only prob I have, is that my meds stop my dreaming, so...don't tell anybody...I stop taking them sometimes, so I can visit there again, when I miss it too much)
Maybe a psychiatrist would say that living in escape mode is bad, and that dreamworlds are not supposed to be real, and I'm supposed to live in this scary, frustrating, stressful, painful, frightening REAL world All the time, to be considered sane. weeeeeellll... all I have to say is that alot of psychiatrists commit suicide as their way of escape. That's a lot more crazy to me, than having my private escape pods in my head. Who is to say what is sane or insane for anybody else?
Then, also, I have things I do in the REAL world, which help me go on, only because I immerse myself in what I'm doing so thoroughly, that my brain isn't that awful frenzy anymore, and is narrowed to only the one thing.
So:
Nature soothes me with its' beauty and unpredictibility. I go camping or go horseback riding. My new horse is a crazy one, was very abused and spoiled by previous owners. He has "buffaloed" and frightened so many people for so many years, and our battles of will requires me to focus only on him. He is learning, and is finally starting to like me a bit! I ride agressively , and like endurance-typeriding, difficult terrain, swift passage, new trails, new challenges. I prefer riding alone.
I read. Lots. Fantasy. Science fiction. Historical -both fiction and non-fiction. Myths and Legends. Must be good writers, though. (No Romances...Please!!!) Annie Dillard, Sherman Alexie, Kurt Vonnegut, Anne McCaffrey, Ray Bradbury, Orson Scott Card, ...oh, my list goes on and on. I have collected thousands of my favorite books. I love how books look and feel and smell too. (I also love boxes and containers- from trunks on down to tiny little 3/4" wide miniature jewelry boxes. I also love and collect miniature perfume bottles. Boxes are alot like books: containers of something precious!)
I listen to music.I like to play music. i like drumming,(take lessons on Doumbek, Djembe, frame drum) Play the hurdy-gurdy, ukulele, tin whistle, harmonica, I currently am memorizing medieval and rennaissance songs/dance tunes/folk songs, etc to play on hurdy-gurdy. I don't have good voice.
I like to watch movies and have collected hundreds of my favorites, foreign, independent, odd esoteric, ..... Also, I like cable/tv series, like: The Tudors, Weeds, Californication, Lost, etc.
I go to SCA events. (also, barter faires, and Black Pownder Rendevous', sometimes). Great escapes!! from the mundane world. and you can really immerse yourself in history and historical recreations. You can go just about anywhere, worldwide, and find SCA events. SCA= Society for Creative Anachronism.) Anybody who is history buff, might like this. or some other groups, like Civil War re-enactments, Renn Faires, Fur Trapper Rendevous', counter-culture barter faires.)
I do art. Paint , sculpture, crafts, sewing,.... passionately, single-mindedly while I'm doing them.
SEE? Most Escapes really are just survival mechanisms!! Everything I do, other than work, is a kind of escape. And just about everyone has their way to escape...who do you know who doesn't like a vacation..of some sort?
Just find YOUR escape hatch... your escape mechanism... don't choose anything which hurts yourself or anyone else, then go there when you can......Do it!
depressed
Sad
cold
contemplative
distressed