5 Ways To Escape Reality

Escaping from reality is something we often do without realizing it. There are many avenues of evasion and some are less noticeable than others. We do not always flee from things physically, but sometimes we develop behaviors that fulfill that function, even if it does not seem so at first glance.

The downside of escaping from reality is that it ultimately only leads to self-deception . We can get used to the idea that a problem or a void is not there, but if it is indeed there, sooner or later it will come to pass; Furthermore, not assuming these problems only leads to them growing, often without control.

Likewise, this desire to escape from reality often leads us to develop harmful behaviors both for ourselves and for others.

Without realizing it, the desire not to face reality makes us hide behind maladaptive behaviors that do not solve what we want to avoid and, instead, generate new problems for us. The following are some of those behaviors.

1. Count on what you don’t have yet

This is a way of escaping from reality that refers us to an illusory world. It’s the world of “if this happened, that would be resolved. ” So the problem, for example, is not to solve the employment situation and increase income, but to buy the lottery to fix things for good.

Nor is the problem exploring what lies behind sadness and loneliness, but rather waiting for that person we dream to arrive, for the person we love to change or for “something to happen” that takes us out of that state. It is the world of waiting for something that will hardly happen, so as not to take charge of what actually happens to us.

2. Relying on others, a way to escape reality

Another way to escape your own reality is by subjecting it to the reality of others. There are two ways to do it. One, the most common, is holding others responsible for what happens to us. The problem is with the couple, who does or does not do; or from the boss, who demands or does not demand; or family, which is this way or another, and so on.

It is as if the person believes that he is a simple toy in the hands of others. As if there were no room for a minimum autonomy.

The other path of dependency  is to hold on to someone specifically and delegate responsibility for our destiny to that person. So we don’t have to confront our mistakes or problems.

3. Invent justifications

It is also very common to choose the path of escaping from reality looking for fictitious justifications for what happens to us. The favorites are fate or bad luck. This, of course, would be out of our control and therefore we cannot do anything about it.

There are also cases in which we cling to our own weaknesses to justify disinterest or lack of decision to face our mistakes and gaps. ” I am temperamental, ” some say to avoid their lack of commitment to working out their anger; or the ” I don’t know about that ” that is used to evade advancement. There are hundreds of formulas like that.

4. Overemphasizing the facts

Increasing the severity of some problems sometimes serves the purpose of avoiding others. There are those who, for example, marry a radical pessimism and use it as an excuse not to grow. Apparently, the world is so bad that it is not worth trying to improve it with your own efforts.

Sometimes, even the partner, a child, the mother or the job become a kind of nest of evils. All attention is focused on one of those realities and any trifle in that area becomes a hecatomb. This is also a way to escape from reality, creating a smokescreen.

5. Postpone what’s important

Leaving for later begins as a way of managing time, which becomes a habit in those who want to escape from reality. They procrastinate just when they start to get tough, or when they demand more than usual.

Postponing things indefinitely is a way to get them out of your mind without feeling guilty about it. We know deep down that the right thing to do is to tackle them, but we choose to avoid the situation and this is how we create a long chain of pending issues that we don’t know how to begin to solve later.

We try to escape from reality when we are not clear about how to face it or we feel that the tools we have are not enough to do so. We are almost always wrong about this.

Half of the problems are already solved when we decide to face them and others, whether we reflect on them we can solve them or at least face them so that they affect us as little as possible. Of course, we will always obtain great lessons and fruits if we do so.