I’ve been living inside my head lately. It’s not that I’m isolating myself from the world, or not being socially active. I’m still doing all of the activities (and then some) I’ve been doing for months. It just feels like I’m sitting in a deep well in my mind while everything spins around me.

I’ve skirted along the edges of dissociative disorders for years, so it’s a familiar sensation. It’s not that I’m not interacting with the world, it’s just that I feel very much separate from it.

I imagine that disconnecting from reality is particularly attractive these days. And certainly we’ve all been using the usually suspects – the 3rd glass of wine, Netflix binges, YouTube rabbit-holes, Ben & Jerry’s, extra trips to the dispensary – small escapes from a chaotic world.

Every coping mechanism has its utility, I suppose, if it doesn’t become a problem unto itself (like a 3rd bottle of wine). But sometimes I find myself not needing anything external to take my mind off of the problems of the world. I simply slip into myself and stay there, not bothering to peer from the inside out.

I suppose that it’s my mind’s way of saying, come and get me when all of this is over. But of course it doesn’t work that way.