Reading to Oblivion

I recently had an epiphany that one of my oldest, most entrenched coping mechanisms is reading for hours in bed until I’m utterly exhausted and fall asleep immediately after. Otherwise I usually toss and turn for hours, racing thoughts abound.

I’ll lay for an hour thinking through all the conversations I had that day and what I could and should have said better. I’ll think about everything I need to do tomorrow and exactly how I need to do it. I’ll think about every unanswered email and text, every phone call I need to return. I’ll think about doctor appointments I need to set up, goals I made years ago and never managed to complete.

I’ll think about a situation from high school and how embarrassing it was, and how I can’t believe I acted so stupid. I’ll think about a conversation I’ll probably never have, and how embarrassing it is just to imagine it. I’ll think about how I should be a better grandkid, a better sibling, child, friend. How I just need to be better.

I’ll consider going shopping and map out my route through the store and plan what I’ll say to the cashier. I’ll think about something I need to finish working on in my condo and recognize I probably won’t do it for weeks.

I’ll toss and turn, trying to get comfortable and relax and stop thinking and just fall asleep, please.

Or, I can read an entire book for five hours and then finally shut off my light and fall asleep nearly immediately to dreams of a fantasy world that has nothing to do with me and my life and my thoughts. It’s easy to see how the habit became so entrenched- enjoyable, useful, effective. I love reading, and often can’t help myself. It’s easier to forget my own life and problems if I’m focusing on someone else’s.

People are surprised when they see how many books I have. They laugh or make a quick joke. I don’t think they realize, and I didn’t quite realize myself, those books are comfort blankets. They are barriers against my anxiety and stress. When I’m falling apart, I can look at a book and remember the entire story. I have something to distract me from myself.

I’ve read many of those books multiple times. Some I’ve read more often than I can count. Others I’ve cycled through important parts I love the most. Regardless of how often I’ve read them, I know them all. I’ve always had a ridiculous memory for books- after reading something once I’ve almost memorized it.

My friends in high school never thought it was fair. I’d hardly study for a test, read a chapter in the textbook, and basically spout it verbatim. That’s just how my brain works. I trained myself to hyper-focus when I was reading- I don’t think about anything else.

That’s always been the intent with reading for me, even though it was subconscious. I read to escape the world. It only works if I ignore everything else except what I’m reading. My parents and I had an unspoken rule- if I don’t respond when you ask me to do something, you can’t get mad at me when I don’t do it. I literally didn’t hear them because I was too focused on the book I was reading.

I’m in the middle of more series than I can count. I start reading the next book and the world, the story, immediately floods back into my mind. I’m there, I’m no longer here. I don’t even exist anymore. It’s such a relief. Often I’m in the middle of multiple books at the same time, because each one is a specific distraction.

Sometimes I’m in the middle of multiple pages in the same book. I don’t think I read the same way most people do. I see the whole page as what I’m reading. I skip ahead, I skip back, I read a full sentence in one glance. Sometimes I’ll skip forward a few pages to see what’s happening, then come back and read a couple pages again to make sure I have all the details. Reading is such a consuming experience for me. My body, my mind, they are gone.

It’s the same for writing. My brain and body stop. The words pour out of wherever they come from. I hardly have to think to construct the words, the sentences, they just show up. It’s like this writing was stuck in my brain for years, and all the sudden decided today was the moment to escape. It’s not usually when I want to write, or what I want to write, or anything I’ve planned in advance.

I continually come back to edit, because I’m not necessarily paying attention to grammar or word choice while the writing flows out. I have to come back in and clean it up, use a thesaurus, edit the structure. Often I change the tense, or make sure I’m talking about me and not about you. But the story is there, ready to go. I don’t know where it comes from.

Reading and writing are perhaps the most relaxing activities, because I don’t exist anymore. Music sometimes works too, if my whole body is moving. As long as energy flows through my whole being, my mind is empty. Dancing is exhilarating and relaxing and fantastic, if I’m doing it right. I don’t even care if I dance by myself- if I’m doing it right, I’m not even there.

Art and theatre also worked the same way, when I did them regularly. I start on a project or a performance and I black out. I’m not thinking at all, I’m responding, reacting, everything is silently working in tandem. The most recent was my drag performance this year- I don’t remember much of it except what I see in videos. I just know it was cathartic and exhilarating and for five minutes I lost myself completely.

The addicting feeling is the escape from reality, the escape from my thoughts, worries, stresses, and anxieties. I need activities that wholly consume me, allowing me to relax and let go. I need activities where I don’t think, I just am. Afterwards I feel so bonelessly exhausted and refreshingly drained. The best times are the those when I don’t remember anything because there were no thoughts.