darknova

Absolutely. It's tough to show even a shred of vulnerability on the internet. It takes a lot of courage, and finding the right community, to be able to post something like this.

Yup. As with Jeff above, I realized how unhealthy the defense was and started pushing to move past it. I never had a resource like this board and all the information here until just year or so ago, but I was still consciously able to spot the issues in the family structure that had pushed me to move completely to an internal world. I had made slow and steady progress since beginning grad school in 2005, and once I came here and got a better understanding of the impact of the family on personal development, things have improved even faster. Lots of work yet to do, though.

What do you mean when you say 'going into education'? Would that be getting a formal education on how to play drums, or something else? Are you at a state with your drumming where you could offer private lessons around town while keeping your paycheck? Just thinking that could be an avenue to help transition your financial security away from the dead end job.

Jeff, your story strikes a very deep chord with me. Somewhere in middle school I started strongly retreating into a world of fantasy conflict as you did, and it was to withdraw as completely as possible from my whole family. I buried myself in computer games, would sit in class or lay in bed fantasizing about fighting things like terrorists or video game monsters, and would even bring books with me when the family went out to eat so I could withdraw from them at the table. It makes me really happy to hear that you've been able to break away from that and are seeing better days.