Explanation or excuse? The complexity of understanding escapism/self-sabotage
In the past few articles, I have talked about escapism, my own experience with escapism, and on my dislike for Christmas, as a blanket for disliking most holidays.
You may wonder how all these are related to today’s topic: “ is understanding the reason behind some of our escapist, self-sabotage ways an explanation or an excuse for behavior?”. I promise you they are related, just stay with me.
To accommodate those who may not have read the previous articles, I’ll do a short recap so we are all on the same page going forward. We have all experienced life differently, but some have had it “better” than others, and others had it “worse” than others. Each of our own unique experiences, especially our childhoods, have affected the way we report to the world, whether we like it or not.
I personally had quite the hard childhood, growing up in an alcoholic and domestic violence home, having had an alcoholic dad. Sadly, growing up with an alcoholic father (parent) or an abusive home is not a special phenomenon; just watch the news or read the newspapers for one day and you won’t miss a story of domestic abuse against women, or of accidents caused by drunkards (who are parents), or of erratic behavior in families caused by some form of drug abuse.
I once read this sentence in Loveable by Dr. Kelly Flanagan, “ none of us emerge from childhood unscathed”. I don’t think a truer statement has been made, because even for those who can be considered as having had blissful childhoods, they too have their own wounds or struggles. And no one’s trauma should be underplayed, just because we had it “worse”. Everyone’s pain is valid to them; we often make the mistake of comparing traumas, and tell others that they should be “grateful”, that from our point of view, they had it really good. It’s not a competition and comparison of traumas, each trauma is valid in its own merit.
Anyways, back to the business of the day. However we have grown, whatever our age, every one of us has a way we escape from the world when things are unpleasant, or when we have tasks or situations we just don’t want to deal with. I don’t think a little escaping can hurt anyone. Haha, even Brene Brown (Prominent author and scholar on shame) has escaped sometimes, so from that I feel we are all allowed a bit of escaping too. Haha, just don’t quote me.
However, for many people (especially young people), our “escaping” is mostly numbing, and if I were to speak for myself, I’ve even “escaped” for weeks. As much as we many want to justify our escapist ways as just “escaping”, we also need to be honest with ourselves and see when it is self-sabotage.
Unfortunately, in most cases, at least speaking from my experience, escaping has turned into some serious episodes of extreme self-sabotage, hurting projects and activities very important to me. It’s not a competition yes, but I guess my self-sabotage has been worse because I’ve often found myself “escaping” when things are good, and sabotaged projects I was well in the way of completing with consistency and excellence.
So, is seeking to understand why we have sabotaged ourselves in the past (or if you’re currently in the middle of a self-sabotage episode) … Is seeking to understand our unhealthy escapist ways a way for us to get excuses to absolve ourselves of our shame and guilt that results from such behavior/habits, or is it an explanation that may help us improve the way we live?
I asked this question because personally, I have often heard my shame say that reading books on shame and guilt is just me looking for excuses for my “dysfunction”. My inner critic has been quite loud for most of my life, and it has often fought me even in activities seeking to improve my life experience … See, when you have sabotaged yourself so many times, which has been the case for me, I think our minds get trained to keep repeating the same cycles of self-sabotage. By our minds, I mean that even the shame in us gets bolder and bolder at criticizing us the more or longer we have sabotaged ourselves, such that yes, it can question and criticize our efforts to change, saying things like “How many times have you tried changing before? You think this time you’ll be any different?”
Take note, that I have specified that it’s usually our shame demoralizing us in our efforts to change, improve, live more abundant lives. I specify that because it is easy to feel and think that the mean things “our minds” say, is us saying those things to ourselves. It is easy to then further beat ourselves up asking ourselves how we could be so horrible to ourselves… One of the best discoveries I’ve made in 2021 is that I, as Risper Wanja Njagi, and the voices in my head, are separate entities. I no longer have to treat my shame and the things it’s been saying as me. If you haven’t made that distinction yourself, I encourage you to journal some more, and in the process listen to how different voices in your mind talk, their personalities, their level of information (Shame is full of half-truths presented as the whole and only truth about us).
So, haha, for real for real now, is trying to understand how our shame has led us into self-sabotage a healthy helpful explanation, or is it us looking for intelligent excuses to absolve our “ dysfunctions”?
I say, with humility, that the answer to that question is a complex one, because self-sabotage (allow me to proceed with escapism as self-sabotage) is an equally complex phenomenon. How else can we explain why we sabotage our own success, our own progress, yet ironically that is all we are ever working toward? How else can we explain how we have been the biggest blocks to our own progress, yet progress is all we want? It has commonly been put across as “we’re our own worst enemies”… How else can we explain this being the case, yet all we want is to succeed (however you define success), except by admitting that self-sabotage is quite more complex than our shame would have us believe?
How else can we explain how we often sabotage ourselves, then have self-fulfilling prophecies of doom? Then feel ashamed, and horrible, and drown our shame in more self-sabotaging activities …?
Whether you over indulge in books, movies, play station, idle internet scrolling (IG, TikTok, You Tube, FB, Google etc.) … Or do drugs (weed is quite prevalent among young people, ask me, I know, story for another day) … Or engage in excessive consumption of alcohol… Or go visiting people or hiking or gym or whatever … Whatever we excessively engage in to “take the edge off” or escape can easily be self-sabotage. Whatever your form of self-sabotage is, is understanding why you engage in it, or at least knowing its origin, an excuse for your behavior or an explanation?
As I said, the answer to this question cannot be just either or … It’s a bit complex. No one wakes up and just decides, “ today I’m going to sabotage myself” … But it happens all the same. And so, to me, understanding self-sabotage isn’t an excuse for our “dysfunctions”, but it is also not not an excuse.
My thoughts are that, understanding why is great, we just run the risk of explaining dysfunctional habits/ behavior too much that we let our understanding of the reasons why we engage in it become an excuse for us remaining dysfunctional. It is possible to go to therapy, understand why we have been a certain way, and let the explanations we get become our excuses for remaining in the habits we sought to understand.
But it is also true that knowledge is power… And knowing, and understanding that self-sabotage isn’t because something is wrong with you, can be a relief. For example, for me, it’s been a relief knowing that the voice and words of shame in my head posing as me, isn’t me. This knowledge truly has liberated me to face my shame, face my dysfunction, accept that it’s been there … But also know that I, the core person, still has power to write a different story for myself… Because I no longer feel that I am forever doomed to be what my shame has previously said I am doomed to be.
Such powerful understanding is great, it’s just also every easy to let it become our clutch to remaining dysfunctional, saying “ it’s because I grew up like this that I am like this” … And not let the power we now have as permission to break free from what has previously disabled us, into the fullness of who we are created to be.
My final thought: as you start understanding why you may have been a certain way, will you permit yourself to finally start creating more wholesome experiences for yourself, or will you use your understanding as a reason to remain in the same place? Think on this.
P.S: Stay tuned for articles on permitting ourselves to create different experiences … Bye for now.
