Escapism

Over the last few months I seem to have drifted into living with Quiet Confidence pretty much full time. It's not something we've really talked about and officially I'm not actually living here. I still go home to my parents house in between since all my stuff is there and sometimes I need to escape for a bit. It is nice to have that pressure release valve when it gets too difficult to deal with the relationship. Part of me feels that this escapism isn't exactly good for the relationship, but then again I still run when the urge becomes overwhelming. I usually find that 2 or 3 days apart is enough for me to breath and sort my head a bit.

I still find it hard to open up about aspects of my PTSD or depression, particularly when I'm in the grips of a really fierce bout. It's only human that Quiet Confidence would lose patience with me occasionally, or not understand where the anger, passive aggressive behaviour, apathy or silent brooding is emanating from. I think it's particularly confusing because I can be perfectly fine when he leaves for work and he'll come home to me in a funk with no context to understand it. Sometimes I can't even understand where it comes from or what has set me off. It's especially difficult when I feel like that and I can't open my mouth to speak my feelings, no matter how much I actually want to. There is something stopping me - kind of like those dreams where you open your mouth to scream, but you just can't make a sound.

A lot of the time I try to fight through the feelings of panic and escape to stay and deal with the relationship, but there are times when even my best efforts aren't enough. I feel afraid that one day he'll look at me like Mr. Intellectual did, with resentment and disdain that I can't "fix" myself and be normal. I don't ever want to experience that again in a relationship, so I take a breather to cope in private with my issues, so that I don't drag us both down. On some unspoken level I think we both understand what I'm doing, even though we don't talk about it.