Escaping Towards vs. Escaping From
On fixations, energy direction, and the importance of emotional regulation
Fixations
In old Freudian terms, a fixation is an obsessive drive that may or may not be acted on, involving an object, concept, or person.
Freud goes deeper with the term in his theories, and suggests that even though we might be physically aging, mentally, we might feel “stuck” in an earlier developmental stage. For example, infants like to interact with the world by tasting things like toys and clothes, to learn more about them. When the infant gets older, they might still be stuck in the oral fixation stage, and get their fix through the urge to smoke, over-eat, or bite their nails — actions that still use the mouth, but become problematic habits into adulthood.
While Freud’s theories are hard to scientifically validate and get a lot of unnecessary flack in modern-day psychology, they can tell us something interesting about our habits, quirks, ways of coping, and ways of being.
Often, it can be the case that we fixate on a stimulus — something that can provide an escape from the regular stressors of life, but in a way where one can feel stuck and almost addicted to the substance. It no longer becomes about taking a break, but about running away from other parts of our lives.
Parts of our lives are parts of our selves.
Meaning, we’re also running away from a part of ourselves.
Energy Direction
Two examples here.
1 - Imagine you’re an office worker. You’ve been working at the same traditional 9 - 5 job for years now, and get weekends and statutory holidays to yourself. It’s Friday night, you open your favourite bottle of red wine, and you go through the bottle before bed time. Every Friday, you make the drive to the same liquor store and pick up the same bottle. Some weeks, its two bottles, or more. Every Friday night, you finish all of the alcohol you bought on your commute home from work, and pass out. Weekends are usually spent recovering from binge drinking, and mentally preparing for another slump of a work week, filled with unhappy work colleagues, a lack of company culture, and a menial work routine.
2 - You’re a colleague of the office worker above. You work in the same dismal work environment, but have healthier ways of managing work stress, and have better methods of separating your work-life balance. On Friday nights, you go out and enjoy your time with your partner and friends. One weekend, your cousin invites you to their wedding party for their wedding coming up in the summer. You don’t normally drink, except social occasions, but you end up drinking a lot at the wedding parties, wedding ceremonies, and on the wedding day.
In both examples, alcohol is being used as a form of escape. In the former example, the person is drinking as a form of escape from his work culture and poor mental health. In the latter example, the person is drinking as a form of escape towards the goal of having fun and letting loose with his family and friends in celebration.
The substance is the same (alcohol), but the reason for drinking is completely different. In the former example, the person is suppressing their negative emotions and coping with alcohol, while their work colleague is drinking alcohol as a way of celebrating in union, with family and friends.
The former employee uses alcohol as a fixation, form of self-soothing, self-regulation, and as a way of coping with stressors from their lives. The latter employee uses alcohol in social occasions, in times of celebration and connection with close family and friends.
Same stimulus, different response.
Escaping towards, versus escaping from.
Of course in practice, we probably engage in escape-like behaviours for a mix of both reasons — as a break from the routines of life, and because the activity brings some sense of pleasure, on its own.
Emotional Regulation
There’s many every day ways humans escape, that are common in people’s lives. Some examples include:
Using alcohol, cannabis, or other drugs
Travelling
Watching pornography
Going for a run/workout
Watching a movie in theatres
Binge-watching Netflix
Reading a fiction book
Doomscrolling on your phone
Exploring nature and the great outdoors
Procrastinating
Cooking/Baking
Excessively cleaning, overworking
All of these activities share a commonality, where we are escaping from some part of our lives, towards the method of escape. Some ways of escaping are better than others (e.g., working out), while other methods can be more harmful in the longer term, and end up hurting, more than helping us.
While emotions are complex and irrational, our need for escape can tell us how much we’re doing things for the sake of doing them, versus how much we’re doing things as a reaction to our inner emotional states.
Feelings can be more instinctive than thoughts and behaviours, after all. We might not always be conscious of when we’re engaging in reactive escape, since the urge to escape might be near automatic.
However, we can learn to find some benefit in learning to slow down, recognize your discomfort, acknowledge your emotions, and learn to self-regulate in healthier, more proactive ways.
In doing so, you can learn about your emotional triggers, reactions, and use this insight to consider changing or adapting your preferred coping mechanisms, when you feel the need to escape.
Healing takes vulnerability, courage, and humility. Understanding why we escape, and what we’re escaping from, can tell us a lot about ourselves.
Easier said than done, of course.