I feel like I live in fantasy most of the time. 

I recently had a big media fast for an addictions class. I was off social media, YouTube, and video games for 3 weeks. A pretty long time compared to my usual fasts.

I thought I’d naturally become more productive during this time, but I mostly just watched TV and read an ungodly amount of fanfiction. When I exercised, I listened to music and just zoned out.

By the end of the process, I found myself inexplicably sad and unsettled.

Now, this isn’t the only thing happening during these three weeks and weird shit happens in summer. I haven’t seen my friends in a few months, and I feel disconnected and unimportant to other people’s lives, which is the reality of things. The world does go on without me, it turns out. It’s a blessing (the literal weight of the world has never been used as a metaphor for anything positive), but it challenges the way I view relationships. 

I pride myself in being supportive. If I love you and you need any-damn-thing? I’m right there. I think that’s an admirable quality, and I take pride in the fact that I can whole heartedly cheer for other people’s victories without any residual resentment. (As a side note, as someone who lives mostly in fantasy, I think I tend to view my friends and loved ones through a lens of potential that has yet to be realized, so seeing them move in any way toward what I envision for them is not only satisfying and easy to cheer for, but a relief to some strange part of my mind.)

But I also think it makes me feel safe. ‘Cause love alone, as an inactive force of nature, is pretty weak in the end, right? (Like, it’s not enough to love the dog. You have to pet the dog. That’s what I mean by active or inactive). Love doesn’t stop terrible things from happening. It’s not even guaranteed to everyone, so it’s unjust on top of everything else. But most importantly, there’s no love large or meaningful enough to fix everything I hate about myself.

So I’m also trying to be in a new way. A way that accepts people at their baseline and doesn’t wish them past it. It’s kinder, I think, since it doesn’t push my ideals onto other people. But it also feels colder. Unnatural. Maybe it’s a part of dropping that “cute phalanx”—standing on my own two psychic feet instead of kneeling under my shield. All that to say, I’ve been battling my perfectionism on a whole new front. And all my soldiers are really whiny and probably won’t even write an important mid-20th century literature at the end of it.

But what does perfectionism have to do with my fantasy issue?

No idea. It’s only that I noticed just how much time I spend on useless fantasy on top of everything else. Not to be confused with guided fantasy that I use for writing. Or active fantasy (Jungian stuff). I’m talking about world-saving God-like fantasies. Fantasies of success, fantasies of pouring unlimited money on everyone’s problems, fantasies of having some skill and using it to gain unlimited superficial admiration.

Honestly, they’re perfectionist fantasies about control—controlling the human race, my circumstances, how I’m perceived, other people’s problems. While these fantasies are fun, I don’t think they’re helping.

Fantasy is necessary for someone like me, but the thought of even changing that is daunting. I feel like, to be a good counselor, I need to know this stuff about myself, but is change necessary in ever facet? Or is this just another facet of my life for me to obsess about and try to control? Where does self-awareness meet self destruction?