Gemma Spake

You're listening to this podcast, like, you know, you really want to know answers for yourself.

You've maybe experienced real hurt, betrayal, rejection, and you have this language for why this person did what they did.

You understand the psychology behind why they reacted the way they did.

But now you almost like my friends say, like, I almost have to do the reverse.

I can't just give the explanation.

I have to almost take the explanation away from these people and just be like, just sit with it.

Like, you don't need the complex words, just feel.

So that's the first way, intellectualizing.

Another way we avoid processing our emotions is through escapism, which just like intellectualism is complicated at times because it's so socially acceptable.

Like it is really socially acceptable to go out and get drunk after losing your job and maybe, you know,

the next day and the next day because like why the hell not like you're unemployed it is super socially acceptable to binge watch a tv show instead of going out with your friends or to always have a tv show playing in the background so you don't have to listen to your thoughts you know

It's socially acceptable, just to give one more example, to become obsessed with loving or even hating a particular celebrity.

Becoming obsessed with a particular book series, a video game, with going to the gym after you've gone through something hard or just on a regular basis.

Escapism, like the psychological definition, is essentially when we divert our attention away from internal discomfort by immersing ourselves in an outside situation that feels a lot safer and easier to control and to understand.

I feel like hating celebrities is a great example of this.

It is not only obviously a distraction, it is a way in which we get to feel like we're controlling somebody else's life or we have a say or we have some kind of authority over them when during and within our own lives we don't have any authority.

We feel the complete opposite.

We feel completely out of control.

There's one like massive form of escapism though that we need to discuss.

Like it's probably the one that you are going to relate to the most.