Stressed Out? The Need for Escape

Today’s world is filled with frightening things. Everywhere you turn there’s bad news. Wars rage, the economy world-wide is in the toilet and those we elect to serve and protect us in the government can’t be trusted to do more than line their own pockets. There’s rampant genocide, homicide, rioting and of course the fearsome thing that is Tinky Winky.

Closer to home, the stresses of everyday living make it hard even to crawl out of bed each morning. Bills mount, with no money to pay for the basic necessities such as food, shelter and fuel.

Life can be discouraging, even crushing; worry can be debilitating. Those who suffer from anxiety attacks, depression, migraines or any of a host of other tension activated maladies know all too well just how much stress can affect health and the quality of life.

How do you cope? I mean, really? It’s all so overwhelming. But all hope is not lost.

Sometimes we just need to escape. Take a few hours to forget our troubles and immerse ourselves in fictional worlds where folks have bigger problems than our own, are bigger than life and have ways of dealing with adversity. Characters we can ride along with and root for, care about, and experience their triumphs and joys. Maybe even pretend to be a hero with them for a short while.

As an adolescent I discovered just how important that escape was, how it allowed me to retain some grip on sanity.

My pubescent years were no picnic for many reasons. A close relative, whom I won’t reveal for obvious reasons, was most likely bipolar. I say most likely because it was not officially diagnosed as such, but all the symptoms were there, along with a host of other emotional illnesses like extreme paranoia, depression, hypochondria and others.

Things always got much worse at the holidays. This person would plunge into dark “moods,” manufacture some disruptive drama or lock herself in her room and generate general hell for the rest of us wanting to be happy. What should have been joyous occasions became something to dread. I lived on eggshells. The other shoe was always a hair away from dropping, and I usually got the brunt of it. I didn’t even have to say a word to become a target.

Mind you, it wasn’t all this person’s fault. An abused child seldom grows up without emotional schisms. But it was rough on us kids.

Things went from fairly normal to hellish in a very short space of time, and as a kid in puberty and beyond I wasn’t prepared to deal with it. I didn’t know what was going on. Only that the image of the “Happy Family” was reflected from a broken mirror. I was scared. I never knew what I was coming home to. Sometimes this person would be just gone, and we’d have to search, pull her out of somebody’s driveway or the trails in the local woods. Sometimes there would be a suicide note. Those were always pleasant to find on the pillow of this person’s bed.

I recall one particularly horrid night: I was lying in bed when this person stormed out of the house and locked herself in the car. Then fired a .38. The terror I felt at that sound is something I wouldn’t wish on an enemy. Although it turned out to be an attention ploy, for a few horrible moments I thought that person had committed suicide.

Many such painful incidents plagued my young adult life and I had only one way of dealing with them.

I escaped.

In fiction. First comic books, then pulp heroes, especially Doc Savage, The Avenger and The Shadow. They gave me strength, a place to go to see even the worst situations could be overcome. I can credit them with saving my sanity, keeping me from finding other ways of dealing, such as drugs or alcohol. It still was not easy. Not by a long shot. But they helped me survive it. At times I dragged a lamp and some pillows in the closet, shut the door and read for hours, until the storm clouds passed, though any reprieve was temporary.

I recently came up with the phrase, “I read to escape…but I write to help others escape.” It’s more than just a phrase to me. It’s a mission. I don’t write literature. I doubt anyone will ever accuse me of doing so. And that’s peachy keen with me, because I have no desire to be Hemingway. I want to write what helped me cope, and my hope is that same escapism will help others.

I write to give folks a break from their worries, from stress, at least for an hour or two. I want my stories, even the scary ones, to bring some relief from life’s turbulence. My heroine Chloe Everson in The Chloe Files faces all manner of monsters and paranormal threats. Those threats are simply hyperbolic representations of our own real-life fears. Chloe, in her fictional world, fears, reacts and ultimately overcomes. I hope in some small way she helps readers feel they can come out the other end, escape the Big Bads of their day to day lives. I hope it shows them it’s ok to be scared, but that we don’t have to let fear and worry and stress control and ruin our lives.

Because as long as there’s fictional worlds there’s always a place to escape, a safe haven, until that day when your life will be better.

The Chloe Files #1: Ashes to Ashes
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WLCRYK
Nook: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Chloe-Files-1/Howard-Hopkins/e/2940012513571