I love to work with my hands and create. I do this with gardening and home improvement. I love to take an empty room or a blank piece of land and turn it into something beautiful. When I'm not actually doing it, I'm thinking and planing the next project.

Of course during the summer I love to spend the day at the beach swimming and having fun with my wife and kids.

Dave

I see we have a lot of new people on the site, and thought they would like to read this and add to it.

Stories are my escape, because stories are my 'safe place.'

When I was a little boy, my father worked 80 or so hours a week, but he would come home just as I was going to bed, and he lay down next to me, and read a book until he fell asleep. (there I was elbowing him to stay awake and read to me more). So, ever sinse about 4 yrs old, stories = love and safety.

I think when I pick up a book, I'm in control. I can decide whether I want to be watching what's going on from a hundred miles above it, or feeling what the character is feeling. I can put it down or put it away. I can stop, rewind, etc.

So stories in any form are my escape. I am working on publishing a novel that I wrote for my best friend. I read stories out loud to the handful of people I love and trust closely. I run role-playing games for my casual friends, telling stories and making them laugh all the time.

I used to feel really bad about how I could escape into stories. But I don't so much any more. People talk about getting in touch w/ their inner child and befriending him. Well... the little boy in me who loved stories, loved stories before anyone did anything to him. He loved stories before he A-O on anyone else or hurt anyone.

Stories are where I go and it's ok, where it's pure and clean and safe. And stories I write and tell give me a feeling of safety and control to show love to the people I care about.

Hooray for escapism!

There's always a safe place waiting for me inside a book. I'll read pretty much anything. I love writing 'cause it gives me a sense of control, like I own the words. When I can't say the words out loud I write them down, it's how I get by. I've been doing it since I was a little kid, always scribbling in notebooks and looking up words. I like to skate (board) to take my mind off things. Skating at night when there's no people around is the best feeling. Skating makes me real happy 'cause I shut out the world, all the bad thoughts and my mind becomes this blank piece of paper. I love the speed, the cool air on my face, the sound my board makes when it hits the concrete. BMX, dirt biking, anything to do with speed is cool. Computer and video games too!

My favorite escape is going to a sheep ranch and go herding with my dog. When I'm sitting out there rolling green hills as far as the eye can see, sheep, I feel like I have left all of modernity behind.

Since the drugs (edit: pre>

Being a musician, I can escape into my music. when I was a kid, I could actually play a piece of music that I knew really well, and I would "become" the music - it was almost as if I left my body and the room and floated around with the music.
Before I injured my back beyond repair, I also studied Traditional Okinawin Goju Ryu Karate. My instructor, one day, was talking to me in class and told me that he recognized that I had a deeper quality of spirit. He started teaching me how to meditate using very deep breathing and visualization. After practicing, I learned that I could almost do it at will. I know this will sound weird, but one day I was sitting outside and saw a large bird soaring in the sky. I was actually able to focus enough to become that bird. I was experiencing life through its eyes and I was high up in the sky flying.
Unfortunately, I don't use these skills often enough especially when I am in the thick of stress, flashbacks, or dealing with one or another aspect of abuse.
My hope is that someday if I can get the operation that I need on my back that I'll be in good enough shape to take a week-long silent retreat.
If anyone is interested in this kind of thing, I would highly recommend the book "The Teachings of Don Juan" by Carlos Castaneda. He was a socieologist who in the 70s wanted to study the psychadelic drugs that the Shamans used. The whole book is about meeting an Indian Shaman called Don Juan and is a journal of his experiences. If you can get past the stuff about the peyote and other preparations, he talks about the other world experiences that he had. It's interesting that this guy (even though the books are great) missed the whole point that drugs aren't needed to attain out-of-body experiences and the Shamans knew this - some of the preparations that they used were either to enhance the experience or they were a starting point on the learning path.
OK, I've babbled on enough.... music and meditation are my escapes.

Sophiesdad

escape, my fav thing is hikin cuz i feel safe n there no people there , jus animals n watchin thm is a good escape.playin my drums , playin games on xbox or play station works 4 me 2. gettin totally lost in music n lyrics , most alt rock punk n metal, of course playin it way loud jake

For me there have been a few nice refuges. I like almost any music, but my love is guitar and I am a pretty good blues player and love to listen to it as well. Its amazing music and I can never get over how honest and passionate it is. I also like to read poetry. The outdoors was a big part of my life when I was a child, I ran a lot when I was a teenager, and I still enjoy swimming - just losing myself in whatever thoughts I have as I go through the water.

Larry

I pack my digital camera with me whenever I go out. After a visit with my therapist yesterday, usually an occasion from which I need to chill, I walked home through a big park which includes a small farm, a duck pond, etc. I took lots of pictures, then continued walking home through one of the oldest parts of the city, taking pictures galore. It was wonderful!

Sometimes I don't know whether I am escaping or indulging when I write and/or listen to music but I enjoy doing both. I am working on putting my story down (maybe a book, maybe a film! - it's all very preliminary) and music helps me remember things.

Something my therapist said yesterday hit me. I was trying to describe the many ways I have "acted out" since the abuse and he tried to get me to see that just about everything I have done since the s.a. has been "acting out". Obviously not all of it has been self-destructive, so there have been some good ways I have found to "escape" too.

Anyway, it's a beautiful day and I want to enjoy some of it outside.

Peace,

Kenn

1. I write short stories and such that show up on a few places on the internet.
2. music: classical and folk
3. I am as politically active as I can afford the $
5. I am getting to think depression is normal

Common themes for some.
I am getting old. A Vietnam vet: decorated combat medicl but even then no, not in my infantry unit I was "molested" as a young soldier as I was well a "sissy"? Whatever, married wife knows and deals with it bravely.

I write fantasy about men avenging the crimes rapists and pedophiles. They die rather hard and such.

I will eventually post the websites that publish but not now.

My passion for music is extreme and the music is the greatst healer, realize it takes study to find the best music perhaps a good thread on this board?

Colorado Joe