Russian Roulette – Poetry by Katherine Estelle

Have you ever muted the noise of the outside world?
Do you know what it’s like when it’s just you and your own mind?
The subtle vibrations of things around you are the only thing that stops your flow of thought.
Then it’s just you and your mind again.
Did you know that you don’t hear your own voice?
I don’t.
Maybe you do.
I see images.
Entire movies inside my head.
Voices of the characters are probably all made up by the millions of voices I’ve heard in my lifetime.
I play movies of what I wish my life could be.
Changing up scenarios the way I wish they happened, not the way they actually happened.
It’s happier that way.
Living in my own mind.
Not getting triggered by the outside world.
No distractions to stop the movie creations playing in my own head.
That’s not always a good thing.
Sometimes, those movies turn into nightmares in a split second.
I need those distractions to stop the flow of thoughts.
A cat jumping into a box.
A neighbor talking outside my window.
A car driving down my road way too fast.
A dog barking.
Something, anything, that will pull me from my own mind, just long enough to stop the nightmare that I began creating.
Then, I can start over.
New characters, new plot, I can plan a whole new movie.
The biggest problem is, this separates me from reality.
If I’m gone too long, reality becomes the dream and my dreams become real.
They become the truth.
They turn into memories and real life feels more like a dream.
In psychology terms, they’d call that a “disconnection with reality”, “delusional”, “disassociation”.
The 3 D words that get you sent away.
Long term delusions turn into psychosis.
Paranoia, anxiety, hallucinations.
Funny thing is, that’s why I muted the real world in the first place.
I needed to quiet the noise that was surrounding me.
It was triggering.
Traumatizing.
I was sick of crying.
I cried so much, I had a rash on the side of both my eyes that hurt to the touch.
I had to do something to quiet the noise.
But now I live in my head.
Which isn’t always the happiest place.
But what’s better?
Escaping reality to save myself from getting triggered, or living in the real world and getting triggered so often that it causes manic depressive episodes and lands me in the hospital?
It’s seems like an obvious answer.
But it’s not.
Escaping reality is a coping mechanism. 
It’s not one that should be used too long, everything in moderation.
I am bad with moderation.
If I see a way out, I will take it.
Why would anyone willingly choose pain and trauma?
The real world scares me.
But my own mind can turn on me in a second, now I’m the villan in my own story.
So, I have to decide.
Do I quiet the world in moderation and live in my mind only part of the time?
I can learn to do that.
That gives the possibility of getting triggered though.
It’s can happen at any moment.
It can happen the moment I go back into the real world.
It can happen 8 hours later.
I won’t know.
It’s a game of Russian roulette and the prize is trauma.