Is it okay to hide because of illness? Is it okay to try to dull or numb the physical or mental pain through things like books, movies, work, social media, T.V. shows, YouTube videos, etc.?

Well, what exactly do I mean by “hide”? Good question. I don’t mean like, hiding as in being too sick to leave the house. That is a whole different thing. I also don’t mean using distractions to avoid dwelling on physical pain or discomfort. I’d say that’s usually a good thing. What I mean is using things to numb it. For example, when I’m struggling mentally with irrationalness, anxiety, depression, or irritability caused by illness, I tend to retreat to my bed and throw myself into a fictional world (usually books), losing myself in some fantasy series or something. Other times, I hide in my own head and ignore reality through writing. Sometimes putting earbuds in for the same reason whether or not I actually want to listen to music. I suspect the exact thing might be slightly different for each person.

Is that wrong? Is it healthy or unhealthy?

For a while, I wasn’t sure. But I’ve come to the conclusion that in general, it isn’t wrong or unhealthy. It can be taken too far, for sure. But sometimes, it’s healthier and even wiser to separate yourself from what’s going on. When you have a chronic illness, you can’t take a break or vacation. But sometimes, we do just need to escape reality or give our bodies and minds time to recover or process before letting the full force of everything slam into them.

This doesn’t mean that we can always just ignore everything. Part of healing and functioning is processing. Processing things physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Processing is crucial. However, sometimes, I think it is okay to delay the processing until you can handle it better. If you know that right now you are not thinking clearly or rationally, but that once the weather calms down, or after your next doctor appointment, or after you take some supplements your ability to handle things will improve, it may be wise to wait until then to think through things. It’s sometimes okay to let yourself be numbed to the pain for a brief time.

The biggest drawback to hiding in distractions is that for me at least, it often involves hiding from people as well. When I’m struggling mentally, it makes me hard to comprehend what people are saying or not saying around me. Often I end up communicating the wrong things accidentally, and I also have the tendency to have a much shorter fuse. Even if the other people forgive and understand me, if I even suspect I’ve said or done something wrong I tend to go mentally downhill fast.

So when I hide in distractions from my mind or body, I tend to hide from other people as well, since interacting with them can sometimes be a trigger for me to become anxious or depressed if I think I might have hurt them by what I said or if I’m irrationally irritable.

Sometimes, I think that it is wise to avoid interacting with people if you know that you are prone to overreact. However, hiding isn’t exactly great for relationships either, and we can’t hide forever. This is all a delicate balancing act that is probably different for each person and situation. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, right? But if you never speak, that can be extremely harmful to relationships as well.

There’s no black and white here. We just need to be aware and try our best. Our best is enough. In our weakness, God is strong. If your mental struggles are the type that lasts an afternoon, then feel free to shut the world out (as kindly as possible). But if it lasts long periods of time, then try your best to find balance. Take the time to give your mind a break so that you can take a time out of each day to throw yourself into trying to communicate and invest in the lives around you. Try your hardest to still see those around you even when you need to give yourself a break.

It’s all about balance and moderation. God will give you the strength to do what you need to do and the ability to rest when you need to. Just throw yourself on Him.

I hope that this all made sense and was encouraging to you. Let me leave you today with three things to guard against when it comes to hiding in distractions.

3 Things To Guard Against

1. Do not let your time spent with God slip away. When we hide in distractions, it’s easy to let them take up all of our time because dull, numb, hiding is bliss. The moment we look up into reality again, we get hit by a truckload of burdens and struggles. But the time that you spend with God is crucial and necessary and DO NOT let your distractions steal that away from you. If all you can manage is a brain-fog filled prayer and reading only a verse or two, that’s okay. But make sure you do it. If you have very little mental ability to face reality, use what you do have here first.
2. Don’t let your distractions become an idol. Using distractions can be helpful and healthy, but any type of idol is a sin. Guard against sin with all your strength. Idols aren’t just golden calves that Aaron made the Israelites. Idols can be anything that becomes our top priority, things that matter more to us than God. God comes first! Sometimes, we don’t even realize that idols are idols. But books, movies, work, relationships…. all of those can be idols.
3. Choose your distractions wisely. I mentioned before that books tend to be my go-to hiding place. But I’ve realized that when I’m struggling mentally, I tend to gravitate towards books that I might not read on a usual basis. I just want something easy and sometimes books that don’t have the best themes (honestly, you’d probably laugh at what I consider in this category for myself) can seem “easy” to turn to. But if we’re going to get lost in something, we want to make sure that we are getting lost in things that glorify God and even point us to Him. Especially when our minds are weak and it’s harder to read/watch/etc. with discernment. So guard against letting yourself compromise in areas you wouldn’t have on a normal basis.