Dissociation is a trauma response. I fight with it constantly myself, because of cPTSD. Finding out what the root cause was helped me see that that’s what’s happening, but I still fight constantly.

Of course this is just me, but it’s also a thought for you to consider. Therapy helped me greatly.

That might need seeing to.

Sometimes I feel like there’s nothing worth trying to do because the things I want are either impossible IRL or boring. For example, people tell me to travel but I don’t see the point of that. No matter where I go, there will only be people. People who speak a different language, but that’s just annoying. There aren’t cyborgs, or aliens, or elves, or wizards, or anything interesting out there in the world.

Work often feels like that too. I’m lucky enough that I get to do something I find intellectually stimulating, but sometimes I look back and realize that I spent the last five years writing a computer program that estimates ligand binding affinities a little more efficiently than the previous state of the art. Ligand binding affinities are important, but I’d rather be questing for the Holy Grail…

(And then there’s porn. It can’t replace a relationship but it does make me less inclined to volunteer for the miserable experience of being an uncharismatic introvert and trying to meet someone.)

I think this is a problem for me mostly when I am alone. I do value the real happiness I feel when I’m with my friends and relatives.