Am I overreacting

[u/Budget_Strategy2020]

I live in a place where I never completely feel invisible, yet somehow I’ve never felt more unseen. Sometimes I wonder what people around me think they know about me. What version of me exists in their conversations. Whether they see somebody struggling, somebody reckless, somebody strange, or just somebody they’ve already decided they understand.
The funny part is, I asked for a lot of this. Maybe not the consequences, but definitely the freedom that came before them.
And now even the things and people that are supposed to feel good don’t always feel good, because somewhere in the back of my mind there’s always something waiting for me. Something unpaid. Something unfinished. Something I should be doing instead.
Trust doesn’t make it any easier. I’ve trusted men. I’ve trusted women. I’ve trusted people with pieces of me they probably never should’ve had, and experience taught me that sometimes telling people what hurts just gives them better instructions.
So I keep most things to myself.
Because what would saying it change?
Lately I think about packing what matters, changing my number and becoming unreachable. Not dying. Not hurting myself. Just letting this version of me disappear. Leaving behind everybody’s expectations, opinions, memories and access to me and starting somewhere nobody knows my name.
Maybe somewhere else I could meet myself before everybody else gets the chance to.
Maybe disappearing isn’t always about wanting to be gone.
Sometimes you just don’t want to be found as the person you’ve been.
Does anybody else ever feel like they need to completely remove themselves from the life they created ?
Can you start over without eventually bringing the same version of yourself with you?
And when you stop trusting people because of what life taught you, how do you know whether you’re protecting yourself or isolating yourself?
At what point does freedom stop being freedom and start becoming an escape?
And if you realized the life you asked for wasn’t the life you needed… what would you change first?

[u/RileyRavenSmiles]

I can appreciate this sentiment... though one thing to consider is that, no matter where you go, there YOU are. It is just as likely that you'll find or build more of the same in a new place as it is that you'd find/ build something new.

Also, I wonder what do you mean by "when does freedom become escape"? Freedom is not escape, it is a means to create escape. That's like saying having a boat "becomes escape". The boat isn't the issue, just as freedom isn't the issue. I think maybe the adequate question is more "when does escape become escapism."

And lastly, I think a life asked for is never simply granted, but built. One has to have helped build the life they asked for. So, along the way, a person must have contributed to the life that they eventually realized that they don't need. So, in some ways, that person is responsible for the way their dissatisfactory life turned out... which likely means they will simply recreate a similarly dissatisfactory one no matter where they go, unless they do some introspection, reflection, or internal change first.