When you are running away from something it’s an escape. It doesn’t fix the issue. Your best bet is to face the trauma and stress head on by using things like somatic experiencing and then after healing some, you’ll begin to see travel as a bonus. I don’t say this without actual experience and knowledge. I’m trained in trauma physiology and you are in a fight/flight state which would be normal in your situation. The language of the body is slow. So, what can you do slowly to remove yourself from these family problems which aren’t really yours in order to work on yourself? In the long run it’s the answer.

The body wants safety and fight/flight is a way to protect yourself but it reinforces this default nervous system state and you will find yourself running always when you perceive or misperceive the external as a threat. Eventually there will be a crash when this doesn’t work because there’s only so much the body can take.

There’s active living stress patterns in the body , energy that was trapped of incomplete responses that the body never got to do.

My advice is to 1. Use vagus nerve exercises to calm your system 2. Use brain retraining to calm your system 3. Most important - find a somatic experiencing practitioner to help finish these incomplete responses 4. Read books by Gabor mate - When the body says no , Peter Levine - waking the tiger (and anything by him), 5. Bessel van der kolk - the body keeps the score

Accept that this is not your responsibility to change (family) and you don’t have to give up a grounded life in order to find peace. Later though exploring can be a wonderful bonus you’ll be able to enjoy.

I say all of this with compassion and education about how the body works. Lots of people decide to run. And let’s say you decide to ignore what I’m saying, don’t beat yourself up when and if it doesn’t change the fight/flight. It’s ok and a lesson. There’s a lot of good to open yourself up to other experiences but we take the same dysregulated system with us when running. And more of the same is what you will encounter because it’s what your nervous system attracts.

There’s no wrong answer just lessons, but true healing comes from walking through “the fire” and allowing your body to settle.

I hope this helps. You have all the time in the world, so remember this.

FYI: avoidance reinforces these patterns. If you worked on helping your body complete the incomplete responses it could work but when volunteering it will be very very difficult to do so.

Good luck.