Had his own pain made him retreat from reality into uselessness?

After the truth was revealed, her mad scene became a steady retreat from reality.

If this were a human being, I'd say it had completely retreated from reality."

And, more important, it represents a retreat from reality.

They were all spla, playing at still being soldiers, hi full retreat from reality.

The turmoil has made the campus less a retreat from reality than an immersion in it.

Retreat from reality and the consequences of escapism are important themes that play a major role in the series.

I think they're both retreating from reality, in their own ways, trying to deny what happened, or how it happened.

This retreat from reality seemed to absorb by far the bulk of the ghem-lordlings' time and attention.

He viewed the illness as a coping mechanism, a response to years of various traumatic events that caused the person to retreat from reality.

What a retreat from reality, too!

Retreat from reality," He stubbed the cigarette out savagely.

His retreat from reality wasn't permanent.

He further retreated from reality.

A retreat from reality.

Retreat from reality when reality becomes more than she wishes to bear, or can afford to bear."

They'd rather retreat from reality into the mental mire from which-one supposes-our ancestors must have emerged.

The light was dim, completely soothing, coming through fantastic windows such as are found only in churches, saloons, jewelry shops, and other retreats from reality.

With time, however, real life (children, illness, familiarity) encroaches: Martin retreats from reality, while Stella wants more of it.

When a patient of hers retreated from reality in this sort of fright, Molly would draw that violated integrity back again with her Talent.

Plant life especially is used to symbolise the ideal tourist scenery whilst constructing a landscape that retreats from reality:

Most simply retreated from reality, but a handful went berserk, and their fellows were almost grateful, for subduing them diverted their minds from their own terror.

Finally, those who are scornful of nappers because a nap is purely passive - a retreat from reality, a defense - should know that naps can be offensive, too.

Later on in the series, retreat from reality is revisited in the form of Poom Poom, who represents the ultimate escape from reality into childhood.

But what kind of a solution is this--a retreat from reality into premature senility, and that is only possible after he's cracked his skull in a plane crash?