But, how do you differentiate between having to escape and having to unwind?

Escaping is the act of giving up on daily life for a short period of time. Eventually, one has to return, and probably dreads that fact. Unwinding is just stress relief. For example, I love my job, but at times it requires me to concentrate for many hours at a stretch. I can give me a giant headache. So, when I get home on those types of days the first thing I want to do is turn on some music and crack open a beer. It's not because I need to get away. I just want my headache to subside and my blood pressure to drop; have to relax before I get back to it the next day. But even though I need a break, I want to get back to it; I don't fear it. Not sure I can explain it any better than that.

Do you love yourself (or hate yourself less) because youve survived long enough by escaping? Or were you able to 'quit' escapism because your life got better?

One learns to live with one's own faults with age, I think. I suspect you're a lot younger than me. I'm 31 currently. Teen angst was a powerful force in my life, as it is for a lot of people. It's easy to sour on the world in general, because there's a lot of really fucked up things out there, and it even feels fucked up on the inside at times. One starts to think, "What's the point?" But, then, if you're lucky, you figure out what the point is. The point is to find something that you love and throw yourself behind it. When you realize this (realize it for yourself and not because an older, wiser person told you so), you will be all the happier for it. This is all not to say that life doesn't totally suck at times. Tragedies happen. Bad luck happens. But if you're happy in your underlying fundamentals, you'll find a way to heal.