This is kind of a companion piece to my last update, where I was talking about being trapped in my own head and how you can fall into certain cycles of thought. The reason I brought that up, in fact, was due to a conversation I had with my friend/roommate and my brother, where we were talking frankly (because that's the only way we talk, Frank) about the kinds of 'bizarre' mental habits we're afflicted by. It was an eye-opening conversation in a lot of ways. This kinda stuff comes up every so often tangentially, but usually not spoken about at length in such a way. I dunno, maybe you'll find it interesting.
My roommate, for example, has problems with social anxiety. Among the various ways this manifests itself, two stood out for me at the moment (I'm sure there are many more things he did not mention). For one, I've noticed - anyone who's spent time around him has noticed - that he has a tendency to curse or grumble seemingly at random. Asking him what's up leads to a noncommittal 'ugh, nothing' or something similar. It turns out, in fact, that these moments are frequently brought on by thoughts about mistakes he's made in the past - and not big, life-changing mistakes, but minor mistakes, often social in nature, going back months and years. The way he explained it, just remembering saying something that may have made him seem foolish, or a reaction to something that he wished he had controlled better, is enough to bring his mood down. And it happens a lot. It's a mode of thought that seems to be occurring near-constantly, and is (as he has described it) the kind of stuff that you or I may find completely unremarkable, forgotten almost immediately afterwards.
Similarly, my friend explained that he often second-guesses (and third-guesses, fourth-guesses, etc.) his reactions to people when caught off his guard. An interaction as simple as noticing a person you know walking down the hallway is what he used as an example. His initial instinct may be to nod to the person. Midway through the nod, though, he may grow concerned that the person won't notice the nod, so he'll also begin to wave. Then, as he's switched tack midstream, he'll sometimes attempt to smooth that jump over with a third action (for this example, perhaps a simple 'hey').
Once the person is past, though, he will then go through and repeat all the actions he just did in miniature; as he described it, "if someone could see the whole thirty-second interaction, they would see me nod, wave, say something, then as soon as the person was past nod again, make a little waving motion, and mumble under my breath. They would think I'm insane." He does this because he's going through every action and double-checking that they were all sufficient and/or not weird/creepy/etc.
These are two great examples of the patterns of thought we can get swept away by without even really noticing it. This stuff rises so subtly and over the course of our lives that by the time we take notice of it, it's already part of us. Which means it's really, really hard to let go of, and some people don't want to let go. Because it's normal to each of us, even though we may know logically that it's kinda strange and other people don't have the same exact issues.
My brother does something similar, where he'll sometimes obsess over an upcoming interaction with people, particularly if it's important. Which isn't so strange, I suppose, except he gets very, very concerned with it, and rehearses the way it might go ad nauseum so he's not thrown. Then, when it doesn't go exactly has he plotted it out in his head, he gets thrown off his game. Now, thankfully my brother is a suave enough guy (what can I say, it's in the genes) that this usually doesn't negatively impact him much in the long run, but it is something he's very concerned about.
He also has a very strong tendency to stress out over every possible decision. We make jokes about it, actually, because it is so prevalent and often involves decisions which are just not that big of a deal, objectively speaking. He gets so many points of view from so many different people that I begin to wonder exactly how helpful any of it can be, since he almost always gets a variety of different answers. He also often does this with decisions he's already made, maybe in the spur-of-the-moment.
Much like my roommate's social anxiety issues, I feel like most of us can sympathize with some form of this behavior. It's certainly not super bizarre, and I can say from personal experience that there are aspects of these thought patterns that I share - quite a few, in fact. Because I think most of us have social anxiety to some extent, and regret decisions we may have made, and moments we reacted without thinking and wish we could take it back. God knows I do.
Speaking of myself - my favorite topic, obviously - I'll go into some more specifics, if anyone's still reading, since I'm something of an authority on the subject. I also feel a lot more comfortable sharing details about the way I think versus other people, and then judging myself accordingly.
For one, I talk to myself constantly. CONSTANTLY. When I'm alone I sound like a raving lunatic. I'll hold one-sided arguments, go through past decisions, reevaluate current plans, all of it audible to anyone with a wiretap inside my apartment (or wherever I may be). It's just the way I think things through. I mean really think things through. I have a massive tendency to go off onto tangent after tangent after tangent - now realizing this may have been an ever-present symptom of my ADHD - while speaking, and this is magnified about a thousand times worse when it's just in my head. I find it VERY difficult to think in a straight line for an extended period of time (2-3+ minutes) keeping it all up in the ol' noodle. I also often find myself thinking faster than I'm capable of processing information. Does that make sense to anyone?
Have you ever had racing thoughts? Due to a bad trip or drug reaction, or overwhelming stress or something like that? I have. Boy oh boy, that was a bad two days. If you're fortunate enough to never have experienced this, the best way I can describe it is... it's like tripping over your own thoughts. You begin thinking very, very quickly, and the problem is that they're frequently disjointed thoughts connected by only the barest thread - because by the time you're about to formulate a singular notion, you've already jumped onto three more thoughts springing from that idea, and it goes on and on like a runaway train. It is awful.
That's not how it is for me most of the time, however; or should I say, it's an extremely minor version of that very awful experience. How often do you forget what you were about to say? That's essentially what it's like - a thought was fully formed, ready to come out, but somewhere on its way out of the mouth it gets lost. Sometimes you track it down and bring it home, and sometimes it freezes to death in the woods and is eaten by raccoons. Thought-raccoons, I mean. They might stand for, ah... no, I'm not going to waste your time by trying to make this into an extended metaphor, because that would be a real shitshow.
However, when I talk to myself, it forces every part of my brain to hold on a minute. Translating the thoughts into words and then speaking of them is so much less efficient that it slows the whole process down, and in turn allows me to focus better on one idea for longer. Do I still get distracted and forget what I was talking/thinking about? Yes, yes I do. But by processing my thoughts that way, and then hearing myself speak them, I'm able to pick up where I left off soooooo much more often.
This brings me back to my last update, where I was talking about being alone trapped inside my head. One of the reasons I have always valued solitude is that it has provided me with that very opportunity to think things through more clearly. Which is extremely important for me. However, much like my brother and roommate, what may seem normal (and even useful) to me when used in moderation becomes a sort-of nightmare when left unchecked.
Because I will just keep talking. Sometimes I'll be watching a show/movie or listening to music while alone and I will pause whatever it is just because I feel the need to talk. Talk talk talk. Talk some more. And a lot of times, I'm dealing with issues I have already dealt with. They're already done! I will not have received any new information, and often will have already made a decision (if I haven't already put said decision into effect). It's just a retread of what I've thought about before. I have the same arguments with myself, come up with the same solutions, and in general just repeat myself. Over and over and over again. Depending on what I'm thinking about, I can do this for weeks or months - and a few times, for years. YEARS! Of having the same exact conversation with myself.
Taking self-inventory is important, and I feel like I spend a lot of time in introspection. And this process helps me with that, and that's super-great. But once it begins to seem obsessive to me, it becomes something I want to turn off. But I can't. It's always there, and I know it's an exercise in futility and it actually takes up a fair amount of my time, and I want to stop it. But I can't. It's extremely frustrating. I can squash it if I put my mind to it, but it always creeps back in. I'll realize I'm mumbling to myself while walking to class or washing my hands in the bathroom at work, and ffffffff I mean it's just real annoying. Real, real annoying.
Now I don't know if you've seen the link between all these worthless ramblings, but it's basically 'uselessness.' Or futility, I suppose, or whatever you might call it. It's about how your mind can take things that are, more-or-less, healthy and/or helpful - asking those you respect for input/advice, taking care of how you come across to others, giving yourself time to think matters through - and turn them into crutches, and eventually labyrinths. Run through the maze, mouse. It's the same maze every time, and we all know that, but we also know that you're still going to run through it.
On a more uplifting note, however, my point is that we all have these kinds of things. At least, this small sample size does, but I would be highly surprised if most everyone didn't have certain mental prisons they've constructed for themselves. I don't get trapped inside my head the same way my roommate does, or my brother does, or you do. But we all do get trapped up there sometimes, and it can make us feel a little crazy. And frustrated, and useless, and just bad. Bad bad bad. Sometimes we might ask other people if they ever feel the way we do, and if they say no we go 'heh alright nevermind' and drop it.
But while the people you ask may not know exactly what the dimensions of your cell is, or the material the bars are made of, or how many excrement buckets there are (are there excrement buckets? Did you luck out enough to get a functional toilet? You are literally killing me here), I can bet with a good deal of confidence that they have their own prison. Maybe you even know about it. One of them, at least. You now know about one of mine, but the mind is dark and full of terrors. There is plenty of space for a whole Panopticon in there.
I'm thinking I should start breaking these walls of text up with pictures. What do you think. Would that help with the boredom?
i have thought tanuki
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