I struggle with anxiety and depression and a sinister form of ADHD which only appeared after the other two beasts had been beaten into a sort of submission. It's no great secret, really, and while I don't recall if I've mentioned this specifically in past updates, I think it's pretty obvious from the way I write.
For the most part, I acknowledge and understand that, and I try to reign myself in when I begin to go off of the deep end. But there are other times, times when I begin to obsess over a problem - or a potential problem, as the case usually is - and there's... there's nothing I can do about it. It's coming down the highway like a spastic caravan and I am powerless to stop it and the people who can stop it are drunk and high and oblivious to the danger and SMASH it's all over. I'm left standing on the sidelines, stooping to pick up the smoking wreckage the best I can while I drag along a leg which is all but useless now that it has eighteen pieces of shrapnel embedded into the bone.
It used to be easy for me to write this off as a manifestation of my ever-present anxiety and tendency towards pessimistic outcomes. The thing is, when I do talk to others about these situations, they agree with me! They agree with analyses and predictions. They just think I let it get to me too much.
Sometimes I have to talk to people uninvolved in whatever situation is going on to make sure I'm not crazy. Because sometimes.... sometimes you have to make sure you're not crazy. I know I have to, constantly. You raise a hypothetical and you give enough oblique facts to let the person make a somewhat-rational conclusion. Or you talk to someone who's close enough to the situation to see all the moving pieces but far enough away - eternally unlike myself - to be clear of the blast when it occurs. Then the other person agrees with you, as long as the 'you' in this case is actually me.
But they always give the same advice: don't let it affect you so much. It doesn't really involve you, don't let it get to you, try to just forget about it. You've done your best to minimize the damage from the impact and resulting multiple explosions, try to be content with that. They do understand why I can't do that, bless their hearts, but in a very general way.
I'll tell you the truth, reader: I think I might be a secret genius. Because - and I swear this is true - sometimes it seems like no one else can see the writing on the wall except me. Which, y'know, is insane, because it's so very clear, and at first blush I am not that intelligent. Yet here we are. When this happened when I was younger, I kept my mouth shut; I assumed that the adults knew what was going on and understood something I did not. It took several large disasters for me to realize that, no, they don't understand something I don't. They don't even understand a few things I do. With that realization came no power, however, and I was still born away on a mudslide of others' choreographed mistakes. Slippin' and slidin' all over creation.
Now, I'm a little older. Slightly wiser (?) and definitely slower, in absolutely every way. But I'm still running into the same old thing. I'm still seeing collisions before they appear. The left knee tweaks and the right eye twitches: a storm's on the way, an it's going to be a bad one. Those who know me, believe me. Those who don't, don't, and I pull and drag at their clothing and shout doomsday predictions to closed ears and vacant homes. They're standing in the fields, hands shading their eyes as they look out toward the sun, blind to the winds bullying them and the storm clouds above their shadows on the ground.
I don't know why I care so much. I try not to care so much. When I fail, I do my best. That should be good enough for me. But it doesn't prevent the tragedy, ever. So it isn't.
Showing posts with label thinking aloud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thinking aloud. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Sometimes you get Weird Feelings (Part 2/2)
2) I really struggled thinking about this post. I know what I want to say, but I'm not sure how much detail I should divulge. In the end, I chose to be careful while also sharing what I'm thinking, because this really only involves me. So, that makes sense, right??
I was recently invited to a party. Now I am not a party person, dear reader - I do not number myself among the 'party people' so often invoked among the youth. I whole-heartedly prefer an evening with seven-eight good friends having a good time than going to hang out among thirty screaming college kids, only four or five of which I know. I'd have to be really drinking heavily to enjoy that kind of thing, and that sort of alcohol is expensive. I'm not made of money.
Now I'm sure my invitation is more-or-less a formality; people know I'm not a partying type, despite how entertaining and fun-to-be-around I am virtually all the time. Am I a big hit at parties? Always. But I've also grown out of that phase, and I no longer have to be at a party to be the center of a group's attention. I'm a MOBILE party! So I said maybe, as I usually do - because I really do think about it - and that was that. Leaning towards probably not going, I'm sure I'll be busy that night, but hey, never say never, right?
Then I checked back, and (as this is Facebook and on Facebook everything is always everywhere), I found that someone I really do not want to see in-person - certainly not in a party environment - is going. You know what that means? That means I'm definitely not going. That means I actually can't go.
And in the long run that's fine, because it's unlikely I would have attended anyway. But I'm angry. I'm angry at this person, for no real reason - I can't expect people to stop having doing things because I don't like them to - and I'm angry at myself. Not for choosing not to go because of it; I think that's a fine choice, and I would stand by it regardless of any other factors. No, I'm angry with myself because I still got upset over it, and thus I didn't have a choice. Or don't have a choice, I should say. My hand is forced; and even though if I had no emotional reaction to this situation, and was making decisions completely clearheaded, I would choose the same course of action, it's still not okay; the absence of choice still really bothers me. I don't want to be around this person, particularly not there, and that's an objective decision; my emotional response is "no no no no no not good don't no no way uh-uh nope," and that is not.
And atop everything else, I feel angry that I'm still getting even somewhat worked up, because I thought all the feelings were gone and away (thank God). It's been a really peaceful and anxiety-free week or two, and what a relief that has been after the past few months. I guess it takes a little longer for those ghosts to completely fade away, which is frustrating. Where's my self-neuralizer? Plz, MIB, plz.
I was recently invited to a party. Now I am not a party person, dear reader - I do not number myself among the 'party people' so often invoked among the youth. I whole-heartedly prefer an evening with seven-eight good friends having a good time than going to hang out among thirty screaming college kids, only four or five of which I know. I'd have to be really drinking heavily to enjoy that kind of thing, and that sort of alcohol is expensive. I'm not made of money.
Now I'm sure my invitation is more-or-less a formality; people know I'm not a partying type, despite how entertaining and fun-to-be-around I am virtually all the time. Am I a big hit at parties? Always. But I've also grown out of that phase, and I no longer have to be at a party to be the center of a group's attention. I'm a MOBILE party! So I said maybe, as I usually do - because I really do think about it - and that was that. Leaning towards probably not going, I'm sure I'll be busy that night, but hey, never say never, right?
Then I checked back, and (as this is Facebook and on Facebook everything is always everywhere), I found that someone I really do not want to see in-person - certainly not in a party environment - is going. You know what that means? That means I'm definitely not going. That means I actually can't go.
And in the long run that's fine, because it's unlikely I would have attended anyway. But I'm angry. I'm angry at this person, for no real reason - I can't expect people to stop having doing things because I don't like them to - and I'm angry at myself. Not for choosing not to go because of it; I think that's a fine choice, and I would stand by it regardless of any other factors. No, I'm angry with myself because I still got upset over it, and thus I didn't have a choice. Or don't have a choice, I should say. My hand is forced; and even though if I had no emotional reaction to this situation, and was making decisions completely clearheaded, I would choose the same course of action, it's still not okay; the absence of choice still really bothers me. I don't want to be around this person, particularly not there, and that's an objective decision; my emotional response is "no no no no no not good don't no no way uh-uh nope," and that is not.
And atop everything else, I feel angry that I'm still getting even somewhat worked up, because I thought all the feelings were gone and away (thank God). It's been a really peaceful and anxiety-free week or two, and what a relief that has been after the past few months. I guess it takes a little longer for those ghosts to completely fade away, which is frustrating. Where's my self-neuralizer? Plz, MIB, plz.
Monday, August 17, 2015
Sometimes you get Weird Feelings (Part 1/2)
I have a lot of more interesting, less angsty posts coming down the pipe, but for some reason this came out first. I only thought it up a few minutes ago, but here I go. I guess there's something involving the immediacy of complicated emotions and a need to express them in some cathartic way which prevents me from procrastinating on more visceral posts like this. If only I could harness that power for some good...
Anyway, I actually have two different topics today. Each can be their own post, so that's what I'll do! I gotta get mileage out of my issues somehow, and this is the way I'm doin' it.
So, two recent events which made me feel.... weird:
1) A friend of mine told me some news the other day, about something which was somewhere in the vicinity of casual sex. Very minor, for all that, and something that I'm sure most everyone in college has done. And yet, my first reaction was... I still can't quite put my finger on it. There was some anger, and a little bit of disgust, and maybe a hint of sadness. All of these little pieces formed one big ball of some new, confusing emotional state, and it really threw me for a loop. I was trying to dissect it and, though I identified some of the component parts, it remained mostly a mystery - like trying to identify an alien metal (this happens in every superhero/sci-fi story everywhen). In the end I identified the feeling as discomfort, but being uncomfortable without knowing the reason why is a confusing and frustrating experience.
So I've been trying to figure out why, exactly, this news bothered me so much, when in reality it was precisely nothing - a blip on the radar, a cloud passing high overhead. I was having a tough time, so I reached out to one or two trusted friends - specifically the v. helpful Kim - to try and work through what exactly my problem was with this unproblematic news. And I think I got it! I think; there's really no way to know for sure, because our brains are all liars, but I think this is the reason:
I tend to be friends with a certain Type of person. We all have our Types that we naturally gravitate to, of course, and I am acquaintances with a lot of different Types of people. But real friends - the people we don't just get along with because we're placed together, but seek out even when we're not together - tend to be Types like me. And that's just the way things are.
Now, if you accept that assertion, it goes to follow that the opposite would be true: people wholly unlike those friendship Types are the kinds of people I'd rather not spend my free time with. Prrreeeetty easy, right? Except there's that whole middle area, where people are like A Type in some ways and B Type in others.
My friend (Steven) is like me in a lot of ways. And though we've hung out in-person on several occasions, we mostly talk online these days (it being summer). When talking about common interests, or daily events, or whatever, it's easy to fall into a comfortable rhythm. However, while I greatly enjoy Steven's company, I know that he is also another Type, one that I treat with indifference but find wholly perplexing. It's moments like this - when I hear some (slight) excitement about a brief and casual encounter - which remind me oh, hey, that's right, we're different. I don't really understand that side of him, and so when it crops up suddenly like that, it can be a bit jarring. It's like learning your best friend since preschool is a robot: in the end he's still your friend, and that part of him that's a robot is completely separate from your interactions 99% of the time. But sometimes he'll talk about having to go plug himself in or eat aluminum foil, and in that moment the reality you've convinced yourself of - that he's a guy just like you - is stripped away.
I think that's the source of my discomfort. I don't have a problem with that side of Steve, I really don't. I'm just not used to interacting with friends who do have that side, and when I'm reminded of it in casual conversation it's like missing a step. You trip a little bit, and regain your balance after a second, but it was still a scary moment. You're walking along and suddenly - "that's right, I'm mortal, I could really hurt myself here - okay I'm back on track I'm invincible *phew*." It's an unpleasant feeling. It yanks you back to reality, and reality is not a place you want to spend much time. It's a hint of his similarity to people I don't really enjoy spending time with, and that causes a bit of negative feedback, even though I've made peace with it the best I can.
Do you ever have those moments when you're talking to people? When they'll make a comment or do something and you're reminded of just how different you are from each other?
Anyway, I actually have two different topics today. Each can be their own post, so that's what I'll do! I gotta get mileage out of my issues somehow, and this is the way I'm doin' it.
So, two recent events which made me feel.... weird:
1) A friend of mine told me some news the other day, about something which was somewhere in the vicinity of casual sex. Very minor, for all that, and something that I'm sure most everyone in college has done. And yet, my first reaction was... I still can't quite put my finger on it. There was some anger, and a little bit of disgust, and maybe a hint of sadness. All of these little pieces formed one big ball of some new, confusing emotional state, and it really threw me for a loop. I was trying to dissect it and, though I identified some of the component parts, it remained mostly a mystery - like trying to identify an alien metal (this happens in every superhero/sci-fi story everywhen). In the end I identified the feeling as discomfort, but being uncomfortable without knowing the reason why is a confusing and frustrating experience.
So I've been trying to figure out why, exactly, this news bothered me so much, when in reality it was precisely nothing - a blip on the radar, a cloud passing high overhead. I was having a tough time, so I reached out to one or two trusted friends - specifically the v. helpful Kim - to try and work through what exactly my problem was with this unproblematic news. And I think I got it! I think; there's really no way to know for sure, because our brains are all liars, but I think this is the reason:
I tend to be friends with a certain Type of person. We all have our Types that we naturally gravitate to, of course, and I am acquaintances with a lot of different Types of people. But real friends - the people we don't just get along with because we're placed together, but seek out even when we're not together - tend to be Types like me. And that's just the way things are.
Now, if you accept that assertion, it goes to follow that the opposite would be true: people wholly unlike those friendship Types are the kinds of people I'd rather not spend my free time with. Prrreeeetty easy, right? Except there's that whole middle area, where people are like A Type in some ways and B Type in others.
My friend (Steven) is like me in a lot of ways. And though we've hung out in-person on several occasions, we mostly talk online these days (it being summer). When talking about common interests, or daily events, or whatever, it's easy to fall into a comfortable rhythm. However, while I greatly enjoy Steven's company, I know that he is also another Type, one that I treat with indifference but find wholly perplexing. It's moments like this - when I hear some (slight) excitement about a brief and casual encounter - which remind me oh, hey, that's right, we're different. I don't really understand that side of him, and so when it crops up suddenly like that, it can be a bit jarring. It's like learning your best friend since preschool is a robot: in the end he's still your friend, and that part of him that's a robot is completely separate from your interactions 99% of the time. But sometimes he'll talk about having to go plug himself in or eat aluminum foil, and in that moment the reality you've convinced yourself of - that he's a guy just like you - is stripped away.
I think that's the source of my discomfort. I don't have a problem with that side of Steve, I really don't. I'm just not used to interacting with friends who do have that side, and when I'm reminded of it in casual conversation it's like missing a step. You trip a little bit, and regain your balance after a second, but it was still a scary moment. You're walking along and suddenly - "that's right, I'm mortal, I could really hurt myself here - okay I'm back on track I'm invincible *phew*." It's an unpleasant feeling. It yanks you back to reality, and reality is not a place you want to spend much time. It's a hint of his similarity to people I don't really enjoy spending time with, and that causes a bit of negative feedback, even though I've made peace with it the best I can.
Do you ever have those moments when you're talking to people? When they'll make a comment or do something and you're reminded of just how different you are from each other?
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Crisis Alert!
This is going to be an extremely short update. I just want to let you know, dear readers, that I remain alive and... well, not 'well,' but alive. There is a lot of chaos in the air right now, and to say that emotions are running high across a wide variety of spectrums is an understatement. I'm concerned for more than a few people, and (at least it seems like) more than a few people are concerned about me. It's a very concerning time, if I'm honest. Then of course there's the requisite confusion of the Self which goes along with all of that.
A lot of existential questions and conversations. A lot of total blanks, half-truths, and non-answers. I feel like I'm regressing. More on these and other topics when it's not almost four a.m. I had a nice, interesting topic planned out and partially written, but I'm not sure it's the thing to talk about now. Strike while the iron is hot, I suppose.
I've been doing a lot of creative things, lately. Which is good: it helps keep the crazy under control. Or, at least, I think it does. Today a chapter of my life will be finished, signed, and sent out for publication. I thought I'd feel more liberated; instead, I just feel sad. Sadness seems to be a recurring trend these past few months. Much less fun than the ambivalence I had courted for so long. Regression, I tell you.
A lot of existential questions and conversations. A lot of total blanks, half-truths, and non-answers. I feel like I'm regressing. More on these and other topics when it's not almost four a.m. I had a nice, interesting topic planned out and partially written, but I'm not sure it's the thing to talk about now. Strike while the iron is hot, I suppose.
I've been doing a lot of creative things, lately. Which is good: it helps keep the crazy under control. Or, at least, I think it does. Today a chapter of my life will be finished, signed, and sent out for publication. I thought I'd feel more liberated; instead, I just feel sad. Sadness seems to be a recurring trend these past few months. Much less fun than the ambivalence I had courted for so long. Regression, I tell you.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
What to write about now??
Hello there, gentle reader.
I've been remiss in my updates for a while, which is something I told myself I'd try to avoid with this blog. This is for a few reasons:
1) I've been less miserable of late. I'm finally starting to put the past in the past and not let it bother me anymore. Notice I said starting to; I'm not even close to being back in my usual tip-top (?) shape, but I've come a long way from the beginning of summer, and that has made such a difference I can't rightly put it into words. Which means that, the fewer emotions (primarily negative) that I have about X, Y, or Z, the less I'll feel the drive to use this blog as an outlet.
2) I've very nearly run out of 'general' things to say about my situation. At any given point there comes a time where, in order to really dig into something, you have to stop making large extrapolations from hidden data and start to discuss the data itself. Which is far too personal for this blog. At least, it is for now; I'm sure there will come a day (fairly soon) where no Party will care/be concerned with what I write wherever I write it. Even were names and situations changed, I worry that maybe... well, we'll see. There's some possibility there, if I keep it encoded enough. Stay tuned.
I was going to try to continue on longer with this list, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder - why not? Why not just go into some stuff, if it's bothering me and/or I've learned something from the experience? With names changed to protect the innocent it seems like that would be a no-brainer. I really don't believe I have to worry about anyone I mention seeing my writings, and this is a place where I'm supposed to be able to drop the act and cough up some Truth.
So yes, I have now made up my mind. I'll get into a little more of the specifics that have been worming their way through my cortex lately, and assure myself that this will not lead to any sort of dialog, accidental, angry, or otherwise.
This update has been more of an update about updates, gentle reader, hasn't it? Yet fear not, for I shall soon return with tales and puzzles of a most curious nature for your reading pleasure. And maybe more real honest-to-god writing one of these days.
Look to the skies a day hence....
I've been remiss in my updates for a while, which is something I told myself I'd try to avoid with this blog. This is for a few reasons:
1) I've been less miserable of late. I'm finally starting to put the past in the past and not let it bother me anymore. Notice I said starting to; I'm not even close to being back in my usual tip-top (?) shape, but I've come a long way from the beginning of summer, and that has made such a difference I can't rightly put it into words. Which means that, the fewer emotions (primarily negative) that I have about X, Y, or Z, the less I'll feel the drive to use this blog as an outlet.
2) I've very nearly run out of 'general' things to say about my situation. At any given point there comes a time where, in order to really dig into something, you have to stop making large extrapolations from hidden data and start to discuss the data itself. Which is far too personal for this blog. At least, it is for now; I'm sure there will come a day (fairly soon) where no Party will care/be concerned with what I write wherever I write it. Even were names and situations changed, I worry that maybe... well, we'll see. There's some possibility there, if I keep it encoded enough. Stay tuned.
I was going to try to continue on longer with this list, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder - why not? Why not just go into some stuff, if it's bothering me and/or I've learned something from the experience? With names changed to protect the innocent it seems like that would be a no-brainer. I really don't believe I have to worry about anyone I mention seeing my writings, and this is a place where I'm supposed to be able to drop the act and cough up some Truth.
So yes, I have now made up my mind. I'll get into a little more of the specifics that have been worming their way through my cortex lately, and assure myself that this will not lead to any sort of dialog, accidental, angry, or otherwise.
This update has been more of an update about updates, gentle reader, hasn't it? Yet fear not, for I shall soon return with tales and puzzles of a most curious nature for your reading pleasure. And maybe more real honest-to-god writing one of these days.
Look to the skies a day hence....
Friday, June 12, 2015
Trapped in a Mind send Help
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?
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?
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