Pretty Well

People tell me that I'm doing pretty well right now as I'm dealing with a number of difficult tasks. It stops me each time someone says that because I'm not even thinking about how well I'm doing. I'm not thinking about how what I'm doing even has an emotional context — I'm simply doing what I need to do. That's what it seems like to me.

But when someone tells me I'm doing pretty well, or that I'm doing great, a small alarm goes off inside my mind. Why wouldn't I be doing well? Is there something I don't know? Because I am not paying attention to the larger picture. I'm looking at each discrete task and achieving it, or figuring out how to achieve it. I completely forget why I have to remove things from the house, why I have to arrange for movers, why I have the vague feeling that each day here is one more closer to my very last.

What this all means is that the emotional context will come crashing down on me all at once and swamp me. I can accept that. I hope it waits until I'm home again.

What Do You Think You Feel?

Most people consider thinking and feeling to be two separate things: you think thoughts or you feel emotions. Not me. I tend to mix them up a bit.

If I feel something, I have to analyze it. "I feel sad" — am I sure I feel sad, that it's not depression or a headache; why do I feel sad; what else am I feeling; is this a true feeling or a habitual one. If I can over-think it, I will. I was surprised when a previous therapist informed me that not everyone thinks about their feelings.

Then there are my thoughts. Often, if I have a thought that isn't one of my every-day thoughts (need milk; remember to take clothes from dryer; where is my turquoise ring), then I ask myself how I feel about that thought. "I wonder if I should move?" — do you feel lonely; why would you want to move, I thought you were happy here; it's scary to move; you'll be sad if you move.

Today in therapy, I read my therapy homework that I had managed to pull together this morning. Afterward, my therapist suggested I get back into the routine of writing my homework as a narrative. Doing so will incorporate the emotional aspects better. The last two times I've done this homework, I've presented it as bullet points of events. They've been quite unemotional. If I keep doing my trauma work that way, it won't provide me with any benefits. I don't know if I've been doing the homework like that because it's quick and easy or if I recognized the lack of emotional content in doing it that way and so went with the lesser emotional content path. Because, doing with full emotional content hurts like hell.

One of the problems with therapy, especially therapy that goes for years, is that nothing seems simple. Every thought, feeling, and action has layers and layers of meaning. A banana is not just  banana. I'm not sure if I was naturally this self-analytical before I started therapy or if therapy created it in me. Or if I had a tendency toward it (I think I've always thought about my feelings and felt about my thoughts to some extent) and therapy merely enhanced that in me. See? Always questions, seldom answers.

I would like things in my life to be simpler. I'd like to feel an emotion and simply feel it. No questions, no analysis. I'd like to think a thought and if I don't accept the thought as is, then the only thing I want to do to it is think other thoughts about it. No more screaming meemies or greyhounds on hamster wheels or anything else that keeps my mind going and going and keeping me awake or keeping me from simply thinking or feeling or doing in relative silence.

I'd like my mind to simply shut the fuck up already.

Deep thoughts #3 --- Deep thinking

I'm a thinker. I've always considered myself an intellectual, but I also have considered myself very emotional: a "feeler" as is described in the Myers-Briggs Personality Types. But a previous therapist told me that few people actually think about their feelings, like "what am I feeling?" "why am I feeling this?" "what does this feeling mean or related to?" and that sort of thing.

I was stunned. I thought that everyone approached life that way, or almost everyone. I feel. I think. I look at each of those things from the other perspective to understand myself. Apparently not everyone does this. It somewhat explained some of the areas where my mother and I lacked rapport. I think my brother was probably more like me in this than like our parents.

So I think all the time, even when I shouldn't. I think when I'm trying to sleep. I think when I'm on the toilet or in the shower. I even think during sex when I shouldn't be thinking (or rather, back when I used to have sex), making orgasm a very difficult feat for me, one worth cheering for when it did happen. I do it even with myself! (So I understand how frustrating it can be for a lover ....)

My mind doesn't turn off. And if there are no deep thoughts currently needing attention — or my medications are turning me into a zombie — then my mind plays with superficial or tiny thoughts, the way a kitten plays with a piece of fluff. Back and forth, back and forth. I've also just recently learned that this back and forthing, as much as my mind does it at any rate, is part of obsessive thinking. That explains a lot, too. Like how some thoughts won't leave, much like Daffy Duck getting stuck in taffy, repeating the same movements back and forth over and over again until I would like to scream. But I don't because my mother taught me not to make scenes.

If only my mind would get stuck on positive thoughts, that would be acceptable. But, of course, my brain gets stuck on the negative things, or disturbing thoughts or images (Never, ever, EVER watch even a tiny film clip about the Human Centipede movie. Don't even look at the poster. Just. Don't.) In addition, I have a vivid, creative imagination and a vivid, detailed memory. Do all obsessive thinkers have the same kind of imagination and memory? Are all people with such memory and imagination obsessive thinkers? Am I the only person I know whose mind does this to them?

For the most part, I love my mind. I love the detailed memory and imagination, I love the vividness and the full-sensory details they provide me. Some of my dreams are unbelievable! But the obsessiveness has got to be controlled. The latest drug that was supposed to handle that is probably the one making me a zombie. Maybe we can handle it with therapy; I'd love to cut down on the medication, for certain.

Do you have a love-hate relationship with your mind?