Contemplations on How to Cope with Overthinking

One of the biggest struggles that I have is this constant line of mental questioning.  Every time I think I have something figured out or I'm feeling good about it- there is this train of "what if" thoughts that follows.  I get a promotion, what if they only promoted you for political reasons.  What if the thing you thought you actually worked hard to achieve was just a handout based on seniority and not at all based on the merits or actual accomplishments that you have made in your career?  Just one of many examples.

The last two days have been this for me- a constant line of questioning everything that I think and everything that I think that I know.  It's made for a pretty exhausting roller coaster if I'm being honest.  Questions about how I think I'm doing as a parent, as a career woman, as a partner.  Am I a partner?  Is this just a glorified friends with benefits situation?  What if all of the feelings that they've talked about were lies.  What if all the feelings I've had were just fabricated hormonal side effects?  What if I'm putting my trust in the wrong things.  What if I'm actually failing at everything but nothing has caught up to me yet?

So, with this very pleasant thought process coming at me from all of the angles, I've chosen to spend my time deep diving into my work.  My work is normally my very favorite thing to do and one of my favorite places to be.  However, my work life balance has never been the greatest. I've been spending all of my down time just diving into anything and everything remotely field related: reading books, listening to podcasts, listening to audiobooks, various webinars, and now.... deciding to develop a research project and seek out grant funding in my "off" time.  I don't think I'm every really off.  On one hand it's a great distraction from my difficult thoughts and feelings, but probably not the healthiest coping skill.  

Random Poem Drop.  No title, just thoughts:

Everything I think about saying feels painfully like

The meaningless

Meanderings

Of small talk.  So much so that I’d rather

Light myself on fire than to

Endure

The mediocre experience of

“Hi, how are you…”

One more time.

I hate myself for

Participating

In it.

 

I remind myself constantly.

That

It’s a useless endeavor designed by the masses to

Control me

Keep me satisfied with the ebb and flow of

Conformity

Breathing feels like a FUCKING chore.

Everything feels.

False

Deceiving

And

Manipulative.

I'm not sure what the problem is that makes me disconnect and become so detached from the world.  This past couple of years, derealization and dissociation have been the biggest mental health symptoms that I've been dealing with.  I am proficient at coping and making it through each episode relatively unscathed.  People barely notice most of the time, even those the closest to me.  Most of the time, I'm relieved.  But other times, I really just wish someone would see thorough all of it and see me.  Most of the time, I never felt seen at my core.  There was a fleeting moment not too long ago that I thought maybe someone could see me.  But it turned out that was not real.  It never really is.    

What is reality anyway?  In common English it tends to be defined as the world or the state of things as they actually are vs. an idealistic or novel view of them.  In physics, reality is the totality of a system.  The knowns and the unknowns.  It brings into question some philosophical questions about the nature of reality or existence.  But who is to say that everyone lives in the same reality?  In the world I live in and the things that I have come to know through experience may be very different to someone else.  It is absolutely reasonable to me that I lock all my doors and windows at night, collect personal information on all of my children's friends, and either memorize or write down license plate numbers of vehicles that I feel are "Suspish".  My world has taught me that people will hurt you and information, like this, can protect you as well as taking general precautions.  Someone else's reality may be that people are good, honest, kind, and always willing to help and therefore they don't lock their doors, collect seemingly useless information or license plate numbers.  Neither of us are really wrong, out realities are just different.   

Falling asleep on these ideas.  ---AJR