A scrambled state of mind
And how to reclaim your brain again (in small ways)
This week has been a week of overthinking.
Also obsessing.
And ruminating.
OOR (which in Dutch means ‘ear’) and in fact there is something about the idea that all this stuff, this incredible volume and variety of modern stuff from the world comes in via our ears and crowds out our brains. It also comes through our eyes. Via our phones. Whilst I’m typing this I have my phone lying on my bed. Wednesday this week and I’d entered this hyper dependent, toxic relationship with it. I was awaiting a response from a client, and I kept picking it up every 15 seconds. I then went through the familiar pattern of checking WhatsApp (World Book Day/a school trip/pyjama day/cake sale/PSA meeting/friend celebrating/another mourning a lost family member), and then I would go back onto my email, onto IG (weirdly gained a lot of followers because one reel went super well), then back to work and Teams and this pattern basically scrambled my brain. I then looked at some dark news content (very easy to find). It was almost as if my brain wanted to be totally scrambled and was looking for ways to do that quickly and efficiently.
By Friday I wanted to take my head off and put it elsewhere.
‘Here you go head,’ I’d say, ‘Just sit on this sofa for a bit and switch off. I am going to try and get stuff done and maybe make a soup and you rest. I’m switching you off okay?’
Just to feel that blessed relief of not carrying it around with all the endless questions going around in it. The worries. The catastrophising.
What if x doesn’t go well next week? What if it all goes wrong?
On my grave will be written the words- ‘She always believed the worst was on its way and eventually it came.’
There is definitely something about seeing bad things when you are looking for them. We naturally have a negative bias, but if you’re already stressed and overthinking, then that bias is amplified. I kept hearing this voice in my head telling me that everything was shit. In a messy house, a house with kids and chaos it is easy to see things upside down. Instead of being grateful then you can sometimes (often) just want to scream at the endless picking up and tidying that happens from the moment your foot hits the carpet and peels a unicorn sticker off of your big toe.
A FUCKING UNICORN IS STUCK TO MY FOOT!
Instead of the thinking that is more useful - I love unicorns. How blessed am I to have one stuck to my foot right now! (but I think is only really available to those who have lived several lives and are almost at Nirvana).
Work has been the main thing that I’ve ruminated on this week but last week it was my parenting skills (lack of). Sometimes it’s the state of the house and the fact that the doors look like the kind of doors you see in horror films (need painting, finger prints like someone has tried to escape but is still trapped inside, paint splatters and then the mark of a sponge as someone (me) has tried to clean them up but the water is dirty so it’s made it much worse). Even sitting on the toilet offers no respite as the lock has been ripped off for 7 years now, from a time when my daughter got locked inside and we had to call the fire people to break the door down.
The unicorn on my foot is small fry next to this broken door. Oh and the wallpaper has been peeled off again (this is another thing kids like to do. Peeling it off in small sections each week so you think you’re losing your mind, like you might be imagining it but no, not only has it been peeled off but it has also been then coloured in with a felt tip to conceal the tearing off).
I have several techniques for dealing with this feeling of disappearing down a ruminating, negative rabbit hole. In the past it would have been simple…I would have poured myself a drink in the evening. I was never a big drinker but I was thirsty when I drank. And that’s the thing because if you are using a substance to take your head off, then it’s not very helpful long term, because the head will always attach itself again and has a tendency to give you some back chat. The negative bias will be dialled up some put it that way. Ruminating with a hangover is one of the worst experiences which is why I don’t drink anymore.
Or the other thing is obviously comfort eating - the kind of eating where you look down at your plate, and realise that you don’t remember putting the things on the plate, can’t actually taste any of the elements but are shovelling it into your mouth and it is making no difference to your feelings.
These are obviously not particularly healthy ways of dealing with obsessing and rumination. So here are a few things I’ve tried this week and am going to try next week as I find that this obsessing/overthinking/ruminating is happening pretty regularly these days.
Exercise. I know it’s really boring to hear this but if you are running, even running slowly then it becomes hard to think obsessively at the same time. If you blast loud music in your ears it becomes even more difficult to do this. Each day I do this first thing, for half an hour. I worry that if I didn’t do this then my brain would be even more scrambled. Which it would.
Sleep. I go to bed early anyway but at the moment my youngest daughter is waking up at 5.30 and coming into the bed. This means I have to be in bed by 9.30pm or I am just grumpy all day. In an ideal world I would get up on my own, with some kind of sunrise, bird song and make coffee and write in my gratitude journal but the awakenings are not pleasant. I love her but she tends to push her feet into my thighs and then put her chin into my chest in a painful way. This morning I woke up with a fright and it curdled the next 4 hours because I couldn't shake off the feeling that something was badly wrong (or about to go wrong).
I have decided to try meditation again. I sometimes listen to the Calm app or the brilliant Clementine one but I want to try a meditation with my own mantra. I found one where you just repeat the same words over and over and so have just tried it this morning for 5 minutes (if you Google ‘meditation mantra,’ then you will see lots of suggestions). I sat on the bed just now and for the first 3 minutes I was just thinking about this work meeting and how I was dreading, and then it eased off and I was finding it hard to remember the mantra but that was good because it meant I was no longer thinking about work.
Accepting rage. One of the things I have felt this week is rage. It is perimenopause but also I think it’s the modern female condition. We are doing too much. We are trying to be too much. We are trying to achieve too much. Jobs. Families. Finances. Pets. Relationships. The World Dissolving. Do not pass it off as perimenopause, because I would say that it might be that, but it might just be dealing with the impossible things. I am writing this now and feeling angry. I might have to meditate as the anger is actually getting worse now I’ve written that all down.
Hot baths. I think I am always recommending a hot bath but there are times when I feel like my life is difficult, like I can’t cope with the early mornings, work pressures, pressures I put on myself (I know I am privileged so please don’t come at me with that, I am well aware that there are certain things I should be thankful for), and then I get in a hot bath, and I feel them leave my body. I watched my mother take many hot baths when I was a child. I used to sit on the toilet seat and chat to her whilst my sisters created chaos in the room next door. I realise now that these baths were her attempt at calming her nervous system. This was before self care, before we had lavender sprays, eye masks, meditation apps etc.
The things above are simple things.
I think the wider picture however, the fact that many of us feel like this regularly. Well that’s a bigger issue. It is one that has me questioning what I can do to change my life.
For now, I write this, the only lousy shit I’ve written all week. Except it’s not shit but it’s actually brilliant. I will doggy paddle through the next week without my phone by my side.
When I get to the other side of the river I will haul myself out and lie down and look at the sun which will be just visible from behind the clouds, alongside a tiny patch of blue sky which will grow increasingly wider as I fixate on it. In it I will see the faces of all the people I have ever loved and lost and they will whisper- ‘It’s going to be okay. We love you. Just rest up a bit.’