Not be a killjoy but it really seems like a lot of folks here and the meme’s “me” are assuming facing thoughts equal thoughts.
Here’s Wikipedia/ therapist’s description of racing thoughts, the normal amount of which should definitely be close to zero:
Racing thoughts may be experienced as background, _or may take over a person’s consciousness. _Thoughts, music, and voices might be zooming through one’s mind as they jump tangentially from one to the next.[citation needed] There also might be a repetitive pattern of voice or of pressure without any associated “sound”. It is a very overwhelming and irritating feeling, and can result in losing track of time. In some cases, it may also be frightening to the person experiencing it, as there is a loss of control. If one is experiencing these thoughts at night when going to sleep, they may suddenly awaken, startled and confused by the very random and sudden nature of the thoughts.
There’s always something coming in and going out, something different every other second.
My previous doc already noticed hyper awareness, but he had me talk about things that trouble me and doing that kicks it in overdrive.
End result: i got some anti psychotics and pointed out the door asap, it felt like i said something wrong for a singke second that made the therapists employer go: “nope, not today buddy. Strike 3, you’re out.”
That medication made me so tired but man did the silence help, i felt like i could breathe for once without being interrupted. It had me sleeping 14h a day AND taking naps the moment i got to sit still for a minute.
I have difficulty bringing across what is going on which makes it feel impossible to let people know how and what is going on, making therapy useless as they’ll just decide: “this is going nowhere”.
Racing thoughts may be experienced as background, _or may take over a person’s consciousness. _Thoughts, music, and voices might be zooming through one’s mind as they jump tangentially from one to the next.
actually does describe what it’s like inside my head. I think of it like background chatter. There are usually two to three tracks of thought that my mind hops between with a song playing in the background (currently it’s I Second That Emotion by The Miracles). It’s there when I wake up in the morning and it’s there all day long. If I wake up in the middle of the night, it’s there. That can be annoying because it makes it hard to fall back asleep. During the day I can quiet it down by concentrating on something else - e.g., listening to a podcast - but if I’m doing something that doesn’t require much thought, my background chatter comes to the forefront again.
It is what it is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It hasn’t kept me from being successful and it doesn’t really bother me except when it makes it harder to fall asleep. I’m guessing it’s just an overactive imagination? I’ve described it to my husband and he can’t relate - he says his mind is blank unless he’s actively thinking about something (and I can’t relate to that lol).
I think this is just what’s normal for me. If it caused distress or confusion, I think it might indicate some pathology, but that’s not the case.
I had to explain to people that I relaxed after a few drinks because the more I drank, the less was going on in my mind. It’s like one of those annoying user interfaces that pulls up a description box every time you mouseover anything, except it’s analyzing things or hypothesizing about stuff, or going down some rabbithole hased on something somebody said. All while 1-3 songs are going on in my head.
I’ve managed to quiet most of it down as I’ve aged (and realized that exhaustion, which was my constant state, horribly exascerbated the issue). But my mind was exhausting to be in, so being out and overstimulated without something to dampen the inner voice was torture.
I have it too and it’s manageable as you say. But I’ve had panic attacks before and during that time it was unbearable. Thoughts coming in and out so quickly, unable to stop it, two or three songs playing at the same time, it was absolutely awful.
I’m getting meds now and it’s so much nicer to have control and structure in my mind. So now it’s down to a single song and maybe two or three thoughts at the same time which aren’t shouting at me, they’re just kind of there in the background.
Thanks for the clarification, I was definitely conflating a bit… having said that, even with the more accurate description I do believe I experience Racing thoughts at lot more often than not, certainly not close to zero.
One thing I have noticed is that, when I do try to quiet my mind and reduce stimulus, this is when more often than not my thoughts do fucking race. At its peak, it feels like watching people in a fair from a thrill ride, it’s a blur of barely distinguishable snapshots mixed in with sounds, lights, smells… it does make me feel like I am insane; fortunately, when it gets to that state, it does not last long
Not be a killjoy but it really seems like a lot of folks here and the meme’s “me” are assuming facing thoughts equal thoughts.
Here’s Wikipedia/ therapist’s description of racing thoughts, the normal amount of which should definitely be close to zero:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_thoughts
Edit: for comparison, I feel most of us are picturing thinking, my favourite explanation of which is:
Ricky: Do you ever get your head where it just won’t shut up and it’s talking to itself, ‘yap yap yap’. F***! What is that?
Bubbles: Thinkin’, Ricky. You’re thinkin’!
Ricky: That’s all that is?
There’s always something coming in and going out, something different every other second.
My previous doc already noticed hyper awareness, but he had me talk about things that trouble me and doing that kicks it in overdrive.
End result: i got some anti psychotics and pointed out the door asap, it felt like i said something wrong for a singke second that made the therapists employer go: “nope, not today buddy. Strike 3, you’re out.”
That medication made me so tired but man did the silence help, i felt like i could breathe for once without being interrupted. It had me sleeping 14h a day AND taking naps the moment i got to sit still for a minute.
I have difficulty bringing across what is going on which makes it feel impossible to let people know how and what is going on, making therapy useless as they’ll just decide: “this is going nowhere”.
This.
They mean thoughts shouldn’t normally be racing.
The amount of people misunderstanding this meme makes me sad.
This part:
actually does describe what it’s like inside my head. I think of it like background chatter. There are usually two to three tracks of thought that my mind hops between with a song playing in the background (currently it’s I Second That Emotion by The Miracles). It’s there when I wake up in the morning and it’s there all day long. If I wake up in the middle of the night, it’s there. That can be annoying because it makes it hard to fall back asleep. During the day I can quiet it down by concentrating on something else - e.g., listening to a podcast - but if I’m doing something that doesn’t require much thought, my background chatter comes to the forefront again.
It is what it is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It hasn’t kept me from being successful and it doesn’t really bother me except when it makes it harder to fall asleep. I’m guessing it’s just an overactive imagination? I’ve described it to my husband and he can’t relate - he says his mind is blank unless he’s actively thinking about something (and I can’t relate to that lol).
I think this is just what’s normal for me. If it caused distress or confusion, I think it might indicate some pathology, but that’s not the case.
I had to explain to people that I relaxed after a few drinks because the more I drank, the less was going on in my mind. It’s like one of those annoying user interfaces that pulls up a description box every time you mouseover anything, except it’s analyzing things or hypothesizing about stuff, or going down some rabbithole hased on something somebody said. All while 1-3 songs are going on in my head.
I’ve managed to quiet most of it down as I’ve aged (and realized that exhaustion, which was my constant state, horribly exascerbated the issue). But my mind was exhausting to be in, so being out and overstimulated without something to dampen the inner voice was torture.
I have it too and it’s manageable as you say. But I’ve had panic attacks before and during that time it was unbearable. Thoughts coming in and out so quickly, unable to stop it, two or three songs playing at the same time, it was absolutely awful.
I’m getting meds now and it’s so much nicer to have control and structure in my mind. So now it’s down to a single song and maybe two or three thoughts at the same time which aren’t shouting at me, they’re just kind of there in the background.
Wow that sounds awful. I’m curious, what meds do they prescribe for this?
Just antidepressants, for me it’s Bupropion.
Thanks for the clarification, I was definitely conflating a bit… having said that, even with the more accurate description I do believe I experience Racing thoughts at lot more often than not, certainly not close to zero.
One thing I have noticed is that, when I do try to quiet my mind and reduce stimulus, this is when more often than not my thoughts do fucking race. At its peak, it feels like watching people in a fair from a thrill ride, it’s a blur of barely distinguishable snapshots mixed in with sounds, lights, smells… it does make me feel like I am insane; fortunately, when it gets to that state, it does not last long