Thinking in Moderation

One of the things that started my turn around was a read a paragraph in a book called "Undoing Depression" that stated people with depression have a real problem with thinking too much. An excessive amount of thoughts in depressed people make everything seem more impossible.

I was so relieved when I read this. It was like a giant missing puzzle piece had been given to me. My brain is busier than a main street in Tokyo when works leave to go home multiplied by a billion. I have had my thinking exhaust me.

You feel like lead, your body heave and yet your brain is constantly turning things around and around as if you can think your way out of the darkness. The past, hurts and pain are in thoughts as fresh as if they happened yesterday.

Depression in chemical. It is organic and of the body. I'm not talking about grief or extended grief from an occurrence in someones life like a death or end of job/marriage. I have seen people that couldn't move past the those things that eventually lead to a real prolonged battle with depression.

Isn't that something though, the fact that our brain churning out too much thought can actually keep us stuck in depression? I grew up "thinking" I could think my way to a solution or out of a problem. When I was young and played old school 45rpm records on a player, if there was a scratch or spot on the record the needle would get stuck and it would repeat a line of the sentence being sung, over and over until you moved the needle. Getting past the "over thinking" thing is a lot like that needle sticking.

We get an interruption in the flow of our life, chemicals get wonky, we don't have enough of them for the brain to function properly, depression results and we start thinking, and thinking and thinking.

I found, for me, I knew I was above average smarts and the fact that I couldn't figure out how to pull a rabbit out of my hat and make a success of my life, actually drove me crazy. I had to find a place somewhere inside me that could hold and retain some peace. I just wanted to be peaceful- to not always be forecasting my future or running a diagnostic on my past. I was being pulled into and the very thoughts my brain created were serving as the opposing forces of pull.

It really does feel good when it stops hurting.