Dear Thoughts

 Dear Thoughts,

You are not fact. Well…most of the time. Unless you’re specifically about a fact…What I mean, is that you are not always what you seem and you can’t necessarily be taken at face-value. You are open to error and it’s not your fault. You are based on connections in the brain and sometimes those connections can be off. It’s so easy for us to sit and listen to you, like a little person in our brain telling us how it is, but we’ve got to be able to identify when you may be exaggerating a little or overgeneralising. I know you’ll try and deny it, so I want to share with you some examples, just so you can see what this habit can do.

So one way you like to act up for me a lot, is through jumping to conclusions, making an assumption – no proof – of what someone may be thinking (mind-reading) or what may happen in the future (fortune-telling). I do these a lot, spiralling downwards into a world of anxiety and panic after an interaction with someone and you deciding it had deeper meaning: my friend is angry with me, they think I’m rubbish at my job, they’re thinking how annoying I am etc. etc. Or creating a whole world of worries about my future, normally on the lines of: I want to have children but not too soon that I it detracts from me getting comfortable in a job or career, but not too late that perhaps my medical history will reveal problems and it could take even longer but I want to ensure my children meet their grandparents and, and, and….None of this spiral is based on any facts. My parents are both healthy, I’m only 25 and I have no solid information from which I need to panic about the effect my medical history has on my chances of reproduction. Take a bow, dear thoughts, you’ve successfully and erroneously skewed my thinking.

Another example? The mental filter. This is when you essentially place a sieve above the collection of details about my day and let the positive ones fall through but catch the negative ones for me to sit and focus on. I’ll have a really good day at work, but somewhere during it, one negative – or perhaps we should say ‘less positive’ - thing will have happened. That negative thing will sit at the front of my mind the rest of the day, and when asked how work was at the end of it, I will focus mostly on that event. It used to be said quite often that I’m a glass half empty, and it makes me feel just a little bit better to think there’s a reason behind it. I’d do well at school but then get confused on a question for homework and suddenly the world would come crashing down…

That leads me to another way my brain lies to me. When I label myself. I do this all the time. When I take a negative event and use it as evidence that I am a bad person in some way. I can’t do this maths question? I’m stupid. I couldn’t get the baby at work to nap today? I’m a terrible nanny. I’m ill and people are needing to look after me. I’m a nuisance and always cause trouble (that one is also an error of ‘over-generalising’ – just because I’m requiring help now, it doesn’t mean I always cause trouble)…

I won’t list more of your mistakes. The point is, as you can see, you aren’t special. You are prone to mistakes just as much as anyone else. The problem I have, is that you sit there spewing words in my head all day with great confidence and my anxious brain just believes ever single word you say. Well…not anymore. I’m actively trying now, as I articulate in this letter, to not take what you say as true without having a look at it properly and seeing what error(s) you may have made. I have known about how you operate for a long time, ever since I first attended therapy at the age of 12, but this is the first time I’ve properly used this knowledge to help myself and take control. Even the other day, I found myself walking with the baby at work, over-thinking as usual, my brain chat-chat-chatting and I just wanted peace. So I started to note down every time you appeared, what you were saying and where your errors lay. And suddenly the feeling of anxiety or panic would ease. You’d start shrinking or fading until you were barely there and I could keep moving. I suddenly feel I do have the power over you. You’re just in my head, but I’m out here and I can see what’s really going on. I’m not blaming you, dear thoughts, for all the errors you make; they’ve come from years of forming faulty connections. I’m just letting you know that now I really understand you, I plan to put less value onto what you say, and release some of that control you’ve had over my life for all of my life, a little at a time.

I’m not saying this relationship is over. I know you’ll always be there and I’ll probably never stop listening to you entirely, but I’ll just nod now and say “ok, thoughts. I hear you but I’m getting on with my day” and perhaps gradually your interruptions will get fewer. Perhaps you’ll start to listen to my side. I’m not expecting you to never make errors again, but I hope you understand why I need to step away, to not listen so hard or trust you so much.

I know you’ll always be there,

With you always,