Part of my self-directed series for my Spring 2022 art class.
Anxiety is something that has been present, I think, since my early childhood. I had some pretty bad emotional meltdowns in the past: I would cry, I would go mute, I had trouble regulating my breathing, I would freeze up and not move at all, and my mind would go blank. Usually something like this might seem normal to a child in kindergarten, but then kindergarten turned into elementary school, elementary school turned into middle school, and then high school; this is about when I seriously started to suspect something wasn’t quite right. No one else my age seemed to be having these issues, at least on the surface, and I usually couldn’t even hold it together long enough to give a three-minute presentation to the class. It was something that I brought up to my parents often, but was usually met with answers along the lines of, "Suck it up," or, "You just can't let it get to you," or, "Everyone's a little anxious". These kinds of phrases were more popular with my father than my mother. I honestly believed he meant well at the time but in reality just ended up making the problem worse. My mother would always do her best to give me advice that would work specifically for me, but it was still an immense struggle not to crack under the pressure. Eventually, I just stopped questioning it. I was tired of being told that it was nothing to worry about and just accepted that this was something that happened to everyone, that I was overreacting over nothing.
The meltdowns became less and less frequent as life went on, but they were no less intense. I would be set off by the littlest of things - usually if I felt verbally attacked or put on the spot - and it would snowball into something that couldn't be stopped. I would always try so hard to regain control of my mind and my thoughts, but everything would just become static. It felt like every single neuron in my brain was firing at once, creating so much white noise in my head that everything else faded away into nothingness. Even in between the meltdowns, the static was always playing subtly in the back of my mind. I was constantly on edge every single day, terrified that I would do something wrong. I was examining every decision I made under a microscope, sometimes for hours, because I always felt uncertain about everything. I constantly berated myself and recited my negative thoughts in an endless loop. I just didn't understand why I couldn't just function like a normal person.
When I was discussing the meaning of this piece with my professor he commented that some of the bits I was expressing almost seemed like a form of self-gaslighting, which was something I had never even considered a possibility until then. The more I thought about it, the more it began to make sense. It was like there was a voice in my head always whispering my doubts to me, making me question my morality, my ability, my emotions, and even my mental stability. It got to the point where I couldn’t even tell my own thoughts apart from the voice. It’s something that still deeply affects me today. I still have days when I can’t turn off the negativity. I still feel my chest tighten when someone speaks to me in a harsh tone. I still hear the static building when someone expects me to give them an answer quickly.
As an adult with ADHD, I get why having a Rampant mind voice can get your nerves, even if ours is just random. all over the place and not, necessary, negative all the time, it only takes 1 interesting though to not let you sleep the whole night, and something as absurd as ADHD summer heatstroke for overthinking is a thing that exist. This just means the mind voice is inherently annoying
The way I silence it is by playing instrumental music on my head as that overrides the mind voice, Unfortunately not everyone can do that, maybe mind singing would work too,but its still an annoying voice though
the second way is by thinking on a different language, one that you don't domain too well, so it slows thoughts down you might also take you less seriously if its a made up language
There is a lot of reaserch on ADHD lying around on the internet and even if you don't happen to have it, you could still google some of the techniques we use to deal with the mind voice and reuse them
As an adult with ADHD, I get why having a Rampant mind voice can get your nerves, even if ours is ju
Actually, I have been diagnosed with ADHD fairly recently, which really helped put a lot of things in perspective for me. I've never tried the language thing before, I'll give it a try. Thanks for the tips!
Actually, I have been diagnosed with ADHD fairly recently, which really helped put a lot of things i
