chaotic

It's chaos in the back of my head. I have nothing to think about, so I think about everything, therefore I think nothing meaningful. Circular reasoning. I do have something to think about. Many things, in fact. So why do I feel this way? To meaningfully think about any particular thing would be to consider it reasonably. Ideally, calmly and carefully. In a social setting, I would do that at the expense of socializing. This is an internal process which could be verbalized and discussed, but which also, at times, would clash with societal expectations. Specifically if I were to do this at work, the expectations inherent in my job create a tension with my need to have a longer, deeper exploration of any one thing. I describe this as a need because I view it as an emotional need. Perhaps a need for a deeper form of interpersonal relations. One that bubbles under the surface and yearns to be recognized but is incompatible with the correlative setting. 

In this case, it's important to practice mindfulness. This is difficult because of the emotional complexity that defines the emotional/social need being unmet. In my case, the mind juggles between imagined social scenarios, parasocial relationships, and the difficulty in the moment of connecting with people. The mind then tricks the mind into believing this is a question of value. In my case, doubting my intellectual worth and/or my doubting my social skills. I recognize this as a recurring pattern, and I attempt to rationalize while also attempting to connect while also maintaining these two faux forms of social connection. 

I become entirely in my head. In fact, it hurts to pull myself out of my head and attempt to empathize because I am attempting to empathize with my biases. I assume the person across from me has a similar level of complexity going on that I can't comprehend. This makes me feel like a failure within the relationship. I begin to push away, isolate, and search for quick and easy dopamine. It's difficult for me to maintain my breath because, again, I feel like I fail or that it's futile. I lose my breath, and I become more anxious. I continue attempting to rationalize and make sense of what's going on as if that would satisfy the need not being met. Perhaps there is something like Vyvanse, dehydration, sleep deprivation, sedentary behavior, diet, or life stagnation that does create barriers for me to be mindful. However, this need exposes itself in conversation in unflattering ways. There's even a part of me that thinks it may simply be that I'm more intelligent than the people around me, or that I naturally exist in a world of ideas that others don't, which isolates me. All of these may be factors.

Mindfulness is a tool that has helped me fix this before, but it often sits on the line of being beneficial and allowing me to self-scrutinize and engage with comfort rather than challenge. Life, ideally, I believe is a balance of comfort and challenge. Currently, I am experiencing far more challenge than comfort, and I am not allowing myself to feel comfortable. In the extremes, I create unsolvable problems within relationships that feel so heavy that the burden perpetuates this desire to rationalize and challenge. Comfort, from this perspective, means to not be making progress with this impossible challenge. Similarly in this state of anxiety and anticipation, I am not making real progress. My goal when I experience this should be to allow comfort through mindfulness. Otherwise, I will push people away and create real difficult situations through my unnecessarily complex and heightened emotional state.

Also, compassion. I've begun to despise this word and it has become a bit of a parody of itself in my head. But self-compassion is essential to the process by which I'm able to achieve greater comfort through mindfulness. If I fail, it's okay. Continue breathing. Feel my surroundings. Feel the texture of my pants or the wall. I've noticed that I even become selective about what I touch in this state of mind. I'm anxious to touch what may cause a confrontational situation and I wash my hands and use hand sanitizer constantly. Again, lower stress and greater comfort through mindfulness helped by self-compassion.