Blog Post #21 – Brain Patterns During My Recent Spiral

Read time: 4 minutes

TLDR:

• Sometime a deep spiral might require a temporary solution – for me, this one required me writing it out
• For those in deep depression/anxiety, medication might be necessary to be used at the same time as building strength with meditation/mindfulness

Preamble:

Hello Readers!

I wrote this post a couple weeks back as I was in an anxiety spiral and was having trouble getting out of it. I was awake at 1am and couldn’t sleep so instead I wrote what was going through my head. Why? Because just like hearing a friend say “yo dude…it happens to me too!” when life is hard, I think it’s helpful to know other people think in similar avenues when I’m spiralling. The empathy and knowledge that I’m not crazy is often enough strength to break me from the spiral pattern. This one’s for you friends!

(For the sake of easier reading and my own organization, anything italicized is what I wrote at 1AM)

The 1AM Thoughts:

• gosh meditation didn’t help. Why didn’t it help. This sucks
• Ah…right, cognitively I can’t rationalize this…there’s decreased blood flow to my …urrr…why can’t I think again? Oh yes…decreased blood flow to the…urr…frontal lobe…PTSD…of course I can’t th- (think)
• Why is it so hot in here? Oh yes…I’m supposed to be equanimous. But I don’t want to be equanimous. Oh yes, I just need space from my thoughts. Why can’t I have space from my thoughts?
• Is it the sugar? I shouldn’t have had so much sugar. Stupid. Oh wait, these disparaging thoughts aren’t really me. Normally I can get space. Why can’t I get space now?
• This will go away right?
• This sucks
• Ugggghhhh, I feel anxious…I feel so restless.
• Uggghhhhhhhhhhh
• Do I need to take a bit of lorazepam? No this will pass.
• There’s the workaway dinner on Sunday. Do we need to plan further? What if we don’t have enough food? Oh I should plan the dishes. What if people think I’m too bossy? What if they’re talking behind my back? Oh wait…these are just thoughts. Not necessarily real.
• This is just a sunkara
• Presence…I’m supposed to try to be present. Observe the thoughts…they’ll go away…why can’t I observe the thoughts?

1AM Reflections:

After typing this out, I have to say it’s really helpful to see the words written out. Although I’m a bit believer in meditation (especially vipassana meditation), seeing it written out is helping my brain cognize that this is just a spiral and the competing thoughts have begun to calm down.

There are a couple things I want to mention upon reading the above spiral…

#1 – stuff happens that we sometimes cannot control. For me, it’s my brain going down it’s old habit pattern of beating myself up for not being able to control it. Ironically, if I accepted it earlier, the spiral might not have become so deep, but ah well…that’s the old habit pattern. Takes a while to fill in the deep trench with cement. This does not mean I’m being complacent though and saying “ah well, this is just who I am, I can’t do anything about it”. No. It’s just now as a past event and encourages me to be more mindful of my thoughts, eat better and sleep earlier.

#2 – for those with anxiety, depression or some other sort of mental illness, building mental strength take time. Again, although I’m a big believer in meditation for a permanent solution, sometimes we don’t have the mental strength at the moment. I speak a lot to meditation and mindfulness now, but I also went through years of requiring medication to give me the energy to work on these strategies such that my mind became powerful enough on its own. If I had tried meditation and mindfulness alone when I was in the deepest states of anxiety/depression, I don’t believe it would have worked. I didn’t have the energy to work properly. It’s like making jello…you might have to use a mold (medication) to set the jello (meditation) first otherwise the jello won’t have a shape and will stay as shapeless liquid. It also takes time…jello isn’t made in 10 minutes.

Summary:

Well that’s a wrap for this one. I hope you enjoyed taking a peek into my recent thought spiral and how my brain cognizes after getting out of a spiral. There’s always something to be learned from the hardest of experiences…actually they’re the best places to learn.

~Tracy