My brain generates a lot of thoughts every day, or every moment. The process of generation is either my default programming or just beyond my control. Sometimes, it makes me cry because I get overwhelmed by my own thoughts. But I cannot help it, they just happen here in my head. The most I can do to temporarily stop spawning thoughts is to either sleep or get distracted.
But even in my sleep, the thoughts are still there. I can distract myself for a while, by performing phyical and sensory activities such as cleaning the kitchen or taking a quick run. But then, I get easily detached from the real world and go “home” to my thoughts on autopilot.
I am not saying that my thoughts are “haunting” or anything bad. In fact, I have lived more than two decades and have overcame (not just survived) a lot of challenges and adversaries because of how my brain works. It’s just that I feel like my brain is nearing its storage capacity. I feel like I am near breaching the limits of sanity.
Let me tell you that, most of the time, people only see the qualitative circumstances of mental overload. For example, “Dude, this possibility might not really happen because of this and that.” Another example, “You are reading too much on this thing that can be interpreted at face value.” People often label the act of abstract simulation as “overthinking“. But it is not really the abstract simulation which “overloads” the brain—it is in the quantity of information along even just one of those strings in the simulation of possibilities.
So, the brain overloads and ceases to perform its functions altogether.
This is why I recently made a huge decision of “saving myself”. Let’s just say, during the recent years, my role in society requires me to intake a lot of information at once. And I mean, A LOT of information, from a lot of different entities with different faces, problems, values and personalities. It was a lot to handle that I really neglected myself, only to realize in the end where I went wrong.
My brain was screaming danger level. I was aware of the signs, but continued to ignore. It is a shame I had to resolve to escapism. But really, my mind had already short-circuited. I would have dealt with the problem better if my brain was functioning more properly. But, it was not.
The best I could do was to shut off all flows of information and save myself from the raging current.
Mental overload is such a sad experience that I would not wish even on my worst enemy.
Comments