I am a ruminator (not a ruminant, which is an animal that has multiple stomachs and chews on cud). I didn't really know this until recently. Very recently. I always thought that the way in which I rolled ideas around in my head and thought through them over and over and over and over again was just how human beings think. I would review all of the happenings of my day (both actual and imagined), processs them, tell them to myself over and over again to set them in concrete, decide what to do about them, make up other people's parts of the conversation in my head, embellish them, and just generally have fun with my own thoughts. I've done this all my life. This is what people do, I assumed.
But then they told me that my brain works differently from other people's brains. That I think too much and that I need to stop it. So they put me on a new medication to make me like everyone else. (I wanted to be like everyone else.) At first the medication seemed to not be working, as I didn't see any real difference in how I felt. Until a couple of nights ago, as I was lying in bed, waiting for unconsciousness. This is one of my favorite times to review my day; think everything over once, twice, or 38 times; decide what I should've said or done; and come to the conclusion that I am an idiot. Now, I do not mean that I always come to the conclusion that I am an idiot. Sometimes, I decide that other people are idiots, but in the end, I don't come off looking so good eaither. Still, I run and jump and play with my thoughts for a wihle, until sleep overtakes me (about 17 seconds afeter I lie down). There are other times that I spend even more time with my thoughts, like when I'm awake. Pretty much all of the time I'm awake, in fact. Generally speaking, my thoughts entertain and occupy me during the boring parts of my day (called “life”). Sometimes they play a little rough, which is not much fun. But I put up with their harshness because they also help me figure things out, tell stories, play with words, and other fun stuff.
So, I was lying there in bed, ready to review the day, and I came to the realization that the film footage was not running. There was also no tape playing. There was just...silence. So I waited around for some thoughts to show up, as they always do. But they didn't. They didn't want to come out and play. I went looking for them.
“Yoo hoo!” I hollered through the open door. “Come on out now! It's time to play.”
Nothing.
“Hey, really! Come on out so that I can take a look at you. I need to see how my day went, how I did, what's going on in my life.”
Nothing. Just silence. I went in the door and really starting looking for them in all of the nooks and crannies, the corners and closets, the dusty attic, the dank basement. I looked everywhere, but I couldn't find any thoughts at all to play with.
I tried to generate some actual new thoughts. But I couldn't. I just couln't get anything going in my brain. I wasn't particularly sleepy, so it wasn't that my brain was saying that it needed to rest. It just didn't particularly feel like filling me in on how my day had gone. I hung around in my empty brain for a while and then I fell asleep frm boredom.
Several times the next day, I went looking for my thoughts and still couldn't find them. No funny comments, no self-reproach, no criticisms of myself or the world around me, nothing. Since then, I've been looking everywhere for my thoughts, but I just can't find many of them. They tend to be factual things like, “I need to get out of bed now” or “It's time for breakfast.” At other times, when it should be running off and doing other things, I find that my brain is actually paying attention to what is going on and being said around it and then responding appropriately with genuine, sincere, useful ideas that might help myself or other people.
This is so strange. I do not know what to make of it. Did my brain suddenly grow up? Become an adult? Every great once in a while, it makes a joke, but it's not as funny as usual. I do not know what to make of this dearth of ideas. Is this how it is for other pepole? Do they just think finite, concrete things about their day, about what they need to do, about other people? I thought that all I wanted was to be like other people, but now I'm not so sure. This silence in my brain is quite disturbing. I don't feel like a robot or a Stepford wife. I still feel like me. Just me without something. Maybe this is what adulthood is like. It's what I always feared adulthood would be like. No nonsense. Get down to business. Make a schedule. Eat a good breakfast. File your taxes before the deadline. Pay attention in meetings. Don't make silly comments. Be serious. Life is not all fun and games, you know.
It's not bad, really. It's just kind of boring in here without my thoughts. It's been several days now, and they don't seem to be inclined to come back. I wonder if I'll get used to this new way of using my brain and eventually not miss my old thoughts. I've spent so much time the last few years trying to figure out how not to have certain thoughts that it never occurred to me that there were some thoughts that I wanted to keep. I want those thouhts back, but the others you can keep. But what if it's an all-or-nothing proposition? Hmmm. I'll have to think about that.
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