I Miss My Mind

I don’t recall a time when I could stay focused on one task for long. My mind has always tended to race from thought to thought, often spanning a wide variety of subjects. My actions tend to follow, resulting in multitasking (poorly) when I don’t intend that at all. It’s just the way things have always been. Most of my life I thought it was normal. Lately I have come to realize it isn’t.

Reading comprehension has always been a problem. I may need to read a short paragraph a dozen times before I have any idea what it said. I’m sure it is because I am constantly having “stray” thoughts swirling around my mind while I am reading. Writing follows in a similar vein. I find it very difficult to stay focused on what I am writing about and could easily wander into writing absolute gibberish if I’m not very careful. I proofread every sentence I write, then correct any errors. I go over it several times to be sure — and even then, I’m really never sure something hasn’t escaped my attention. When I finish a paragraph, I go over and over it, trying to be sure it is in fact a paragraph and not several completely unrelated ideas masquerading as a paragraph. And when I finish an article or document I go over the whole thing, again scrutinizing for disjointed or wandering content and trying to correct errors. I often spend hours writing something most people would do in five minutes.

There is no doubt about it. This problem is worse when anxiety or other stress is high. Perhaps there is some degree of normalcy there. But it is becoming very debilitating in its own right. Even when anxiety is low I don’t consider my mental function to be “normal”. The racing thoughts and unintended multitasking are always present to a disturbing degree.

It seems the problem is getting worse. I am increasingly finding it difficult to function, especially when there is more than one task to be completed. The unintended multitasking is getting out of hand. At times I will become so overwhelmed and disorganized that I cannot prioritize or pick a task to focus on. I end up doing nothing because I can’t get a clear enough focus to begin a task.

But it is more than that. Not only are my thoughts racing, but often I seem unable to complete one thought before another takes over. It is hard to describe. It only takes an instant to have a single thought, for example “I need to clean the kitchen”. Yet even that seems too much to ask lately. Instead of thinking “I need to clean the kitchen” the thought that pops into my mind might be “I need to clean the roof before it rains”. This is a combination of two distinct thoughts, both of which are tasks on my to do list. One is “I need to clean the kitchen”. The other is “I need to patch the roof before it rains”. Sometimes more than two thoughts run together and the result is ambiguous even to me. There are times (like right now) I am able to recognize and analyze this. Other times my thoughts are so confused, racing, intermixed that I have no idea what I am even thinking about.

I miss the days when I could think things through and accomplish tasks. Lately I seem to be accomplishing nothing. It is as if my mind has become completely useless, refusing to allow me the luxury of clear thoughts and actions. Yesterday I found myself sitting at the computer wondering why I didn’t have a free hand to type or use the mouse. I had a wet paint brush in one hand and spatula in the other. It turns out I had been cooking dinner and simultaneously painting a home made desk. Somehow two seemingly incompatible tasks were not enough and I ended up at the computer attempting to compose an email. Neither of the other tasks had been completed.

This is positively maddening! I realize I am under a great deal of stress right now and anxiety levels are extremely high. But I have to wonder if I am losing my mind! Maybe this is it. Have I begun a descent to insanity? Perhaps!