My brain is my best friend

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I'm not sure as I never explicitly brought it up with the psychologist nor my ex-therapist, that's actually part of why I made the post to see who could relate. I get stressed out extremely easily and always have, it feels like everything in life moves way too fast for me to keep up with it mentally, so I would definitely call my own head my safe place since sometimes it feels like that's the only place where everything makes sense to me. I also had no friends nearly my entire life, I failed from the moment I started pre-school, so maybe I did have a social need at one point when I was a young toddler but just forgot, then used my brain to cope with constant failure from a young age? I don't even know.

On the other hand, i havent noticed it occurring with certain moods and not others - even when I'm overwhelmed with joy I'll be motivated to retreat in my mind for just as long. I also remember being stuck in my head ever since I was a very young child and i was definitely happier then. Whereas other people would say that their brain is full of traumatic memories and intrusive thoughts mine is full of what interests me, so if that was a way to cope with life then it seems like it worked, at least i dont seem to have PTSD so that's good.



Everyone has a story, and my story was very expected given that I wasn't evaluated until 19, despite having plenty of issues/anomalies that others (including my conservative dad) noticed even before I was 2 years old but just chose to let it slide over the years. Especially considering I'm far above average in some ways but severely impaired in others so I don't think anyone knew what to do with kids like me. Right now I'm struggling to keep my job but at least I have a backup plan for if that does happen, also have been looking for a new therapist because honestly it's been harder to stay out of my head lately (which if it's stress then it'd be because of work, which I've been underperforming in speed-wise).

Last edited by J.J. on 24 Aug 2024, 6:12 am, edited 2 times in total.

Do you have an ADHD diagnosis by any chance? ("usually bored")


I'm struggling to understand some of this, but it's interesting how you say your subconscious is doing unreliable things for you, I feel like for me it's the opposite. My conscious mind is pretty useless, it obsesses over narrow useless crap that on it's own wouldn't do me any good, while my subconscious sometimes generates ideas seemingly out of thin air from things that I perceived with my conscious mind at any point during the past years (one of those ideas earned me money, however I won't get into too much detail to stay on topic). It's almost like my subconscious is a more intelligent thread running in the background, whereas the conscious thread i use to socialize or obsess over dumb crap is in the foreground.

I'm 100% sure I don't have ADHD.

My executive dysfunction is more like a mix of defense mechanism or some sort of trauma response that I'm sure I'd be able to solve one day -- and a complication due to long term physical health issue I'm struggling to solve because my sleep is terrible because I have a chronic respiratory issue that's chronically triggered by just being in this country which is my whole life so far...


My conscious wants to go back to special interests, self learning and scheduled practices.

My subconscious wants to cope with whatever crap it was since childhood; and it chose screentime and food, is making so many excuses to never do as I intend to do...

My body is increasingly becoming less reliable by age with being too sensitive to hormones on top of said sleep issue due to the chronic breathing issue.


Heck, my circadian rhythm is crap in ways I cannot consciously control.
I wish I can just ignore my head and body, ignore whatever's being passed off as boredom and cravings, and just follow my own plans.


I had weeks that are productive, and weeks that aren't.
I get very inconsistent performance.

Many would pass it off as a woman's thing. Well, most of it, it is, except I can't cope well with it.
And sleep is a so far a losing gamble for me.


But hormones affects executive function and effects of metabolism certain consumables...
And sleep is very, very relevant to executive function and health in general. Brain health more so.


I have rare days I wake up with zero executive dysfunction reliable internal processing -- yet my subconscious is still the same, running with the same narratives and programs; and only way I get by is having a stronger conscious mind.


But to have that means to be healthier, have more than several spoons on a daily basis which I cannot consistently have.
That, or fix my subconscious and stop being so hung up with the stupid emotional affairs that just doesn't serve me at all except making me more stuck that I already am with my current body.



I don't know.
A lot of things about me is inefficient.
Even things nothing to do with the mind; but more like super basic physical and internal chemical things like eating, sleeping and breathing.

And I don't like it.


I'd rather just be able to play video games and try random projects all day with a sense of completion over it; than mindlessly consume media and affirm what I already knew over and over...


Also...

What works for me usually seems to be backwards, inversed, or paradoxical.

So any guides or advices I get; either doesn't work due to missing prerequisites or I had to approach it very differently or very unintuitively for many...

I'm a total catastrophic thinker. But maybe I wouldn't be as much if the world wasn't one big catastrophe. If you can't change the world (for the better) then you can't change the way I think.

See here's the thing, I know the world is a catastrophe, but I also realize that the chances of it collapsing while I'm still alive or killing me prematurely are very very slim.

I'm not a psychologist but based on that one longer message you sent at first, I got vibes of trauma, combined with OCD and social anxiety, both of the latter can be caused by trauma. Have you/are you being evaluated/treated for any of those things?

I definitely have some problems, but then I read others problems and realize that in a way even someone like me is kind've lucky after all as there's people with my issues plus so much more on top of that. I guess for me it's mainly about dealing with my immediate environment, what's directly around me.

If I role played a psych. He/she/they would say that you are listening to your inner voice and bouncing ideas to get some form of clarification on what's going on outside you and inside you. Yes, talking to yourself is bouncing ideas in a safe space (your brain). I also don't have anyone to share my personal problems (my mother is too old lacks patience to listen to me). My wife is overloaded herself so I don't want to burden her.

One minor caution I would suggest is try and reflect (when you talk to yourself) and see if your inner self is biased and so likely to talk yourself into a state of mind that you are already conditioned to go to and/or beliefs you are conditioned to believe. I recall (and I am no way suggesting you are anything like this fictional character) the Hobbit's character of Gollum who would have conversations inside his head between his good self (schmiegel) and his evil alter ego (Gollum). Despite listening to schmiegel, gollum's nature revolved around his one purpose which was "the ring" and so eventually his decisions would gravitate toward killing Frodo and Sam to get the ring. But yeah that's an extreme example.

For most of us, our special interests, we can safetly throw ideas (so most people have zero interest in the paranormal but I enjoy critically analysing paranormal stuff in my mind with my inner self).

If I'm doing anything at all, all of the time I am reflecting "Who am I? What do people think of me? What vibes do I give off? What personality do people think I am? What aesthetic do I think I am?" especially when I'm having a conversation with someone or reading a book especially a complicated wordy one (as opposed to exercising or gaming) I'm more likely to zone out because I'm too distracted by my narcissistic daydreams. This is somewhat irrelevant but all of my life I've had a tendency to systematize visual data of people, locations, colours, etc and have "archetypes" "mental images" "unnamed imaginary people" so to speak each one I associate with different concepts, different personality traits/types, different regions or parts of the world, different letters and numbers, different genres of fiction or music or game etc, different shops/retailers, etc, and I spend a lot of time thinking which of these many people am I most like, is this my subjective opinion of myself or the general consensus?

Sounds about right for an 18 year old...

"no man is an island"

I guess that saying is wrong

Hah.... I just read the thread title as "My brain is best fried" and automatically agreed.

Same. Not so much catastrophizing but a lot of sad and worried thoughts. Being alone with my thoughts is hard because I am so worried about my state of mind and find myself unable to cope with it. Though it's better now than it was the last couple years.