It was a few years back and I had been seeing my current pdoc (psychiatrist) for some time. I was trying to make a point about an issue I was having, but just didn’t feel I was adequately explaining my dilemma. In a moment of desperation I reached down, grabbed my purse, opened it up, and thrust it towards my pdoc, saying, “Here! This is what my brain feels like!”
My mom was the epitome of neatness. The house was always maintained. Shoot, she vacuumed and dusted every day because one of my brothers had asthma and the doctor had prescribed she do so. It didn’t help that we lived down a dirt road.
Did you see what I did there? I was explaining something and went down a different path altogether! Anyway, my mom’s purse was also neat as a pin. She liked purses and wallets with lots of pockets to keep all the contents organized.
I, apparently, am not my mother’s daughter. I used to be able to keep my home fairly neat, but I have difficulty with that these days. And my purse? Well, it’s packed full of receipts, lists, a few tubes of lipstick, a pen or two, and other assorted flotsam and jetsam. I don’t know where it all comes from. I know right now I have some sari silk ribbon hanging out, chillaxin’ in my bag. I know where it came from, but I don’t know how it found its way to my purse’s interior. (Actual photo of my purse’s contents.)
I subscribe to a publication called BPHope. It’s for people with bipolar disorder and those who love them. Besides the regular magazine are daily emails with articles and I just happened to stumble across one entitled, “Straight Talk on Racing, Obsessive, and Cluttered Thoughts”. According to this article, under the subheading “cluttered thoughts”, some “…describe this experience as having part of their attention on the task or conversation at hand while another part of their mind is scampering from thought to thought.” Halleluiah!!!! That’s exactly what I experience! And why I started out going in one direction with this post and seemingly started to switch gears.
Now, the article doesn’t give any answers to this problem, other than to bring it up with my pdoc. Shoot! I thought I already had when I shoved my purse in his face! But in any case, I see my doc next week and will bring it up. I’m not sure what can be done. At least, though, he’ll know of my concerns and we’ll talk about neurotransmitters, synapses, and the like. That’s always fun. Makes me feel like a moderately intelligent adult for a while. While I’d prefer no one else have to cope with bp disorder, the article was a reminder that I’m not alone…problems processing thoughts are pretty common within the bp community, though I’m sure there are those with healthy brains who have problems from time to time, as well. I don’t lay claim to anything as being strictly within the purvey of the bp community with the exception of, you know, having bp disorder!
So how about you? Do you struggle with thought processes? Focus? Attention? Obsessive thoughts? Rambling thoughts? Drop me a line.