Mental Floss

Here’s some of the random crap that floats through my brain at times, making me wish I could reach in there with some floss and scrub out the little grooves that provide convenient hiding places so it can pop out later and give me an ugly surprise:

1) Horrifying images, like the one I saw today on Facebook of a dead kitten whose sadistic bitch of an owner had allegedly put in the microwave for “attacking” her goldfish. Now, I’ve been admonished in recent days to ignore posts that may be upsetting, but this one was so graphic there was no way to miss it, and the idea that the story was probably fake didn’t help much. It wasn’t something that can be unseen, and if it doesn’t give me nightmares tonight I’ll be thankful indeed.

2) Replays of embarrassing situations, like when I went to the urgent-care center to have my injured foot looked at (which still hurts, by the way) and the doc was more interested in my mental health history than what I’d come in for. He even made a point of reading only part of my med list out loud. Not the blood-pressure meds or the vitamins or the diabetes pill…..just the psych stuff. Which goes to show that you can be college-educated, successful, and loved, but to some you’re just another wacko.

3) Stray dark thoughts that seem to come out of nowhere, even when God’s in His heaven and all’s right with the world. I can be going about my day, doing whatever it is I need and/or want to do, when the thought that suicide seems like a perfectly good option hits me like a ton of bricks. It usually goes away as fast as it strikes (unless I’m depressed, which is when it likes to linger a bit longer and whisper sweet nothings in my ear), but it’s disturbing and I doubt that “normals” experience it. I’ve never had the guts to ask one though.

4) Memories—some of which may be false—of things I may (or may not) have said or done during manic episodes. My working memory is like a sieve at best, but more like Swiss cheese after such an episode, and someone could literally tell me I danced naked in a fountain and I’d have to believe them. That puts me at a distinct disadvantage, and my kids took shameless liberties with it back in the days when nobody knew what the hell was wrong with me. I hope nobody’s using that against me now.

5) Speaking of which……I hate those random, paranoid thoughts that creep in when I don’t have all my dawgs on one leash. As ridiculous as it must sound to those who do NOT live in my head, I wonder sometimes if people who don’t know me really well see me as an average Jill—which is the image I do my best to project—or if they can sense that….well….I don’t have all my dawgs on one leash.

6) Disjointed thoughts that have absolutely nothing in common, but seem to believe they all deserve to be thought at the same time. I’ll be pondering what to get Will for his birthday, and just then my brain will cut loose with thoughts about politics, the rotten winter we’re having, a relative I haven’t seen or heard from in years…….it’s like having all 275 TV channels on simultaneously. And that’s when things are going well. Who knew that brains were supposed to come with an OFF switch?

7) Endless tapes that play the same loop of music or bit of conversation until I want to scream. Even if it’s something I enjoy, the repetitive nature of this phenomenon will make me crazy if I don’t do something about it. This usually consists of visualizing a big red STOP sign and saying the word aloud, which is amazingly effective…..again, as long as the wheels aren’t falling off my little red wagon.

And that’s just SOME of the psychic flotsam and jetsam that drifts along in the murky chemical seas of my brain. I feel no need to share any more, for it would probably scare you to pieces while it’s just part of everyday life for me. I’ve never known any different. And what the hell…..I’m still here. But I hope someday that scientists will have the capacity to develop some sort of “mental floss” that fine-tunes the brain—and cleans out the gunk while it’s in there. 🙂