That's what I called it. Layers and layers of thoughts...all on different planes...several layers of music, several layers of 'mantra' words...lots of ideas, dreams, grandiosity...but so often I tried to outrun them.
AND all the time wishing it would stop. Trying to sleep but unable to.
I've also had lots of depression all through out my life.
Thank goodness I am stable with the meds plus mindfulness and good self care.
Most of the time now I am able to live with the slowed down brain. I'm so glad!
I know that when I do have some swirling thoughts now, I understand that it will be short-lived and I'm accepting of what my brain does at times.
I'm doing very well and am thankful for all I've been through because everything contributes to who I am...and I'm wonderful. I've got lots to share!
I can definitely relate. I have been to that precipice ...where you want to curl up into a fetal position and be left alone, clutching your head and just hoping, for once, that your brain will listen to you and STOP the noise. Sometimes all you want is silence.
I like to describe my racing thoughts to people by comparing it to computer programming. My mind is a perpetual if-then statement. It is a constant chatter that revolves around "If I feel/do/am _____, then I should feel/do/am _____". Seems harmless enough from someone on the outside looking in, except I have also been diagnosed with Bipolar II and tend to run on the more depressive side. It was an antidepressant-induced mania episode (that bordered on hypomania) that led to my eventual Bipolar diagnosis. I also have generalized anxiety disorder. So my racing thoughts tend to run dark, often times questioning myself, my relationship, those around me, and frantically trying to compile an 'escape plan' from my situation (or myself...). It doesn't help that the racing thoughts tend to be as if some part of me is speaking, or taunting, them. It has gotten to the point where I mentally shut down, exhausted, after trying to calm the racing thoughts.
I just want to add that to someone who has never had the racing thoughts people with bipolar suffer from, they likely find it difficult to understand what the issue is. Everybody deals with thoughts that won't go away, right? Now imagine being incapable of turning those thoughts off. They permeate your life. You cannot escape them. Trying to think of something else doesn't help (and sometimes makes it worse). They increasingly grow darker, faster, less focused and then they begin to repeat. It gets to the point where it's ALL you can think about---this jumbled mass of disconnected thoughts leaves you capable of physical movement still, but you are no longer functioning. Now imagine it every day...every hour...every minute.
I consider myself relatively lucky that I work in the health and wellness industry. I am, for now, holding off on pharmaceuticals (whose side effects, frankly, scare me) and instead trying to stabilize with natural supplements (ie: high doses of EPA, Relora, Ashwaghanda, Kava, ect.) and dietary changes (ie: no common allergens or gluten). So far, I've only seen a slight decline in the severity of the racing thoughts, and no improvement otherwise, but it hasn't been long enough to really establish if natural is 'working' yet.
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Everyday that I decrease my Klonopin I have racing thoughts. Everyday that I stay on schedule with my antianxiety disorder med I haver racing thoughts. I haver racing thoughts. Period. I think of it (having taken my BA in English Lit before I got my MA in Clinical Psych) as reading 3 books at one time. I don't experience having racing thoughts as ruminative, they come at me from many different topics and directions one after the other. But then they become rumintive because it sounds like this: Do I take the apartment above my work and leave my son to pay for himself in sober-living-environment-land or do I do my laundry or do I ask my boss his advice or do I balance this half spread before 2 am or do I check out room 134 or do I tell Gabe I don't want to switch my schedule to conform to his school schedule or do I take the left overs home from the Christmas Party or leave them here.... You get the picture. On and On and repetive and inverse and obverse and today, having had enough of that scramble I almost checked myself into Chanate. But I went home and took my prescribed dose (Imagine that!)of Klonopin and now the racing thoughts have susided or have at least lost their edge. I've learned to live with them and not make decisions based on them. Yes, I too have Bipolar II and am largely depressed or in the middle of a mixed episode. So I feel for ya. Hang in there. Keep writing.