How do you find the words?
Some days ago, I posted in the monthly ~health.mental thread and it turned into such a long aimless ramble that I deleted it after a couple of hours. I was embarrassed how childishly whiny I came off with that ranting/venting or whatever it was that went through my head at that time, in a vulnerable emotional state. When it gets even worse, during breakdowns, it even becomes that I'm fully incapable of speech which I even less know how to work on.
But it's not just limited to these two states. During more "reasonable" moments, if I can call it that, I still have the sense that I don't know how to express myself. Sometimes I catch myself thinking it's a lack of education or because of not reading enough literature, so my vocabulary is poor. Because even when I use tools full-on graphs of words with emotions and variants and synonyms of those words etc. etc., it still seems like it's not enough.
The best I can usually do is saying that I have a feeling of being overwhelmed, that it's all too much, feeling the feelings too much, extreme emotions, that I can't fit into my body. But I feel like it's still more than that.
Anyone else deal with this too?
I would say I delete about... 50% of the content I write for public platforms. Privately, I don't delete or erase (I journal in pen, so can't really there) because it's always good to have a record of my mental headspace.
Sometimes, I'll write a few paragraphs, have a few tabs open to confirm facts, and be furiously editing the verbage to say just how little I care about something and realize that a comment thread doesn't need me, I clearly care, and am just complaining - Delete everything I wrote and move on.
The most elegant prose in the world and the finest trappings of higher education do nothing to make you 'better' at expressing yourself - just look at any room full of MBAs or otherwise - but I understand the feeling of getting far too deeply involved into something only to realize I'm wrong or, worse, I'm right but six comments deep realize I'm feeding a troll.
Case in point, I've deleted three paragraphs as I go through empathizing with you. Shouldn't "Yeah, I get overwhelmed too sometimes, it's normal" be an easy thought to express? I guess not.
I think (this is not backed by anything) it's good that you are able to recognize your headspace while communicating. It seems like you're aware when your emotions are more involved than you anticipated. Based on this small interaction it sounds like you have some anxiety about appearing a certain way though and I think the first stop for this is to ask yourself "why?"
Why do you feel such big emotions about an event, especially an Internet comment? Why do you feel you can't express yourself in words? How does this impact your physical, day to day, life?
I've reread your post six times while writing this. I keep feeling like I've misread the tone. I normally wouldn't add something like this but when someone else reads a comment, they don't go through my editing process. They just see the final product. We're always seeing everyone else's final products and selection bias means we're often seeing the best of everyone else's products. Compare that to the drivel I regularly spit out, the amount I stumble when I'm speaking, maybe this thread doesn't need this post? I'm sure someone else will say it better.
For posterity, I'll leave this, but I can't bring back the words I've already deleted.
I absolutely relate to what you're saying here. If you only get one thing from my reply, I think it should be this: would you ever say the things you're writing here about yourself to anyone in your life about their feelings, writing, etc? If not, then try to think about why are you more critical of yourself than you are of them?
I know what you're saying about it being too much, too overwhelming. Especially when I was younger, but it's still there for me at almost 40. I have a very real tendency to get highly critical of myself and my work when I am overwhelmed. It has made me destroy things that I worked hard on because I felt they were "ruined". My best example is when I made homemade limoncello for my wedding guests. A few weeks before the date I was stressed out in the way that only wedding planning can make you. I somehow added too much sugar to it, completely overreacted, and poured gallons of it down the sink. Years later, my wife and I have turned that event into a label for my tendency to catastrophize: I say I'm "pouring the limoncello down the drain, aren't I?" when I get similarly destructive. Something I learned from my time in therapy is that the hardest part of a mental crisis, no matter the size, is just recognizing when it's happening. If I can manage to do that, then I can usually handle a coping mechanism with relative ease.
For what it's worth I also had un-diagnosed ADHD. Starting medication last year helped in a way that nothing else in my life has, not meditation, not years of therapy (CBT and DBT). I appear to have very little ability to regulate my emotions without medication. I can hide my emotions way better than the average person, I can even hide my emotions from myself, but they 100% control me without medication. It kind of makes sense, since I can't spend an hour in a spa every time a car cuts me off.
A few decades ago, back when Scientific American was still delivered every month in the mail, one of their articles discussed a study on depression. They focused on what a “depression metric” might be and how difficult it is to define, because we all exist with varying degrees of mental performance and what is normal for one is abnormal for another.
What they learned is that, regardless of the character of one’s non-depressed state, they could define someone as depressed when their ability to express language fell by 30% or more.
I found that it made a lot of sense for myself. I’m a writer with a normally huge vocabulary, but when I’m down, sometimes my ability to express myself is reduced to little more than grunts.
I’ve looked for the study many times over the years but I’ve never been able to find it again. Yet that finding has brought me a lot of solace. There’s nothing really wrong with me. I’m just mildly depressed sometimes in fairly normal cycles.
I still sometimes struggle to find a way to express to others what's going on inside my head when it's a complex mix of thoughts/sensations/emotions, and especially when I'm getting overwhelmed by them (e.g. when having a panic attack)... But practicing Zazen meditation daily for the last several decades has helped a lot with all of that.
Meditation has taught me how to quickly steady my breathing, be more present in the moment, turn inwards to analyze what's going on within my body and mind, and detach uncomfortable bodily sensations and thoughts from my emotional state. IME, finding the words to explain to others what's going on with you is a lot easier when you can view what's going on inside your own head/body in a slightly more objective manner, and without letting it all effect you quite as strongly.
I still feel like that from time to time, even though I've gotten a far better grip at my emotions and feelings through the years. Personally, I learned a lot by reading about feelings. "Permission to Feel" by Marc Bracket helped a lot.
There was also another book I cannot remember, that contained words about feelings/emotions unique to certain languages. Knowing those terms can give a bit more useful, specific expressions too. Unfortunately I don't know the name of the book on top of my head, I'll try to see if I can find it later - assuming no one else in this thread knows the name. But regardless, if you can explore certain unique words from other languages, that can be useful too from my experience.
As someone who has written many short stories and who suffers from cptsd, I can tell you that to truly express yourself you need to be calm and only slightly tap into the inferno in you. It doesn't work if you are engulfed in flames. You are in a crisis, so it is perfectly normal you cannot produce complex organized thought. It's like trying to push too much water through a too narrow of a canal. It creates a lot of pressure, and the stream is strong, but it lacks volume. Better to let yourself depressurize, widen the canal and try again if you are so inclined to express your emotions and thoughts.
Your mind and body hunger for more, but it's not more words or more colors or more notes. It hungers for release. It hungers for dispersion of one self. So listen to them. Give them the release, if not with creating art, then with indulging in it. Savoring a Picasso painting, consuming a delectable piece of Pearl Jam's - Release, tasting the chapter of a good story. After those companions help you settle the emotional turmoil and after you have returned into a lower energy state like an electron in an atom would, then you may write or paint or create. Just take it one breath at a time.
First off, I'm sorry you feel like this, it sounds really frustrating!
I've not had this issue I'm afraid so my advice might be useless, but I wonder how you describe your thoughts and emotions to yourself?
I can understand how in the moment you might find it hard to express yourself, but it sounds like your not taking the time and space to think about yourself when you're alone.
It could be seen a meditation or self reflection, just giving yourself the time and space to process your own head. That way when you have to explain it in words, you can talk about it.
I hope that makes sense and I didn't make some wrong assumptions!
I addendum, I had this in my saveds on instagram which I should have definitely included in my post if I had remembered it - I think it's a good illustration of what I was trying to say and it gets the point across so much better
In any case thanks all for your replies of perspective and advice! Haven't the energy to reply individually to everyone, but I have been re-reading the thread and trying to take mental notes of a couple of things. Really appreciate it! This is why I use tildes