[Samzone]

Hello there

Looking for a bit of reassurance and maybe someone who can relate.

Backround:
I’ve had DP/DR in the past for around 1 year previously and fully recovered from it for nearly 3 years. It was the worst year in my life but I believe the experience taught me a lot about the condition and I looked forward to never having to experience that shit again.
Recently, after 3 years of recovery, i‘ve had a relapse of the condition due to my life circumstances. It was my own fault for putting myself in the circumstances that mimicked the exact same ones from my past dealings with it(social isolation and general laziness)


Despite having suffered from it for so long in the past, this feels like a completely new ordeal. I have many of the exact same symptoms but the thoughts and obsessions seem different. I know existential obsessions are the norm, but does anybody else experience more psychological obsessive thoughts?

Like i keep thinking about how thoughts work and how creative thinking works. How does logic work and how much alike are we humans really??? I can spend hours thinking about this, making hypothesis and theories in my head on how these things work. I might get temporary relief after making up a theory i feel is satisfactory, but after a little while i start challenging my own theory, often finding that it dosent work in all scenarios and then i start all over again.

I know i do not need to be thinking about these things. Its not my job to figure these things out and i dont even think scientists and scholars have these things completely figured out, so how the hell am i supposed to do it? I’m afraid of telling people im doing this in my head cause they might think i‘m loosing my mind, which is my worst fear.

Feel free to reach out to me if you need somebody to chat with.

 

[coolwhip27]

I highly relate

IMO creative thought happens spontaneously according to whatever input is being taken in. Creative thought doesn’t happen from contemplation and brooding on one thing or another, then it just becomes analytical

Coming up with ideas and theories that cover a broad spectrum will never work because you’ll end up finding contradicting information later down the road. You seem to understand that already

 

[Samzone]

Coming up with ideas and theories that cover a broad spectrum will never work because you’ll end up finding contradicting information later down the road. You seem to understand that already

Yeah, im trying to come to terms with the fact that its one of those things you wont find 1 definitive answer to. Just like existential thoughts.

 

[NoDevils]

I think many people in this community, self included, need to accept that our anxious rumination aren't Nietzsche's or Sigmund Freud's. You say you're lazy but you seem to be expending a remarkable amount of psychic work on these thoughts. Psychic energy is what postindustrial white collar workers have in finite supply, and you're spending yours thinking in circles.

 

[Samzone]

Tbh, I have a hard time figuring out why I'm so obsessed/anxious about the concept of creativity. I keep asking myself after I had an idea or came up with something, weather I was thinking creatively or not. I think its because I once read somewhere that people with psychosis only became that way because their creative minds are running haywire, so I sorta associate creativity with psychosis and that scares me??

Its so strange that I can be scared of such a basic concept, which in turn makes me even more fearful. Idk if anyone else had odd fears like this?

 

[NoDevils]

I think its because I once read somewhere that people with psychosis only became that way because their creative minds are running haywire, so I sorta associate creativity with psychosis and that scares me??

There's probably some relationship between creative giftedness and insanity. Many famous people appear disturbed, including artists who weren't famous while they lived. Disturbed people who function the worst are often closed minded and intellectually handicapped while people who burn brightly in terms of creativity are open minded and intelligent. Think of the level of detachment and discontentment that's necessary to come up with a new critical way of thinking, or the amount of mind-stretching necessary to invent a new formula in mathematics.

I don't think creativity itself causes psychosis. Maybe psychosis is caused by imagining (creating) an experience and then failing to distinguish it from reality. I can imagine my wife is cheating on me but I should be able to distinguish the imaginary from the real, at least to some extent. You should probably look for some empirical basis for your fears rather than blindly adhering to them. If you can't find an empirical basis, or any basis for that matter, consider letting them go. This advice is kind of like telling you not to be scared of the boogeyman in your closet. Yes, in the future you could go a lot more insane. You could also get a stroke, aneurism, heart attack, cancer, or dementia. What's the use worrying?

 

[Samzone]

There's probably some relationship between creative giftedness and insanity. Many famous people appear disturbed, including artists who weren't famous while they lived. Disturbed people who function the worst are often closed minded and intellectually handicapped while people who burn brightly in terms of creativity are open minded and intelligent. Think of the level of detachment and discontentment that's necessary to come up with a new critical way of thinking, or the amount of mind-stretching necessary to invent a new formula in mathematics.

I don't think creativity itself causes psychosis. Maybe psychosis is caused by imagining (creating) an experience and then failing to distinguish it from reality. I can imagine my wife is cheating on me but I should be able to distinguish the imaginary from the real, at least to some extent. You should probably look for some empirical basis for your fears rather than blindly adhering to them. If you can't find an empirical basis, or any basis for that matter, consider letting them go. This advice is kind of like telling you not to be scared of the boogeyman in your closet. Yes, in the future you could go a lot more insane. You could also get a stroke, aneurism, heart attack, cancer, or dementia. What's the use worrying?

Yeah after reading a bit, including the Guide to schizo on here, i found there is no actual correlation. Its all primarily genetic and extreme environmental factors. Im trying to backtrack and see if i had obessions like this back when i had dp/dr 3 years ago cause that would reassure me a ton, but i cant remember and I didnt write anything about it.

Anyways, thanks for listening and pitching in. Just being on this site helps a lot

 

[NoDevils]

Yeah after reading a bit, including the Guide to schizo on here, i found there is no actual correlation. Its all primarily genetic and extreme environmental factors. Im trying to backtrack and see if i had obessions like this back when i had dp/dr 3 years ago cause that would reassure me a ton, but i cant remember and I didnt write anything about it.

Anyways, thanks for listening and pitching in. Just being on this site helps a lot

This site helps me too. Life is scary. Being in a mortal body having a brain is scary.

 

[Trith]

I definitely relate with obsessional thinking about psychological stuff. Mine revolves mostly about sorting things to be able to find some ways to navigate my own mind with a bit more feeling of sefety, probably.

 

[coolwhip27]

There's probably some relationship between creative giftedness and insanity. Many famous people appear disturbed, including artists who weren't famous while they lived. Disturbed people who function the worst are often closed minded and intellectually handicapped while people who burn brightly in terms of creativity are open minded and intelligent. Think of the level of detachment and discontentment that's necessary to come up with a new critical way of thinking, or the amount of mind-stretching necessary to invent a new formula in mathematics.

I don't think creativity itself causes psychosis. Maybe psychosis is caused by imagining (creating) an experience and then failing to distinguish it from reality. I can imagine my wife is cheating on me but I should be able to distinguish the imaginary from the real, at least to some extent. You should probably look for some empirical basis for your fears rather than blindly adhering to them. If you can't find an empirical basis, or any basis for that matter, consider letting them go. This advice is kind of like telling you not to be scared of the boogeyman in your closet. Yes, in the future you could go a lot more insane. You could also get a stroke, aneurism, heart attack, cancer, or dementia. What's the use worrying?

Highly insightful. In describing the relationship between insanity and creativity it might be found that the less focused a person is on the fundamental basics of realty, the more imaginative and “in the clouds” a person may be, hence both more creative and insane. It’s like trading common sense for some unique sense of perception. This is what I think about myself sometimes

 

[NoDevils]

Highly insightful. In describing the relationship between insanity and creativity it might be found that the less focused a person is on the fundamental basics of realty, the more imaginative and “in the clouds” a person may be, hence both more creative and insane. It’s like trading common sense for some unique sense of perception. This is what I think about myself sometimes

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNezGmUHVe4FAMHgSLXSqHV1n

I think people have different sized splashes of psychological disturbance, creativity, and intellect. Here's a Yale lecture series about genius where I was reminded of this concept.

 

[Samzone]

The worst part about this obsession with creativity is that every time I try to indulge in a creative work or art(A movie, a game, etc.) I am constantly overanalyzing it, feeling like it dosen't make sense what I am seeing. I find myself constantly distracted from the movie/game, trying to clarify in my head every aspect of the work and trying to judge how creative this work is and what the creative process of the art might be. For an example, I can watch a scene in a movie and constantly be thinking about why the director/writer might have chosen for the characters to do that or say this in this exact manner or chosen that outfit for said character, or weather this plot is wholly original or does it contain existing tropes and similarities to other known works. How original are these characters really and how "creative" is this work really?? Can the writer/director be categorized as a creative person???

I'm sure some people like to think about these things when its a voluntary act, I used to do so too. But when I'm in this state, I feel like I MUST figure these things out and its so bad sometimes, I have to pause the movie in order to ruminate for a few minutes otherwise I can't follow the movie at all.

Even if I talk with a friend and he throws a witty remark, I can find myself obsessing about weather that remark was an original creative idea or did he hear it from somwhere? If it is original, what parts of it is unique and what is similar to other sayings I have heard. Just like that I can get distracted from the conversation. Even as I am typing this, I get thoughts of what is making me used this verbage and weather or not I'm using my creativity to express myself right now??

Sorry if I'm venting too much but I find it helps a bit, typing these things out that is going on in my head. It sorta confirms to myself that I am being coherent and (somewhat) sane 😅

 

[Trith]

That's very interesting. For me, that might be a bit philosophical and not really applicable in reality, but I don't think free will exists, from some point of view nor does pure creativity. Everything comes from something prior to it. Things don't get born in our minds from a blank page. But what we think comes from our creativity is just what comes from a process that escapes our consciousness or is too blurry for analysis. That's like the difference between analysis and intuition. Intuition is just analysis minus the metacognition (the awareness of the analysis process itself) so we just get the result seemingly out of nothing. But I think consciousness/awareness is rather the rule than the exception (edit: no I mean the opposite). When we look closely, most of what happens in out minds escapes our consciousness. When I try to remember something as simple as how many eggs they usually put in an egg box, I know the result but I don't know what process I use to search for the answer in my knowledge about the world. Do I first day "egg" in my mind and then let some images pop up? What elemental steps. And these elemental steps, what are they made of? When my ears hear a word in my mother tongue, in what language is it translated to for the rest of my brain to "understand" it. What is the "meaning" of something? What is a meaning made of in our minds? Everything is obscure. There is so much unknown but we generally ignore it, or put it aside in a simple concept like the subconscious or creativity.
But I think the people who said psychosis had something to do with creativity (probably psychoanalysts) just could not understand what people with psychosis were talking about and so they put it behind this concept with the rest we don't understand, without knowing that everything works in this way. 99.99% of our thought processes are obscure and if they really believe it is not, I think they didn't look closely enough.

 

[Samzone]

That's very interesting. For me, that might be a bit philosophical and not really applicable in reality, but I don't think free will exists, from some point of view nor does pure creativity. Everything comes from something prior to it. Things don't get born in our minds from a blank page. But what we think comes from our creativity is just what comes from a process that escapes our consciousness or is too blurry for analysis. That's like the difference between analysis and intuition. Intuition is just analysis minus the metacognition (the awareness of the analysis process itself) so we just get the result seemingly out of nothing. But I think consciousness/awareness is rather the rule than the exception. When we look closely, most of what happens in out minds escapes our consciousness. When I try to remember something as simple as how many eggs they usually put in an egg box, I know the result but I don't know what process I use to search for the answer in my knowledge about the world. Do I first day "egg" in my mind and then let some images pop up? What elemental steps. And these elemental steps, what are they made of? When my ears hear a word in my mother tongue, in what language is it translated to for the rest of my brain to "understand" it. What is the "meaning" of something? What is a meaning made of in our minds? Everything is obscure. There is so much unknown but we generally ignore it, or put it aside in a simple concept like the subconscious or creativity.
But I think the people who said psychosis had something to do with creativity (probably psychoanalysts) just could not understand what people with psychosis were talking about and so they put it behind this concept with the rest we don't understand, without knowing that everything works in this way. 99.99% of our thought processes are obscure and if they really believe it is not, I think they didn't look closely enough.

I feel you brother, even though we do not have the same obsession, I could totally see myself thinking a lot about the same stuff that you do. I think we just need to try and keep our minds occupied with other stuff. I keep telling myself that everything is alright and everything works as intended and I don't need to be thinking about this stuff. My brain functions as it functions, no matter if I figure out how or not. Just like before I got into this state of mind. Good luck, dude I know we will recover and this whole thing will be like it never happened. Just a memory of a tough period in our lives.

 

[Trith]

I feel you brother, even though we do not have the same obsession, I could totally see myself thinking a lot about the same stuff that you do. I think we just need to try and keep our minds occupied with other stuff. I keep telling myself that everything is alright and everything works as intended and I don't need to be thinking about this stuff. My brain functions as it functions, no matter if I figure out how or not. Just like before I got into this state of mind. Good luck, dude I know we will recover and this whole thing will be like it never happened. Just a memory of a tough period in our lives.

Oh well, this is not even my obsession. If only...
But I do find this interesting.

 

[Phoenix Rose]

Hi, you replied to my post so I thought I’d pass on advice to you, I wanted to recommend

a book that I read that helps on these matters, having ocd myself I know how the game goes no matter what the topic is so I read a book called “needing to know for sure” it’s for us ocd types. As with everything I read these days, I take whatever I can relate to and leave out the rest. It does have some good points and overall I think it’s worth recommending.

 

[Samzone]

Hi, you replied to my post so I thought I’d pass on advice to you, I wanted to recommend View attachment 4949
a book that I read that helps on these matters, having ocd myself I know how the game goes no matter what the topic is so I read a book called “needing to know for sure” it’s for us ocd types. As with everything I read these days, I take whatever I can relate to and leave out the rest. It does have some good points and overall I think it’s worth recommending.

Thanks! This looks very promising! Is it also good for Pure O OCD? I assume its the same kind of OCD that you have?

 

[Phoenix Rose]

Yes it is focused primarily on the ocd. After reading your post and your worries, it seems some of the advice would definitely be directed to what you face. If I could send the book to you for free I would but I don’t know if that’s possible. You can go to kindle and download a sample if you wish and if you think you may benefit then you could buy it 🙂