How do "normal" people think?

Maybe an odd question but something I've been wondering about. I might actually have even posted this before, not sure. I wonder if people without MI are able to control what they think about. I don't seem to have any control of what I think about anymore. If I don't actively distract myself I'm off in some daydream searching for a conclusion that I can never reach, just more confusion. Am I just worrying over nothing?

I am with you on this.

I'm no more or less jealous than the average person but I have started seriously envying people who live their lives with little sign of enduring mental illness. I actually resent their happiness at times because it puts me in such stark contrast. I have gone many months at a time when all has been well, personal relationships are good, I had everything lined up and in place. I look at them and I think I used to be like you. So when I wonder how mentally intact people think, I remember how I once was and the sense of loss makes me so frustrated and helpless that I ache.

I know everyone carries their own secret burdens. Very few people go through life untouched by a blue period. Even Queen Elizabeth has had rocky times.

How do they cope? I don't know. I think they're wired differently. But I must have coped very well because I have come through very challenging periods too. What makes me frightened at times is that it always comes back to get me and I stop coping, even when good things happen. That's the scary bit.

Short answer: we need our coping/thinking patterns to be way more advanced and thorough than people who aren't mentally ill.

Ahhh don't forget also thinking that everyone around you is essentially an NPC (Non Player Character, as in computer controlled following a set of instructions). Once I was on opiates, it's not so much that they can "control" them, it's just the thoughts weren't turned up to 11 and tended to be far more fluid (and on subject...). For example I didn't have to have a conversation with myself to stop an impulse or find a way to skirt around the impulse I could just say "no" and that was the end of the conversation. When I would have conversations with people I wouldn't have nearly as many threads that I felt needed to be explained, etc.

I've tried explaining this to my wife but it never works the fact that my thought process is freaking night and day from when I was "normal" to now. I don't know if that will really help as that was bipolar to addict to bipolar but it's pretty much how I assume everyone in the normal world acted.

Well, I don't know first hand, because I'm not normal. I'm guessing their thoughts aren't as troubling.

There's right brain thoughts (abstract/picture) vs left brain thoughts (language).

There's Carl Jung's idea of cognitive functions, to describe normal thinking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_co ... _functions

Then there's executive function, which is considered to be impaired in bipolar and other mental illnesses. Executive function is not thought, or intellect as such, but it is the way thoughts can manifest into reality. Sort of like the executor of a will is different from the will itself. The executor of thoughts in the brain resides in the frontal lobe, and performs functions such as 'response inhibition', 'working memory' and other things needed to translate thought into action, feeling, or more thoughts.

We have the same thoughts as normal people. But then there are the 'extra' thoughts, superfluous to requirements. There exists a void too, a lacking of necessary brain action. Executive function allows our superfluous thoughts to thrive, repeating again, and again, exaggerating feelings, giving flight to ideas, filling in the gaps with nonsense.

I really wish I knew! I believe I can trace the start of my bipolar symptoms to the age of around 10, and the full-blown disorder hit home at 14, so I don't see myself as truly having a former 'normal' state to which I can compare my thoughts now.

I presume that people without a mental illness don't have to try enormously hard to control their thinking and that healthy thought patterns come naturally to them. Just like for me, unhealthy patterns like my negativity, anxious thoughts or obsessive thinking aren't something I've deliberately tried to cultivate. I'm just especially prone to them and it takes a huge effort to try and change them.

People I'm close to who think 'normally' certainly don't seem to have as many of the superfluous thoughts that bipolarbirdie mentioned as I do, and don't seem to be as distressed by thoughts alone (as I tend to be). Even when my mood's stable, I also tend to go off on a tangent when speaking or thinking, because one thought might spark a particular connection... And suddenly I'll be off in that direction.

As much as I want to change my 'abnormal' thinking as it's generally unhelpful, sometimes it's also served me well. For example, finding connections between seemingly unrelated topics and being analytical to the point of obsessive was at times pretty useful while studying.

It's an interesting question, Kamia x

I've never been normal, I've always been mentally ill so I wish I knew what they think about or how they think....

I've got to believe that normal people are able to control their thoughts and emotions to a great extent, keeping things calm and peaceful inside. It just has to be the way of things for stability. As I get closer to feeling more stable, I feel less chaotic in my thoughts and am getting a tiny glimpse of what those normal people must get to experience all the time. Normal people, I think, are busy thinking about living their lives, not all jumbled up in emotional angst all the time.

I think normality, or something close to it, can be achieved with the right tools. When my bipolar had a big hold on me and my life, it always felt like my emotions where way to big to fit inside my body. It felt like they decided my life. I felt like I was constantly reactive to life's challenges, and always doing damage control. I felt completely at the mercy of other people's actions, life events, and my mood disorder. I also felt afraid all the time: afraid of failure, afraid of success, afraid of what people might think of me, afraid of rejection... just afraid. I often wished I would end up in a terrible accident on my way to work just so that I could be in a hospital and no one would expect anything from me. Getting out of bed was a challenge every single day, and the anxiety of just getting started was so heavy. Then, actually finding resources to plug into for help getting meds was overwhelming. Especially before the affordable care act, I couldn't get insurance. There was a waiting list to get in to see a psychiatrist. Clinics for the uninsured were terrifying. Therapists were too much money.

My way out has been a 4-year journey so far. I came to a point where I hated myself so much that I knew I would kill myself if I didn't get help. I wanted to die, but I kept telling myself "just get through today. If it gets too hard, I can kills myself." Then the next day, "Just get through the day, if it gets too hard, I can still kill myself." Knowing that I was a ticking time bomb, I sought out a bipolar support group which plugged me into a therapist who was able to work with me financially.

I had therapy with her off and on - sometimes going for weeks without a visit because I'd get consumed at work. However, it was helping a bit. She taught me about the illness. It was cathartic to download my stuff on her, and would buy me some more resolve. I was able to start doing little things I couldn't do before. I was lucky to have a boss that gave me a lot of leeway when I told him what was going on with me. I gave a shot at a competition to become a teacher at a local dance studio. By doing that, I met the man that would become my fiancé. That was a year in, and because of the therapy, I was able to gain too allies (my boss & my future fiancé).

As I moved forward, new challenges would come up, and it became nonnegotiable that I had to dedicate one hour a week to therapy religiously in order to get better. Therapy has been the key out. The therapist acts as your coping mechanism. They are your logic center. They are the stability you can hang onto as you learn to walk again.

I have been very lucky to find a therapist in a the first place that I could afford, and then to have a partner in my life who made it possible for me to dedicate the time to therapy. This is where a lot of people can get lost either because they have no support system, no money, or run into a therapist that doesn't fit them. However, therapy is the way out. Hopefully, with the affordable care act, more people with mental illness can get insurance that will give them access to therapy.

It's been four years of therapy. It got worse before it got better. Granted, it turned out that bipolar wasn't my main problem - it was PTSD. That plus constantly disassociating, having panic attacks, and severe anxiety. Some people can find stability fast. A friend of our was able to get control after just 2 years. Even in my fourth year, I've still got a long way to go. I don't tantrum anymore. I'm finally on the right mix of medications. I don't disassociate as much or have as many panic attacks. Yet, the anxiety is still big enough. I've recently come to grips with the fact that my mother was a narcissist. I'm healing from the grieve of my father's suicide last year. It's a process that takes as long as it takes.

At this point, I consider myself more normal than I ever had. I've been able to maintain two new friendships. I'm not as painfully shy as I used to be. I've been able to take on tasks like planning our current vacation, and our upcoming wedding without completely falling apart. I've been able to have conflict with my Nmom without wanting to destroy myself. I'm better at taking care of myself and knowing the needs I have and the names of my emotions.

I think "normal" people aren't any better off. If you think about how many assumedly "normal" people drink, smoke, and sleep around to knock the edge off their day, you might redefine normal. I've found that "normal" people aren't any better at relationships. Many "normal" people might not feel what it's like to want to die everyday, or feel like they have no control, but they can be incredibly superficial. They don't necessarily enjoy life either. They have to work at happiness too. They have to work at relationships too. They might take on the added stress of trying to fit the societal definition of "success" - robbing themselves of any real joy. I think "normal" is not synonymous with "stable". I've met very few "normal" people that are stable and happy and fulfilled. My fiancé happens to be one of them. But that's not just because he doesn't have a mood disorder. He was lucky to be raised by a pair of parents who were constantly working on their relationship and didn't give up. It's also because he lost his father to cancer at 19 - which quickly puts things back in perspective. Plus, he's 12 years my senior which affords him more patience than a younger counterpart.

I wouldn't give "normal" people too much credit. I don't think they're that great at controlling their thoughts and emotions. They are just better at using tools that prevent their emotions from being at the for front of their mind. However, I think few people ever truly look at themselves and wonder why they are the way they are. They're too busy trying to do what everyone else does - which can be it's own blessing and curse.

Caribee4me wrote:I've got to believe that normal people are able to control their thoughts and emotions to a great extent, keeping things calm and peaceful inside. It just has to be the way of things for stability. As I get closer to feeling more stable, I feel less chaotic in my thoughts and am getting a tiny glimpse of what those normal people must get to experience all the time. Normal people, I think, are busy thinking about living their lives, not all jumbled up in emotional angst all the time.

I agree. They have emotions of course, but not as messy and chaotic as ours.

I have had this discussion with my wife several times. She being the normal of the two. From how she described it, it seems like their thoughts/emotions are a straight line moving forward. Where ours, or mine, are like branches in every direction, simultaneously living in the present, future and past, possible futures presents and pasts as well and bouncing between the many. They dealing with one thought process at a time where we, even in a unmanic phase, deal with everything. Part of me in envious and another part feels sad for them. Depends on my mood.