Short Circuit

So, I've been thinking an awful lot lately about the fact that I think way too much about everything. And I guess that, by pondering that fact, I'm not really helping matters much. I seem to continually find myself stuck in thought loops that can, at times, debilitate me, or at the very least, and depending on the subject matter, alter or dampen my mood. I'm told, time and again, that I "think too much". Specifically, my compulsive analysis has made any recent attempt at forging a meaningful romantic relationship next to impossible. I know, going into things, that I need to not over-think them. The trouble is, I am hardwired this way.

The first panic attack I ever experienced, at the age of about six, was the result of one such compulsive thought loop. I vividly recall sitting on the living room floor, watching tv. ("Happy Days", of course - my favourite show as a young child). As I watched the Fonz strut around near the neon jukebox, in his popped-collar leather jacket, I began to develop a slight headache.

 Now, being the imaginative little imp that I was, I used to always think of the inside of my skull as a control room. My eyes were windows, behind which a tiny little man sat, pushing buttons, pulling levers, and just generally controlling my physical and cognitive functions. Now, when my head started to hurt, I thought about the little man in there. What was he doing in there that was making my head hurt? And, more interestingly, what if HE had a headache too? And if he did, was he sitting at the controls inside my head, rubbing his own head, thinking about the little man in HIS little control room? And what of THAT little man, the little man inside the little man's head? Did HE have a headache too??

Suddenly, the terrifying concept of infinity presented itself for the first time to my child mind, and moreover, hit me with the force of a brick.

 I trust that most humans have, at one point or another, and usually when pondering outer space and the universe, grappled with the discomfort of attempting to wrap their finite and limited intellectual scopes around the sheer terror of "forever", of endless, limitless always. Because we operate within the boundaries of quantifiable space, and because we ourselves have a limit, a terminus and an end, the concept of endlessness will always be unsettling to us. And thus, was six year-old Stef introduced to infinity, and launched into a full-blown attack of anxiety which lasted for several minutes, and well into the end credits of the show.

I know that the quality of my life - and certainly, the quality of my "relationships"  - would be dramatically improved, if only I could turn my brain off for awhile, go with the flow, not wonder and question and assume ad nauseum, and most importantly, not obsessively critique myself and attempt to define what it is was that wasn't "good enough" about me to make my latest beau leave. It seems to me that mostly, what isn't good about me is the way in which I'm always trying to figure that very thing out.

Intellectually, I know all of this. I can see this pattern playing out, as clearly and infinitesimally as the little man within the little man, or the perpetual unfolding of galaxies. For all of this awareness though, I haven't yet figured out how to actually STOP.  How does an inherently-analytical mind stop analyzing itself long enough to get out of its own way? And by even writing this post, am I further exacerbating the problem?

Maybe I should take up Sudoku puzzles. Or maybe a good old-fashioned lobotomy would be just the ticket.