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Pressure speech, “flight of ideas,” rambling, discursive, urgent, unrelenting verbal expressions that are exhausting to hear, even more exhausting to be the vehicle of expression, is one of the hallmark tells of mental illness, appreciably recognized by humans not holding the conditions.
When I consider my own inner voice, reflectively, I wonder if i sound like a ‘crazy’ person to God. Do I carry that endless, sports commentator dialogue through my hours and days? And why do I do it? Do I need to actually narrate my experience to validate my experience? Am I scaffolding? Am I reinforcing? Am I hypnotizing myself into accepting this reality and blocking myself from a myriad of other options? Can I learn to see all the shades of blue without having to name them?
When I catch myself rehearsing, role-playing, or creatively daydreaming whole lines of fictitious dialogue I become aware of how my body is responding, especially if the scenario is negative. I feel the anxiety and stress, and notice my breathing shallows, muscle tension increasing- my stomach complains. I am lucky if it I can interrupt the process at a paragraph, as opposed to a page, or chapter, or a whole novel. Sometimes, it becomes a novel, and I do find release by putting it down and putting it out there for the world to examine. I also consider myself lucky if it’s just verbal. Imagery comes, and some of it is horrific and like the train wreck you can’t avert your eyes from, I linger and chase things most never consider. I wonder if Stephen King is sane. I suspect he is the healthiest man on the…
