Rational and irrational thoughts are always in constant conflict inside my mind. No matter how hard I try to focus on being positive and inspire others to do the same, I somehow always seem to slip back into a relapsing cycle of depression, jealousy and loneliness. There are many things that set this off including being isolated and in my own company for long periods of time, reading posts directed at me, comparing my life to those of others and taking people’s words to heart. Below is a selection of common rational and irrational thoughts I’ve had:
RATIONAL
1. I deserve to be happy and proud of everything I have achieved as a person.
2. I have many people in my life who love and respect me as a person, despite seeing them infrequently in person.
3. I am a very kind hearted, caring and considerate person.
4. I offer people my assistance in times of need and I’m always there to listen and be a good friend.
5. Despite having depression and anxiety, I have a lot of inner strength and support around me to overcome it.
IRRATIONAL
1. I wasn’t invited to that party because I’m not cool enough and don’t measure up to other friends.
2. When people don’t talk to me or ignore me, they must hate me.
3. My shyness and reservedness are a hindrance to my social interactions.
4. If I died tomorrow, nobody would care and nobody would come to my funeral.
5. My social life is a non-existent shithole because I don’t have a tight knit group of close friends who regularly call me up to hang out.
As you can see, place these examples side by side is like comparing night with days. My rational thoughts are clearly much more positive in content than the irrational ones. The difficult part is finding a way to block out or minimise the amount of irrational thoughts I have because they are clearly not healthy for my mindset. I tend to use uni and work as a way to keep myself constantly busy and distracted. Truth be told, I don’t have many friends at uni to speak of but I’m lucky to have decent people to talk to in my lab groups. Having friendly faces at work also helps lift my positivity and helps me deal with any issues I’m dealing with.
I think that I was meant to be an independent person on this Earth. For years, I’ve been trying to hard to fight the jealousy associate with never being a part of a tight knit group of friends. I was always the delocalised electrons trying desperately to bond with like-minded individuals, people that would get and understand me. Like an enzyme, I’d had to compromise on having induced fits with the friends I have in my life because they’re all I have and I’m lucky to have them. Sometimes I wish I had best friend I could tell anything to like a brother. And there in lies the problem. I’ve been wishing for a reality that doesn’t exist. I’ve really had to step back and accept what is.
Thinking rationally certainly makes life easier and better. Of course I’m still going to have moments where my jealousy gene gets activated simply by seeing some photos from a party or a gig that I couldn’t make and that’s when I really need to pull myself into line and think it is really not the end of the world. The most important thing in life is to find a way to happiness and dwell in that space for a long and often as possible! 🙂
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