I once heard a psychologist say that there are no totally healthy people. We are either neurotic, or we are psychotic. This was meant to be a joke, but it seems pretty true to me.
But we should go easy on ourselves. Life itself calls to those unbalanced places inside of us. There is a mad spirit in each of us, just waiting for those special triggers so they can come out. As a neurotic, "silence" is sometimes one of those triggers.
When our neuroses is awakened, silence can be threatening. We meet a stranger, and they don't instantly warm to us in the ways that we can recognize, the neurotic assumes the worst. The ambiguity of the situation invites worry. "This person doesn't like me." Everyone needs to be accepted. But we neurotics crave it. What's worse, we're pretty sure we're not going to get it.
Some people, I suppose, go through life without ever worrying about this. They come and go in their social interactions without a care in the world. But I think most of us know what it is to wonder if the person in front of us is a friend, a foe, or apathetic either way.
There is tons of self-help literature on this. Therapists pay their bills with this. And many of us well-meaning neurotics wander the world just a little bit crazy.
Needy people absolutely annoy the hell out of me. When I reflect upon why that is... what that particular type of person bothers me... I become a little uncomfortable. Wise people have long known that what pisses us off in other people is often an issue we ourselves own.
I recognize that I am sometimes a difficult friend. I'm not going to write my Confessions here in a "blog," but I can at least say, "I am sometimes quite neurotic. It bothers me. I'm aware it's not always easy for others to bear."
My purpose in mentioning all of this, is that ALL of us are driven by subconscious forces pretty much all of the time. You may be a neurotic. I certainly am.
I think that an acknowledgement that we human beings are psychologically complex creatures helps us understand why we do what we do... hope for what we hope for... fret over what we fret over. With more understanding, our lives become richer. We cannot cure our own neuroses, but we can be suspicious of it when we recognize it. If we're aware of our respective strands of crazy, we MAY be more sensitive and aware regarding the struggles of others. If we can look inward and recognize "the crazy" when it gets triggered, and if we can refrain of judging ourselves harshly (as needy, for example), then maybe we'll have the energy to move through our self-doubts and our unhelpful "self-talk" and start living better lives.
All that is easier said than done. The last year... with a divorce... with a move (across town, but still..)... with the upheaval of so much so quickly... has brought me into a more tender, vulnerable frame of mind. When I assess patients, I look for what interior resources they draw upon to cope. As I assess myself, I know that on some days, I'm driving through the Mojave on fumes. And it is during these times that my brand of insanity kicks in overdrive. Perhaps you can relate... in your own way.
Life is more than what we know. For instance, I know that God holds me close and watches over me. I know that my friends and family love me. I know that I am worthy of love and respect (and so is everyone else). But on dark nights... or even when sitting across from a friend... or talking with a group of people... the specter of loneliness appears. Questions of our worth surface. We feel our regrets more sharply. We suspect that those who love us actually just put up with us. In short, we entertain deluded thoughts and feelings.
What would happen if each time this happened to us, we stopped and asked ourselves if this "triggering thought/feeling" were true? What if we refused to take for granted those woeful voices that echo in our hearts? What if most of the bad stuff we think about ourselves is just plain bull shit? And what if we neurotics could be okay with not being everyone's Number One? Life might just end up being a lot easier if we gave some of that up.
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