What to do when you feel like you’re going insane

If you’ve got a decent brain in your noggin and are prone to bouts of overanalysis, there are going to be times when you feel like you’re driving yourself mad. It’s certainly one of my favourite hobbies, along with 3am mortality-related angstfests and the agony of deciding what to have for Sunday brunch.

A particularly dire spell of “no seriously, I can’t escape from my own head” activity occurred right after I got back from a one-month trip around Europe.  For some reason, Step One upon returning home was to freak out. Within days I felt as though I had fallen into a black pit from which I would never be able to claw my way out.  My mind was overwhelmingly crowded with lines from songs, obsessively repeated thoughts and self-lacerating observations on every single thing I did. 

Focusing on the weirdness in my head only made things worse.  Every small symptom became magnified until I was nothing but a tightly coiled spiral of adrenalin and anxiety.  I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t relax, and I couldn’t tell people what was wrong because I worried about what they’d think.  

Words like mad, crazy and insane are tossed around in a jokey way by most of us on a daily basis, but when you genuinely feel that you are losing control of your mind, it is terrifying. One reason is the sheer intangibility of anxiety: there doesn’t seem to be any logical reason why your head has suddenly been invaded by weird, scary or dark thoughts, and the experience can make you question your identity big-time.

Now I’m no doctor — though I’d love to play one on TV — so I can’t give advice from a professional perspective. But as someone who’s done the anxiety thing on and off over the years, I know that one of the most comforting things is to realise that other people feel like this too. That it’s okay, and maybe even normal, to get overwhelmed and shut down and freak out. And, most importantly, that there are lots of ways to overcome the head noise. With that in mind, here are a few tips for when you feel like you’re driving yourself nuts.

• Get physical. When you get stuck inside your own head, one of the best cures is to do something that focuses on the body rather than the mind.  This can be anything from getting a massage to going for a run.  A top choice is to crank up a playlist of ridiculous pop songs and bust out some high-energy dance moves around the house.  Being able to dance is not a prerequisite for this.  In fact, it’s probably preferable.

  Suggested songs for silly dancing:

  • Jai Ho from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack. Lemme see those Bollywood dance moves, chaiwalla!
  • The Seed 2.0 by The Roots feat. Cody Chestnutt. This one’s a bit sexful, but I think you’ll cope.
  • More Than A Feeling by Boston. A Guitar Hero favourite, and with good reason.

• Get out into the real world. Make it a priority to get up and get moving each morning. No lolling about in bed with a bag of corn chips and a laptop. Step out your front door; go for a walk; feel the sun on your back. Meet a friend for lunch; go to the markets and let the colours and scents wash over you; buy a newspaper and say something quirky to the person who sold it to you. These things help stimulate your brain and get you out of mope mode.
  

• Write about what you’re experiencing. It doesn’t matter whether you can write well or spell correctly. Just pick up a pen and start writing, and don’t stop until you’ve filled two pages. It doesn’t have to be clever or funny or self-deprecating. It doesn’t even have to make sense. Don’t imagine someone else reading it. Just transcribe all the head noise and when you’ve finished, don’t read back over it.
  

• Stop looking up your symptoms online. The internet is both the best and worst thing that has ever happened to the world.  The amount of easily accessible information is staggering, but when you combine this with hypochondria, it’s bad, bad news for your mind.  On Google, WebMD and Wikipedia, all roads lead to schizophrenia and terminal cancer.  An innocent search for “mild headache” leads to you being convinced that you have a nasopharangeal mass in your temporal lobe.  Do yourself a favour and stop reading about mental and physical illnesses online.  If you are experiencing something unusual and need a diagnosis, visit a doctor in the real world.  He or she will be able to put your maladies in context and give you much more realistic advice. 
  

• Create something for someone. Another way to get yourself out of your head? Focus on a friend by making them a gift. It can be a song or a story or a step ladder – the point is to turn your thoughts to another person and devote your energy to making something for them.
  

• Chill and try not to question everything too much. When you overanalyse, you lose touch with reality. Try to chill and accept that although things feel crap at the moment, they WILL get better. Sometimes we have thoughts that are bizarre or frightening or socially horrifying. That doesn’t mean we’re horrible or insane.