Would you take a pill that turned off your constant thoughts?

[ofwarren]

Please be aware that this is the Neurodiverse Mumsnetters board

As an autistic, my brain makes connections and patterns constantly and has thoughts flying through it all of the time. It doesn't seem to slow at any point and it can be exhausting at times. I expect this is even more severe in the ADHD brain.

If a drug existed that could turn off these thoughts, would you take it?

The reason I ask is because I went through a stage of trying meditation and it never seemed to do anything but one time it felt like my thoughts had totally stopped, my mind went blank. It didn't feel calming though, I actually freaked out and have never done it since!
I'm not sure I'd want my thoughts to stop or to be like those people who have no internal dialogue.

No, I wouldn't: I already have to take anti-epileptics and cipramil for anxiety/depression, plus a ton of meds for BP, heart and other shit. I hate it! 🤐
I hate how the anti-epileptics slow down brain activity, I was in a fog for nearly two years after that one started.

I do have to-look-up lists, and generally follow them through and all my kindle books are full of names and places highlighted so I can research them - NTM plants I see, or have bought!

@ofwarren Dry stone walling is very satisfying!😀

I imagine it would be like that eery silence when your toddler is being too quiet and you know they are up to something. Yes sometimes it can be too much, and sometimes I would do almost anything to be able to switch off at night especially (adhd), but the constant chatter in my mind is reassuring. Like having the TV or radio on in a quiet house. If it stopped I think there would be just silence and emptiness and not in a good way, and that ominous feeling of there being something bad happening or about to happen because it's just too quiet. I have been on (the wrong) meds before and it felt like I was under water. I felt panicky all the time and like nothing made sense and everything was murky and too far away. I would rather a noisy mind than that, it was like drowning and not being able to swim. I quite like meditating and listening to my thoughts now, I can separate myself a little and it's like I'm just enjoying watching the connections I'm making and the research I'm doing and thoughts I'm having, it's a much greater peace than being koshed with psychiatric meds! Instead of worrying what the toddler is doing, I am watching the toddler part of myself exploring my environment and world. And like watching a toddler play it's interesting to do that undirected sometimes, just let the thoughts flow. I really think that that place of curiosity and flow and chatter is the best place in the world, and it makes me grateful for my ADHD that I have all this inner life. I would never want to turn it off permanently, but ask me again at 3am 😂

Me too. I miss rifling the card index trying to work out the right key terms. I loved Google in the beginning and being able to answer every passing question but it’s got completely out of hand.

regarding meds, maybe. I swore off all medication years ago after a particularly unpleasant anti anxiety drug. It felt like being trapped inside my own mind, unable to express or feel anything properly.

The thoughts I’m not too bothered about but if there was something that could switch off the constant sodding music I’d try that

I’m being presumptuous but you wouldn’t be the first person to discover that you’re not quite as neurotypical as you’d assumed.

sone of us are diagnosed, some of us are wondering. You’re very welcome to stick around if you need to figure it out.

Well, it would make a change from wine

i don’t drink because a) it makes me feel physically yuck, and interferes with the even better numb of sleep, and b) i am scared i will like how it dulls my thoughts and not be able to stop.

i use my phone to distract my brain. Pre phones I always had a book or magazine.

a pill? Yes I think I would. Especially the constant intrusive thoughts and the over thinking of every error and every mistake I’ve ever made.

This is why I love general anaesthetic- it’s the only time in my life brain has STFU

i find the more stressed I am the worse it gets. And one of the most annoying things is musical loops - really, really crap self composed stuff - that go round and round and round. This makes me more stressed.

m so yes I wish I could just switch if my brain a little bit now and then as it’s exhausting.

I've had the music thing today. It's so annoying.

This is why I love general anaesthetic- it’s the only time in my life brain has STFU

GAs are marvellous. I had a flurry of them when I had gynae issues followed by a hysterectomy. That tiny bit of time when the anaesthetic has gone in and all your little aches and pains go away - then total switch off until you come round. `If only going to sleep could be like that.

I miss rifling the card index trying to work out the right key terms.

Oh, yes, I used to love hanging out in the reference library when I was a teenager. Paying 5p to use the photocopier to copy pages from the encyclopaedia and other reference books, related to my special interests, which I'd put in a plastic 'window' file at home. I still have my plastic window files.

Drinking doesn't sort my head out at all. I seem to have a paradoxical effect with alcohol. It makes me feel stressed, depressed and on edge. My thoughts go just as fast but in like a negative pessimistic or paranoid spiral which gets smaller and faster until I eventually manage to fall asleep. The only time I get peace is when I'm doing an activity I enjoy and am immersed in or when I'm meditating and doing yoga. It's so weird how we all react to things differently.
The only sedative effect which I've not had a paradoxical or negative effect from is benzodiazepines. In low doses they just used to take my anxiety away and make me feel more relaxed and peaceful but not totally slow my thinking, but I think they did make me a bit emotionally numb when I was taking them, and I can see I could become addicted to them.
I do have the classic ADHD thing of feeling calmer on stimulants though. These days just far too much caffeine though I may go back on meds as it helps me focus my thinking and get more done/ fit into society better

Sometimes I feel mellow with alcohol but sometimes it brings on mania and what I can only describe as 'delusions of grandeur' where I go off on a mental trip imagining myself doing all sorts of wild, often outrageous or offensive things, convincing myself I will do them. Then the next morning when I am hung over it feels almost as if I did do them and I feel as ashamed as if I really had. So I have to be very careful with alcohol.

I totally understand. The next day is ruined for me if I drink. I just don't want to feel that any more, it's nor worth it.

All my family have this, both neurodiverse and neurotypical. We all also have very visual minds too so it is not just a constant monologue, it's images as well (I think Temple Grandin describes her experience of this well in her book The Autistic Brain), plus some of us have synesthesia. I think all of us agree that it is a huge positive and has helped us academically, it is/was what drove us to learn, it makes us happy, and it makes us "us". I can't imagine what it would be like to have a quiet mind, I think it would be awful and dull.

Although I agree it can be overwhelming sometimes. It was a lot easier before google though when you couldn't easily answer every question in your mind.

No. When I was younger once I smoked some really strong cannabis lol and for the first time ever my mind went completely blank like it was a blank black piece of paper and it was horrible. So frightening!
My mental chatter is constant absolutely constant. Even when I was giving birth my mind kept wandering and thinking of songs.
I can even read with my mind running on in the background.
what was the upshot of the black cat thing @ofwarren ? My black cats also look Brown in the sun but my black dog I used to have reflected white light off it's fur.

That was supposed to be cannabis OIL! I never say lol!

No because I have a smart phone! I just Google it on the spot. I get frustrated when I've hit my monthly data cap and this happens.

Now childbirth, that is a time when I've been totally completely silent in the mind, that was kind of amazing. And really good sex can take me to that place as well, but it's a feat to get me there past all the utter annoying randomness.

I can feel myself starting to panic just reading this thread. The idea of my brain just stopping. What would there be? I honestly don’t even understand this. How can you not be constantly thinking? Would you even still exist?

@ofwarren @PeskyRooks Black cats fade a bit as they get older, which is why they look brown in the sun sometimes. Want another black cat fact? They are all tabbies, but their stripes are black onto black...

I'm happy with the constant company of my thoughts, but sometimes I close my eyes to go to sleep and it's thinking two things and YELLING a song at me and I wish I could turn the frequency down a bit.

I'm autistic/adhd, and wouldn't turn it off. However, if there was a drug that would turn of my tinnitus, I'd take that.

Thank you for the cat facts @Anglophobia that's ace I love that black cats are tabbies I did not know that!

Some people have no internal dialogue at all. The thought makes me anxious too.

Anglophobia Both my current and my late black cat have very faint tabby markings on the head, only discernible in bright sunshine. It was more noticeable on my previous fella who lived to 19, so possibly that was because he faded with age. Current boy is only 3 and very hard to see on him, just very slight on his forehead and top of head.

I know people claim not to have an internal dialogue, but I really just can’t wrap my head around it. I don’t really believe them. You might as well try to convince me there are humans that don’t breathe oxygen. I guess I think of it as we don’t really know that we all perceive colors the same way. Surely everyone has an internal dialogue, but some people just don’t recognize it by that name?

Yes I would. I wish I could just switch off my brain sometimes. I have a really good memory and I hate how often in enjoyable situations I remember painful or difficult memories.

I posted on another thread about how I once was prescribed codeine for pain. I just remember the calmness I felt. Not dipped out. I was just calm about situations. Things that would bother me and stress me out didn’t.

Once I came off it I developed crippling anxiety and ended up on anti depressants for 6 months (and I sure it was the codeine), but if I could have that feeling again I would.