A reflection, not a clinical description: it suggests that schizophrenia can involve being overwhelmed by too much possibility, and depression a failure of the imagination.
Mindfulness can complement psychiatric and mental health care. It is not a treatment for schizophrenia or depression, and this post is not medical advice. If you live with either, a doctor, psychiatrist or licensed therapist is the right place to start. If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide or is in crisis, call or text 988 in the US (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) or contact your local emergency number.
“The creativity of people on the schizophrenic end of the human continuum is creativity that springs from the inability to accept the standardized cultural denials of the real nature of experience. And the price of this kind of almost “extra-human” creativity is to live on the brink of madness, as men have long known.” –Ernest Becker
Meditation for Anxiety and the Overthinking Trap
Time and again, we fall prey to the same trap: overthinking things. It’s understandable why we engage in this unhealthy pattern. With the sheer number of decisions that we have to make each and every day, and the plethora of options available to us, it’s easy to analyze every possibility in our lives ad nauseum. In fact, doing anything less than this can make us feel careless or lazy. We may convince ourselves that overthinking things is actually a healthy behavior, because it leads to better, more predictable outcomes.
This is rarely the case, however. Overanalyzing and endless rumination may not bring us any closer to making good decisions. Instead, we can cause ourselves unnecessary distress as we constantly attempt to arrive at the “perfect” decision, when no such thing is even possible in the first place.
