Thoughts Within Me

 His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night,” (Psalm 1:2).

“In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul,” (Psalm 94:19).

Imagine you are outside, stuck in a blinding blizzard. The snow is swirling - not in a delicate, magical way, but in a chaotic, disorienting, aimless way, obscuring your sense of direction. The wind is beating against you as you struggle to find shelter. You feel stuck, hopeless, exhausted. What if you find a tow line that someone has set? You know there is a comforting shelter at the other end. You still must struggle on to find the shelter, but the tow line is itself a source of comfort and provides some sense of direction.

Now imagine that the swirling, blinding snow represents your own thoughts and the destabilizing wind represents the flood of varying emotions that accompany those thoughts. What if you were “stuck in your head,” for hours at a time, trying to fight your way through your swirling thoughts when you need the “shelter” of a good sleep? Would you feel exhausted, hopeless, and frustrated?

Repressing my swirling, repetitious thoughts has been a recurring challenge for me. If there is some problem I have not solved; if there is something I am afraid of or worried about; if I am processing all the emotions and implications of something significant that has happened recently; if I am pondering and planning a difficult conversation - all of these thoughts seem to run on a loop, on continuous replay. It’s like I can’t find the power button to “turn off”my thoughts. Sleep does not come quickly for me. On occasion I have only gotten an hour or two of restless sleep. I can never predict what specifically will precipitate this kind of insomnia. I just know whenever it occurs, the only way out is through. I acknowledge that “getting stuck in one’s head” can happen to anyone from time to time, but it is my “normal.”

When I was diagnosed as an adult with autism in September 2023, the diagnostician called this type of obsessive thinking “rehearse and review.” I replay past conversations or events that left an emotional mark. This is delayed processing. I also need time to “rehearse” and generate my responses. My thoughts swirl around me all the time; and sometimes it turns into a “blizzard.” I get “stuck” and “lost” in my thoughts and can’t find my way out. An acquaintance introduced me to the term “perseverating.” Webster’s dictionary defines perseverating as “having or displaying an involuntary, repetitive thought or behavior.” This is commonly associated with autism.  

Perseverating is not just a nighttime problem. Sometimes I cannot track conversations very well because I hear one particular thing that is spoken and my mind is distracted and stuck on that one comment while everyone else has moved on. I am “lost,” repetitiously processing what was previously said, as opposed to being fully aware of what you are currently talking about.

As I “ruminate” on the multitude of my thoughts; as I get “stuck in my head,” I am challenged to “grab the tow line” of meditating on Scripture. God wired my brain for meditation. Meditating has a similar concept to that of perseverating. Both involve thinking deeply and repetitively about something.  However, meditating is intentional whereas perseverating is involuntary.  It is comforting to know, as I fight my way through the “multitude of my thoughts,” that the “tow line” of Scripture is within my reach to provide direction to the “secret place of the most high,” where there is peace.