I once heard my uncle say, "The people that study psychology are the people that need it the most."
That may be quite true.
During my college years, I changed my major several times, but the one constant was my minor of psychology. I have always felt this overbearing need to figure things out, including myself.
Because of this need, even as a child, I was compelled to talk with people about things that I felt were noteworthy. During the 80's, however, children were not taken seriously. After all, what life experiences have we had? So as I got older, I made efforts to learn bigger words and start using them in sentences. It made little difference.
My overbearing need to discuss the things in my head, and be heard, was not fulfilled.
Over time, the big lesson that I learned was that not all people think like I do. I can take a subject and dissect it until I know every aspect. Every single angle. Then, I want to talk to someone about the subject before starting from the beginning and reanalyzing the whole thing with the new information.
I thought everyone thought like this.
Turns out, they do not.
People think I'm "worrying" a situation. The funny thing is, however, that I sleep like a baby most nights. I've never suffered from insomnia. I can put my thoughts in a box, go to sleep, and open it back up in the morning. I'm not worried or stressed. I just have this obsessive need to figure out how something works.
The "Why" of it.
"It" could be something as obvious as a puzzle or algebraic equation, or as complicated as how to try to let someone back into my life after they have hurt me. And not everything creates deep thoughts, either. Some things do, some do not.
A part of my need to understand things includes talking about the subject with someone whose opinion I trust. Often times, my thinking out loud with someone as my sounding board tends to just make it harder for me.
I'm not looking for an answer when I talk to someone. That's the easy part! I need to take the subject apart and look at all of the parts and pieces. I have to know what each and every little part does. What each means to the whole.
Often times, when the person I'm talking with gets frustrated because I'm still pondering everything instead of listening to their answers. They give up and just tell me how much harder I'm making it on myself by over analyzing the situation.
But I can't stop!
I HAVE to figure it out in my head until I come up with some sort of conclusion. I must find a way to make peace with whatever it is in my head. Once I've done that, I'm finished with it!
I used to spend a lot of time apologizing to my friends or loved ones when I have basically reached what I call my Critical Mass Stage, but all I ever wanted was someone to understand.
These people have hurt me by yelling at me for not taking their resolution to the problem.
They get frustrated at me for putting too much thought into something that they deem unworthy.
They are actually mad at me because my mind thinks differently than theirs.
I try to explain.
Very few people have ever understood.
So I apologize to the ones that don't, and learn to talk more to the people that do.
I would like to think that all of my psychology classes have helped with that... or maybe it's just given me more to think about...
