Mental Hyperactivity

I have always had an overactive imagination.

One of my favorite games as a child was to play in my backyard, pretending that I had a horse named Blackie that followed me around. In my mind, Blackie and I would gallop through the woods behind my neighbor's house, and I would feed him in the pretend stable in my yard.

There were other games I played--my friend Nicole and I would ride through the neighborhood on our 10-speed bikes, as superheroes coming to save the world from evil. My bike's name was Thunder (Nicole's was Lightning), and we had a theme song that we would sing as we sped towards the innocent victims that needed our assistance.

Nicole and I could play for hours with Fisher-Price Little People, but it was a complicated soap opera world they lived in, where twins vied for the same role in a toothpaste commercial, boyfriends cheated on their girlfriends, and families were in constant turmoil.

All of these things seemed much more exciting than our own lives (with happily married parents and siblings who slightly annoyed us, in a nice quiet neighborhood in a small midwestern town). Thanks to my mother, I rarely watched television (1 hour limit per day) and we didn't have any video games until I was 10 and my sister and I pooled our money to buy one ourselves. Mom made a rule that we HAD to read at least an hour each day before we could do anything else. My sister saw this as torture, but I thought it was the best rule ever created at our house.

Then, I'm sure my parents saw my overactive imagination as a blessing--I could be out in the back yard for hours, entertaining myself. I'm sure that my imagination is at the root of why I feel the need to be creative.

There is a downside to this imagination, though--it hasn't gotten any less powerful since I was in elementary school. In fact, I think it has gotten MORE powerful, and more dangerous.

I am easily distracted at work, or even with friends, or at home in the middle of a movie. My brain is taken over by my crazy imagination and I can't focus at all. When I'm driving I imagine crazy scenarios, straight out of an action movie. I worry that I'll drive off the road thinking I'm being chased by a spy from the former Soviet Union.

When my friends or family are late arriving to my house to pick me up for some event, I imagine that they've had a terrible accident. My imagination takes me through all the stages of grief in lightning speed. I imagine what it would be like to continue my life without them--how heartbroken I'd be, how unable to continue, how crushed. Then my brain concocts a heroic story of survival and rebirth as I work through my pain to become a better, stronger person.

In conversation, I have a hard time taking what someone says at face value. Every movement, every facial twitch, every choice of word sends me reeling into what they're really thinking, and what they meant and where they've been. With friends I haven't seen in a while, I imagine inserting myself into their interesting lives. Sometimes I imagine how my life would have turned out differently if I had made this choice or that choice, and I can see the entirety of my existence mapped out before me in the new direction.

The problem is I get wistful about it, and start to believe my imaginary scenarios could and should be real, which makes me feel unbalanced and chaotic. Even the horrible ones--I am such a brave heroine in my own mind that I almost wouldn't mind if something tragic happened, just so I could live out those scenes in real life.

This overactive imagination is part of Commandment #9 (Think Moderation), but I'm not sure if there is a way to stifle that part of my brain. I've started writing down the stories that are coming out of that part of my head, in the hopes that if I can get them out of there, I won't obsess as much, but it could make it worse. Any ideas about how to quiet the mind? (Substance free suggestions, please--I've already tried chemical remedies.)