That voice in your head is present in every waking hour, and perhaps the only escape to be found is in deep sleep. The content and tone of that voice surely reflects our mind state: it gives us insight into our mental stew by showing us what's floated to the top of the mixture. It's often critical and judgemental; it may replay scenes from the past where the storyline and the ending are re-written. These vignettes are often projected into the future where you encounter the same characters and the story is re-played but the storyline is slightly different; often you will win in the future where you had lost in the past. And that mental story is replayed over and over all day, and all the next day, and the next.
Mind state is a product of your past, both the distant and the near past: you are the very leading edge of all you've encountered; your experience (your history), is you. Because the content and tone of the inner voice is reflective of mind state, it ought to be utilized as a resource in therapy, but alas it's not- therapists seek simply to shut it up, to anaesthetize it with benzodiazepines and hypnotics.
When we are taking psychiatric drugs and especially in discontinuation, the inner voice changes. The volume goes up, the pitch seems to modulate higher, and the flow-rate takes on an amphetamine staccato chatter! But the big change is in content! "What the hell was that? Where did that come from? Oh my God, I can't believe I had that stuff in my head! The thoughts seem to have taken over- I can't control my thoughts!"
It's the first time most of us have encountered anything like this, and it's the first time we've been forced to think about it.
Do I control my thoughts-- I mean normally-- do I control my thoughts?
Do I control my thoughts or do they just appear in my head? If I control my thoughts, wouldn't that mean I think them before I think them? Okay that doesn't seem to be what's happening. The truth appears to be that thoughts just rise out of my brain and emerge into consciousness. The content of the thoughts usually relates to what's happening in the moment- but not always! Sometimes a thought comes right off the wall or out of left field or out-of-the-blue or out of nowhere! Do we author these or any of our thoughts? I mean ever? I don't think so.
Of course within discontinuation the out-of-the-blue thoughts are far more vivid, colourful, and often deeply disturbing: we may be sitting having tea with someone and normally we would imagine reaching over and kissing that person on the forehead. But in discontinuation we are flashed an image of slashing their face with a butcher knife!! "Holy fffrigg!! Where did that come from? Is that who I have become now? Is that me? What's happening to me?" These thoughts and images are surely influenced by a brain struggling in frantic trial-and-error self-repair; these images are common to discontinuation and thankfully, they fade with time.
Do these frightening thoughts have meaning? Perhaps, but because it can't be readily discovered it's probably best to just accept it and marvel at the show; you can't stop it. Trying to stop it just introduces stress and the show might change to something even more disturbing. You can try to think different thoughts, but that exercise is soon dominated by the inner voice. Meditation seeks to interrupt the voice (what the Buddhists call 'the monkey mind'), and thereby insert spaces- moments of peace within the verbal automaticity. With practice the spaces become longer as you move toward less thinking, and inner peace. In-the-moment focus on something that intrigues you (a project, an important task- even an emergency) has the power to momentarily distract thought and suspend the inner chatter.
But then there's that out-of-the-blue event that interjects to show you that control of thought is impossible; perhaps the best we can do is learn to put longer and longer spaces between the thoughts through meditation.
I'm totally okay with knowing I don't author my thoughts. I am totally okay to acknowledge that I can only witness what comes out of my brain.
