This is something I must admit I've only looked into briefly but it
absolutely fascinates me. There is a theory that those suffering from certain
mental health problems can be more analytical in nature then their non
suffering counterparts. Logically that does make sense: when you suffer from certain issues you end up procrastinating and you go looking for a mental escape. Something to take your mind off things, just in a much deeper way.
From a personal point of view I certainly found that once my own metal health problems came to the fore, got diagnosed and I accepted them, I became much more analytical and obsessive in terms of researching news stories, getting involved in researching certain things, pouring over current events and so
on. I had to look beyond each headline into the specifics of each
story. On Twitter (under a pseudonym) I ended up getting added to random lists of journalists and researchers by delving into stories about missile systems, plane crashes,
eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. I followed a massive number
of people on the ground from all sides, finding myself more often than not knowing the
initial details of all the major stories like certain terrorism incidents and political situations before anyone else I knew - by obsessively collating and following and interacting with people
on the ground.
Everything became an obsession - and that really is the key word.
This is where certain behavioural traits came to the fore, in terms of me being
analytical and extremely detailed and thorough but to a vastly amplified extent. I didn't used to be
like this and therefore directly link things that were going on in my brain
at the time with other problems. This analytical obsession wasn't out of boredom anything like
that, but it did spiral and start to take over my life and was
certainly eating into my time. As I said before I think it was an escape, looking
at pictures and videos of the most graphic (and I really do mean graphic) scenes of torture, disaster, death and destruction that you can possibly imagine, which almost
normalised my own problems and my own issues that I faced. This is normal for people who have suffered various mental health issues in their
life as well as people who generally go through mental issues without a definite cause, like a specific trauma for example.
Speaking from personal experience only, I think you try to normalise what you've gone through and what you're suffering, by seeking out things that are far worse. It makes you think that maybe what you're facing/have faced isn't as bad as you think. That maybe you aren't in as bad a place as you think you are. The problem is that this doesn't actually resolve anything. You just bury it with an ever more detailed layer of information or news or whatever it is you're obsessing over at the time.
In time I started to feel wrong for throwing myself into inhumane stories just so that I could know everything about
everything, and thus divert my minds eye from my own problems onto those of others. It's not always the case that being interested in certain events and stories is wrong, but I think it's important on a personal level to realise if it's hiding something else. If it's a diversionary tactic. From my own perspective I think it's vital to care about the plight of others, but
to be so obsessive over every minute detail actually changes nothing to the individuals on the pictures and videos and only serves as a foil ignore my own
problems. Which are of course absolutely miniscule in comparison.
I have always had a fairly analytical mind. I have always wanted to know everything about everything but I think the difference is acknowledging when I'm learning for enjoyment, about films or sport for example, as opposed to getting involved with something like geo-locating atrocities that I can't do anything to change. It's good to be inquisitive and interested but it's also sensible
to realise that unless you're going to use that knowledge for something
it may be being used it to mask over something else. I've realised it can be pretty destructive to use something as a
foil, a shield or as a guard or even as I alluded to earlier as a mask to ignore
your own issues by throwing yourself into those of others.
This is a
particular area that still fascinates me. I think I'll read up on this another time, when I'm good and ready....
