#perseverating

The first computer I ever used was called the Kaypro...You would stick in two floppy disks, and then it would do a mysterious activity it called “swapping.” You typed a bit; it swapped a bit. You typed a bit more; it swapped a bit more. You had to wait for it...Soon, however, frustration set in. Sometimes you could get in only a few words before the endless swapping began. There was nothing you could do while it was performing this mysterious procedure. You just had to wait for it to do its thing. Often, it wouldn’t stop, and you were faced with a dilemma—sit there and watch it endlessly swap, hoping it would finish; or reboot...

I often think of that Kaypro in relation to a bad habit I have. It’s my inability to disengage from a topic that is causing me anxiety. A friend told me that there’s a psychological term for this—“perseverating.” I thought she’d made it up, but then I discovered that there really is such a word. My talent for perseverating is epic and usually fixes on a choice I’ve made that it’s too late to change. The intensity of my perseveration has no connection to what’s at stake. Should I take a 6:00 a.m. flight or an 8:00 a.m. flight? I’ll choose the 6:00 a.m. (because it assures me of being at my destination in plenty of time), but then I’ll perseverate for days over whether I’ve made an error. Will I be exhausted when I get there? I should have gone at 8:00 a.m. But then again, what if the 8:00 a.m. was delayed? Then I’d miss the event. But what if I oversleep and miss the 6:00 a.m.?

I have certain tricks to stop myself from perseverating. As I did with the Kaypro, I can attempt a reboot. This usually involves a sleeping pill. The hope is that if I go to sleep in the middle of a fit of perseveration, I’ll wake up knowing the right choice or reconciled to the decision I’ve made or no longer concerned at all. Often this works. But often I’m like the purgatory version of the Kaypro—as soon as I’m awake I’m right back into the mental swapping, this or that, this or that.

The Blogger: It's set... if we're going to get through this we'll need to start with the basics. Instead of perseverating so much of why we're so scared of the repeal, we'll need to put the trust in the hands of fate itself. Fate to some people would be God, or a Superstition that they carefully follow. We'll still get the words across, yet in all honesty we'll probably have to use the KISS method in order for it to work. We have until the 23rd of April, to early parts of May at the latest.

Strange Boy: We got this!

The Blogger: So we're going to show them what we got ^_^

ABSOLUTELY NOT!

dis-associative

disassociation

disconnect

Attempting to Resolve a plight… from another dimension.

Perseverating* about the past, or the future

Developing false narratives

Generating inherently faulty analogues.

Perseverate: repeat or prolong an action, thought, or utterance after the stimulus that prompted it has ceased. (New Oxford American Dictionary)

: continuation of something (such as an activity or thought) to an extreme degree or beyond a desired point. : specifically, psychology: the continual involuntary repetition of a thought or behavior. (Merrium-Webster)