Do you struggle with deciphering between anxious thoughts and real, logical thoughts? Do you constantly wonder whether you’ve upset someone, somehow, with no actual idea why you think this, or have evidence to back it up?

Is it hard to snap out of that thought process?

Trust me, I’ve been there. In fact, I still do find myself there regularly.

For those with anxiety, our constant internal monologue driveling on the background can play devilish tricks on us.

Frustratingly, us anxious folk find it very difficult to know whether our worries are genuine, or if it’s the anxiety speaking.

I share my experience to help you identify whether it’s just your brain talking, and how to remedy it.

Before we start, I’d like to point out that there is a distinction and overlap between anxiety and neurodiversity (ADHD, ASD and auADHD, and more). As I’m not a doctor or clinical practitioner, I’ll approach this from an anxiety angle only, through personal experience.

As always, do see your GP for proper medical advice as a first point of call.

Anyway, the internal monologue will just not shut up most of the time — it’s very persuasive and extremely convincing.

Only until very recently, in the last few years or so, did I find out that most people don’t have an inherent droning voice in their head. Specifically, conversations with my mum and partner Mick, brought this about.

I happened to describe my thought process of an end goal or result I’d got to one day. It took a minimum of twenty plus steps to get there, and I’m being reserved here.

Their faces, especially Mick’s, made me feel stupid because they couldn’t comprehend the inner droning that had dictated to me what I had to do prior to reaching that end goal. For every goal; every task.

I had no idea that my familiar background narration wasn’t what everyone heard, too.

That’s not their fault either, I just felt like a weirdo after explaining it. Mum also described how her brain is quiet a lot of the time; that doing a task or chore could simply be ‘done’. It didn’t require any ‘preparation’ steps to get there.

The possibility of anxiety (or ADHD) paralysis gluing you to the spot (I’ll also address this in the near future) wasn’t a thing.

I could just not get my head around the fact that other people don’t have a narrator driveling on in the background, ‘assisting’ (think sabotaging) every move I made.

I’m talking from the first waking moment, to the last thing I think about before sleep. The driveling narrator you didn’t ask for is always there.

A ridiculous amount of reflection had helped me acknowledge this stuff.

To my dismay, there is no one true ‘normal’ monologue frequency as a guage. I tried so hard to land myself on a normalcy scale, realising there is no such scale.

It’s simply not possible to add a numerical figure or scale to internal ‘monologuing’.

The Guardian has an article that explores this idea which I found interesting: Is it true that up to half of people have no inner monologue?

How to recognise anxious, internal thoughts

The best way to describe what having an internal, driveling, droning monologue sounds like, it would be something like this:

• It’s an invisible voice that never, ever, shuts up (which is why sleeping eludes us oftentimes).
• It sounds like you; it’s your voice.
• It’s inane, that ninety-nine percent of the time is completely unnecessary and unhelpful.
• It’s knowing that the internal droning on might have been useful during our hunter-gatherer times (read a bit about that here in a past blog post), it’s just two thousands years too late.
• It’s inner discussion with yourself ranging from the chores you need to do in your head – yes, we can have conversations internally with ourselves (I do this often).
• … To thinking about existential/nihilistic/absurdist/philosophical and abstract concepts, etc. ect.
• It’s thinking about stockpiling food and preparedness plans incase of a nuclear bomb going off (when is this ever considered normal?). Oh and you’ve definitely thought about doomsday/disaster plans for the cats/pets. There’s no way you’d leave them behind.

• It’s probably spending an abnormal amount of time thinking about past, prominent figures/things that you’ve listed somewhere for future research. You’ve may have promised yourself you’ll come back to them soon and you truly meant it at the time. Here’s an example of a research list I have that will be reviewed tomorrow, or probably years later, or probably never…

These are a few examples that our anxious thoughts have created. If I’d of documented more, we would be here all day and night, and neither of us want that 😅

There’s good news for you, though Private.

You’ve already started to recognise and distinguish anxious thoughts from reading this alone.

Knowing whether they’re mad at you should hopefully have started to become easier.

It’s hard to do, though.

Identifying anxious thoughts can’t be mastered straight away; it can take time, and needs a lot of reflection.

Spending more time thinking about how your brain works (that may have cropped whilst reading this) is recommended.

There’s more on this later on if you need help on how to do this.

How else do internal monologues sound?

This video (in a humourous way) sums up the internal monologue quite a few of us experience pretty well (either through ADHD, anxiety, or more):

Now that we’ve talked about the internal monologue and how it feels, let’s address the topic at hand.

How to tell if they aren’t mad at you and it’s just your anxiety

This part is the harder bit.

If you think someone might be mad at you, I want to gently say this to you.

The person in question is 99% not mad at you.

Of course, this isn’t helpful when your brain is telling you otherwise.

You’re brain will be putting it’s utmost effort into making you feel like you might have upset them.

Logically, your brain is only making sure you’re prepared for every eventuality.

This way you can immediately address any issues and put your mind at rest.

So…

The first thing we need to address is why you think someone might be mad at you.

Could it be:

• Said person responded to your text message with just ‘K.’ or ‘Okay.’ Even worse, and shock-horror: if they omit the kisses at the end of the message they usually include (a British only thing) — you’re flooded immediately with thoughts that they hate you and the friendship/relationship is over. 
• Their tone feels ‘off’ and not their usual type of reply – anxious folk can sniff it a mile away — you’re flooded immediately with thoughts that they hate you and the friendship/relationship is over.
• They didn’t reply to your message — you’re flooded immediately with thoughts that they hate you and the friendship/relationship is over.
• You’ve forgotten to reply to a message and the time elapsed you perceive is too long now to do so — you’re flooded immediately with thoughts that they hate you and the friendship/relationship is over.

You’re flooded immediately with thoughts that they hate you and the friendship/relationship is over

I know.

I jest a bit here.

But, catastrophising is an anxiety symptom and extremely understandable.

They don’t hate you, or are mad at you under any of those circumstances (or at least the chance they are is microscopic).

Your brain is responding to those messages negatively and maaaaybeeeeeee… Slightly irrationally – although it feels like a completely normal response for you (which is true).

What to do now…

Figuring out if your person is mad at you could be approached in a number of ways.

First and foremost – take a pause

Despite what your brain is telling you, you have little evidence that shows you that they’re mad at you.

Taking a few deep breaths and use grounding techniques is absolutely okay.

Ask

Simply asking the person something along the lines of “Are we okay?”, or maybe “You seemed a bit stressed/anxious earlier, everything okay your end?” is okay, too.

You’re not being confrontational here at all – you’re showing concern. Remember: concern is the only reason why you’re here.

Sleeping on it

Sometimes, ‘sleeping on it’ can also be the best remedy. What might feel like an emergency when you interpreted them possibly being mad at you, contemplating the next day can placate things. Trust me, I know.

Writing about it

I’ll definitely write a post about the benefits of writing thoughts down in the future. But, right now, if you’re struggling with thoughts around whether someone is mad at you, write it down.

You don’t need a special notebook or notepad, you just need a pen and paper.

If you don’t have these, use your phone via a notes app. Heck, you can even use email or the texting app. Just make sure not to send anything 😅

Writing things down helps because it’s not a person. There’s no judgement, no one will read it, and you’ll probably forget what you wrote in the morning.

In conclusion

Knowing whether someone is mad at you, or is it just your anxiety, is hard to know. Your internal monologue may be playing tricks on you, as it often can.

I hope I’ve helped to decipher things just a little bit!

As always, this is from my own experiences and perspective.

If I haven’t helped, I completely get that too. I’d highly recommend getting your bum over to your doctor in the nicest possible way.

As always, much love,

Jess xoxo