Manic depressive people aren’t the only people who have to deal with these kind of thoughts. It’s just that typically they are more common and more severe for manic depressives. Let’s look at each one individually, and then talk about how they combine.
Automatic thoughts are those that pop into your head out of no where. The common thing is to have an automatic thought and then say, “where the hell did that idea come from.”
Negative thoughts are thoughts with negative content. Some examples are “I always screw things up,” or “I’m stupid, and always will be.”
Racing thoughts are thoughts that race around your head at an increased rate of speed. How fast can racing thoughts go? I’m not sure what the maximum is, it would ultimately be limited by the speed of the hardware in out brain. But in practical terms, twice to then times faster is common.
The fun really begins when you start combining these ways of thinking. For example, “I’m gonna crash,” which may come out of nowhere while you’re driving. Another example would be having the thought “I’m a loser” race through your mind, repeating over and over again at a great rate of speed.
The combination that has had the greatest impact on my life combines all three: automatic negative racing thoughts. This happens when I’m severely depressed, and a negative thought will come out of no where and will race so fast no other thoughts can enter my mind. An example would be, “I’m useless so I’m just going to quit trying.” This is an actual automatic negative thought that took over my brain and led eventually to a panic attack. I’m sure you can think of other automatic negative thoughts that would cause such a reaction
The truth is you can also have racing automatic positive thoughts. In a lot of ways this defines mania, this is how common they are for someone who is manic or hypo-manic. I am certainly experiencing this at the moment, and it’s mindfulness that allows me to label it as such.
Today I’ve felt like I was high all day long. Sometimes I felt almost sober, others falling down drunk. What informed me of where my mood was at was my mindfulness of my mental state. The awareness was most often triggered by recognizing I was having automatic, negative, and racing thoughts. So have heart, this shows these kind of thoughts can lead to positive outcomes. At least I take heart in them, hopefully you would/will also if you become manic or depressed.