What It's Like to Obsess About the Future Instead of the Past

I used to obsess about the past. Now I obsess about the future. This is progress, I think.

A little while ago, I wrote about how our recent disaster (a tornado) had affected my obsessive thoughts and interrupted my sleep. At the time, my thoughts were focused backward on all the belongings we’d lost that needed to be replaced. I was losing sleep with obsessive thoughts and spending the daytime cruising the web for potential purchases. I discussed this with my psychiatrist and he prescribed an increase in one of my medications, a mood leveler, that he thought might help me turn off the insistent thoughts and allow me to get to sleep more easily. He was right. It did help.

Now, however, I am obsessing over thoughts of what will happen months from now, next spring or summer. I am anticipating the rebuilding of our house and the housewarming party we should have. Yes, I am obsessing over what to serve at a party that is at least six months away, or perhaps even more. Two kinds of punch, obviously. Beer and wine? Cucumber sandwiches and melon with prosciutto? Cheese board with figs and nuts? All desserts? I’ve already changed the menu four times. I am already deciding what to wear. The red silk shirt a friend gave me? Jeans? Message t-shirt? Butterfly dress? Something I buy specially for the occasion? And, OMG, am I channeling Martha Stewart?

This is an odd feeling. For most of my life, I have obsessed about things that have already happened. I’ve spent literally dozens of years analyzing a failed relationship and how it has affected my mental health and emotional stability. To be contemplating and obsessing about the future is unfamiliar territory.

Obsessive thoughts are one of the hazards of bipolar disorder, as well as depression. I can remember having a mental recording device that played back for me every stupid thing I ever did or social faux pas I made. I still remember when one cute guy asked me for a glass of water and I gave it to the wrong cute guy. I still remember being mortified. I know this is not just a thing I experience because I have compared notes with others. It seems to be a thing amongst many fellow strugglers.

This time around, I worked out the thoughts of the past with choosing what things to replace now and what to postpone to a more appropriate time, like closer to when the house is rebuilt. I know I don’t need a new desk yet (though I have bookmarked several online). Ruined books I allow myself to replace, along with my husband’s wedding ring.

I do not know how to work out the thoughts of the future. The future is strange to me. I have so much trouble living in the present instead of the past that the future rarely occurs to me. If my husband asks me to make a decision about an event that’s one week away, I reply, “I can’t think about that yet.” My husband actually lives in the future a lot and asks me to make choices that are years, or even decades hence. It’s tiring on some existential level. I don’t know what to do for dinner and he wants me to discuss how we’ll spend our golden years.

Given what I know about myself and my disorder, it’s likely the closer the time comes to moving into the rebuilt house, the greater my anxiety will become. You’d think it would be a time of great joy, but I am already feeling pre-overwhelmed at the thought.

Even so, I think it is perhaps a touch healthier to be obsessing forward instead of backward. It acknowledges I do believe I have a future, I can plan for it and I can take some pleasure along with the obsessions. I can learn to appease my obsessive thoughts by giving them the more sensible parts of what they seem to demand. I can, to some extent, live in my present with work to do and deadlines to meet that keep me anchored in the “now.”

What will happen in the future, of course, I can’t predict or control. But perhaps I can train my brain to experience anticipatory enjoyment instead of anticipatory anxiety. That’s my goal, anyway.