We’ve all been there. That little voice in the back of your head that can’t let you catch a break. It’s convinced that everything you do isn’t good enough. It is, in fact, convinced that you haven’t ever done anything worthwhile, ever, and should probably just go back to bed and stay there forever because it’s not like there’s any point in you having gotten up in the first place.
‘Round some bits of the internet that you should all start spending more time in, we have a name for that voice: the Jerkbrain. Jerkbrain is, to put it mildly, a jerk. Some of us have a louder Jerkbrain than others. Some of us have Jerkbrains so damn loud that we have little packets of pills and regular appointments with anti-Jerkbrain coaches to deal with ’em. Some of us are luckier and have reclusive Jerkbrains that only show up every so often. Maybe somewhere there’s a lucky fecker who was born without a Jerkbrain or who’s managed to kick theirs to the kerb. If that’s you and you’re reading, by the way? Please teach me everything you know.
I’ve realised something about the Jerkbrain lately. It’s possibly the most important thing to know about it. It’s the thing that separates Jerkbrain from the far healthier voice of “oh crap I fucked up on xyz.. better fix that”. It’s this: Jerkbrain lies.
Jerkbrain lies.
Continued at the Tea Cosy’s new home. See you there!
considertheteacosy.wordpress.com 
My friend, who has a wonderful blog about depression here: http://notaloneinthere.wordpress.com/ uses the term Brain Gremlins rather than Jerkbrain. Same deal though. They live in your head and tell you things like “you’ll never be any good at anything and you’ve wasted your entire life and you should give up on everything now” when in fact the situation is that you’ve done badly at this one thing for whatever reason.
Hi,
Meditation can be a great tool to overcome negative thought patterns. I recently wrote about some of my experiences.
http://mirannanda.com/2013/02/24/from-madness-to-mindfullness/
Best wishes on taking back your brain.
m<3
Mindfulness meditation is actually something I’ve been planning on looking into and have (argh) not gotten around to. I may have to take your comment as a timely reminder to get off (on?) my ass and do something about that.
It’s interesting though- I came to thinking about mindfulness as a thing I’d like to do through roller derby (training), of all things. Learning how to do new and different physical things requires such a different kind of concentration from the very cerebral type that I’m used to. I found that when I focus on movement and physicality I end up feeling incredibly present in a really awesome way. It’s like it kick-starts my brain out of depressive thought patterns and reminds me to focus on the here and now, damnit. Which, well, leads pretty darn directly to mindfulness. And bruises. Mindfulness and bruises.
hahaha
I like yoga for those very reasons, and I rarely get bruises from it… Hooping is another story. I have a tendency to push my body hard enough to damage the delicate bits, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Jerkbrain may actually be behind some of that as well. 😉
May your path to wholeness be littered with the bruised and fallen bodies of the opposing team.
m<3
1. Seconding mindfulness meditation. It is awesome and helpful.
2. Mindfulness as part of other activities is totally a valid and awesome way to do it. In fact, a lot of the exercises they teach you in the beginning are just being deliberately aware of you are doing as you are doing it. You can mindfully walk to work, mindfully eat breakfast, whatever! And if roller derby is a natural place for you to do that, that’s awesome. Honestly, I could probably stand to do a bit more mindfulness while learning new physical skills…. I’ve been the clumsy/uncoordinated one my whole life, and I’m still so baffled by learning new skills requiring physical coordination that it often reduces me to tears.
I’ve found it best to directly confront my Jerkbrain (dependent on what it is saying, of course). My performance review came right when my Jerkbrain was hammering me with “you’re not good at anything!” and the praise of my superiors for my work kicked it right in the cerebrum, and their specific suggestions for improvement gave me something to work on in a positive way. I was also feeling extremely worried that my housemate resented me, as my bout of depression meant I was dropping the ball a bit on dishes and not leaving piles of my stuff around. So I finally screwed up all my courage and asked if she resented me. She said no and made me tea and we watched Alias together. For me, knowing the Jerkbrain lies unfortunately does nothing for the emotional impact of its lies, so I find direct feedback about reality (“I am perceiving that I suck at everything! Is it true?” “No! I am perceiving that you are winning at life, proceed!”) to be really helpful when I can get it.
Still haven’t figured out what to do when it convinces me I shouldn’t bother getting up though. That’s a hard one. I can overcome it for things like work, because work=money=food+shelter, but for pesky things like grocery shopping or seeing my friends, I still struggle.
Aoife (above) just told me that she’d read this earlier today and mentioned my blog in the comments. I’ve actually just finished writing up a post about my brain-gremlins this minute. Crazy coincidence! (Or awesome Aoife-coordination 😛 )
Someday I’ll learn how to deal with jerkbrain/brain-gremlins. Someday…
I think they’re more of a thing to be… handled as they show up than gotten rid of entirely. Y’know?
And I am all for awesome Aoife coordination!
Thank you, thank you for this today. My jerkbrain has completely taken over my life and in fact has been trying to kill me. I’m not exaggerating in the slightest here. But knowing that others (especially someone as generally awesome as you) has a jerkbrain too, and manages to fight it more or less… I’ll remember that, and it’ll make me a bit stronger.
I’ve just discovered yr blog and on the basis of this alone, suspect I need to continue reading. Thank you for reminding us that we’re not (always) unreasonable, irrational or worthless.
now that I have given my jerkbrain THIS face, It has gotten smaller and has ledd authority i my internal landscape. It still looks like my controlling Ex boyfriend too, but now I see them standing side by side … instant comedy
http://imgur.com/eocOv
Ohmygawd that’s terrifying! I love it.
yeah it’s an NLP trick I heard of years ago … make that inner critic look ridiculous, laughable … I am finding it hard to stop jerkbrain sounding like my ex BF today, but, perhaps I’ll wakeup tomorrow and that will have shifted. Just quit ciggies 15 days ago, so the DT’s are causing a lot of image based processing and dream stuff
I think recognising the existence of the Jerkbrain is the first step! good luck x
I love that I have a name for this now. “SHUT UP, JERKBRAIN!” Way more fun and effective than, “SHUT UP, BRAIN!”
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