Disjointed Thinking

My therapist described me as ‘having more disjointed thinking that normal.’ I’ve never heard that term before so of course I googled it. It scares me to think if that’s how I am.
Has anyone else ever been told that?

Yes actually. Scattered. Unable to maintain a line of thinking or reasoning. Transitions and connections between thoughts/ideas were just not there. Kind of all over the place.

Usually happened when I was very depressed and thinking was such a task, like trudging through quicksand. It was one of my symptoms that my symptoms were intensifying.

The good new is that it corrected itself and my depression and mental fatigue decreased.

@Artley, how did it get better? I’m reading it like it’s who I am.

It's important to see it more as a symptom of your current state, not as who you are as a whole person.

My therapist and pdoc both could see this as symptomatic of the level of my depression; they knew it would resolve as my symptoms resolved. For me, that usually meant a medication adjustment to help me get those symptoms under control . . . and time.

Did you have a disorganized feeling or an inkling of not being clearly understood before you received that comment?

Cognitive slippage can be from extreme stress , depression, or even being a first degree relative someone with schizophrenia.

When I was a tiny kid, I went a year without speaking in response to trauma. When I started talking again, my thoughts showed a bit of slippage / disjointedness that disappeared over time. Even though now as an adult I do well on logic and salience oriented tests like the law boards and the GRE, under extreme stress I revert to disjointed thinking; my associations become too loose or too "magical/ superstitious" and idiosyncratic. The problem is my therapist hears this, but I don't myself realize it without being told. If it goes on and on for weeks, I can get lost in a reality of my own, and it is scary in there. This doesnt happen to me ordinarily. It is related to being asked or triggered to reexperience trauma.

I'm wondering if you are hearing that your thoughts are disjointed bc something is going on with you right now acutely , or because it typifies a way of thinking ? One thing I read about is how difficult it is to distinguish between creativity and slippage. One person's original thinking and turn of phrase can strike another as either insightful or difficult comprehend. In other words, it is in the eye (ear) of the beholder until it reaches clinical levels.