The Explosion of Mental Processes Caused by Entangled East Asian Family Relationships

In the tangled relationships of East Asian families, those involved often find themselves caught in an explosion of racing thoughts:

What does A think? What does B think about A thinking that? What will C think? What does A think about what B and C think? What does B think about A thinking that B thinks that? How does C view B thinking that A thinks that B thinks that? What will D, E, and F think when they see this situation? And what do I need to do to make A think this, B think that, and C, D, E, and F think those things? But it won’t go smoothly: A, C, and D will first think this, and then B, E, and F will think that. They’ll think these things about me, and I’ll keep doing this, after which A, B, and D will think this, and C, E, and F will think that...

This constant jumping between other people’s perspectives (A, B, C, D, E, F) is like launching a new thread each time. Every jump draws you into deep empathy, while you also imagine all sorts of possibilities, details, and emotions. In other words, every process consumes enormous mental and emotional resources. Each thread keeps spawning new threads, aimlessly and chaotically, until the processes explode and the brain crashes.

As a child, I couldn’t understand it when I saw adults caught in this state: brows furrowed, brains frozen, faces like blue screens of death. Later, I experienced that freeze myself.

This mental drain and endless working through scenarios is suffering that OpenAI cannot take on in place of humans. As I wrote previously in “The Numbness of Highly Sensitive People,” throughout this entire process, the one thing you never give due weight to is what you yourself think. Nor do you step back into an objective, rational observer’s position, keeping some distance from everyone. The “gift” of highly sensitive people unfolds: a conceited, people-pleasing personality.

In families caught in this situation, no one has a sufficiently healthy inner core, enough independence, or a clear separation between their own responsibilities and other people’s. Their personalities are unstable, negative, and toxic; their relationships with one another lack simplicity, plainness, truth, goodness, and beauty. The family hierarchy is confused, and the atmosphere is oppressive, heavy, entangled, and strained.

Ways to respond:

A. Let go, cut ties, and clear things out—pull the plug directly. Be strict about whom you let into your life and gentle with yourself. Distance yourself from any relationship in which you are not respected and truly loved.

B. These explosions of racing thoughts are also why people so often say: spend less time overthinking and more time putting things into practice by doing small things.

C. Stop seeking outside yourself. Accept what you cannot control, accept your powerlessness, refrain from forcing things, and let things take their natural course.