I spend the majority of my days watching my mind circle back on itself. A single spark of freshly baked doubt takes over my entire day and pulls me in. I feel its slipping in quietly. A simple question. An A1-level question people learn in their first week at a language school.
My first thought of action is to dismiss it, though it doesn’t really matter whether or not I engage with it. If it slips in this quietly, it makes itself known one way or another. Because I mostly live in my own head, this thought eventually multiplies and sends distress signals through my body. Ultimately, my thoughts close into a tunnel.
I try to engage with my loved ones, tap into some grounding techniques of my own, such as taking a bath, watching a four-hour YouTube analysis about either a show or a movie I watched or a book I read. Bullshit I do in the name of grounding only numbs me to be honest.
Sometimes in this process, my thoughts feel lighter for one reason or another. The lightness never lasts though. Doubt, fear/terror, action, relief, return. I think I have only been lately realizing how my loop of thought exhausts me. It’s rarely about the subject of the thought itself, for that can shift and change with time. What stays the same is the skin this loop wears. Because this routine is so in my roots, sometimes I forget not everyone deals with this storm of a thought process daily.
I am not fond of giving examples regarding such cut-from-throat-to-pelvis-on-an-operating-table topics and my therapist’s being ridiculously expensive only adds to the shame. But wherever I go, this loop follows. I can’t seem to step outside of it and sometimes I wonder if people can see it walking right behind me.
It’s been too long since I added stuff to my Crumbs collection. Hello.
