rackers co

“You just need to stop overthinking.”
Oh? Wow, thank you so much, I had no idea, my entire mental state just shifted and I have you to thank for it. Had never thought of that before. Just stop overthinking. Shit.

I’m crying, tears are running down my face and to anyone on the outside they would assume that, while my face is buried in a book, I’m crying over a character’s fate. They do not see into my mind and the fact that literally all of a sudden, out of the blue, unbidden thoughts run through my head; I was enjoying being in my fantasy fiction land within the confines of pages, but thoughts I don’t want to think jump at me, cloud over my eyes so I can’t go back to focusing on the words on the page, and I’m crying because of these ideas occurring in my mind. These unwelcome, fucking hurtful thoughts.

I lay down to rest, and my heartbeat feels stronger, and against my throat it feels like it’s going to pulsate out of me. My body and my heart are doing their best to yell at me; to say, hey, look at us! We’re alive! And my brain is thinking hurtful thoughts again, but my brain is counteracting those thoughts, and there is a battle in my mind of which is right and which is not.

And it feels like my brain and my heart are at odds with each other, they want to be on the same side, but my heart is going no feel this, we are hurt, we are so hurt, feel it; and my brain is saying, I know you’re hurt, but we’re not going to get better if we keep letting you bring us down; think logically, move forward, the reason we are using to be hurt is not a valid reason to be hurt.

And I wanted to tell him that even though I’d never been in love, I knew what it was like to be in a feeling, to be not just surrounded by it but also permeated by it, the way my grandmother talked about God being everywhere. When my thoughts spiraled, I was in the spiral, and of it. — John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

It’s being told to “live in the moment,” by people who wait all week for the weekends. Who count down their work day and shut off their thoughts by alcohol consumption and situationships.

It’s remembering moments you had thought you’d forgotten, times you had pushed so far back into your head you figured the memories untouchable. They pop back in as if you invited them around for a cup of tea, and you’re mulling over moments from long ago. With the help of these unwarranted thoughts, these unwanted friends, they dig you further into a pit of self-destruction until you can no longer see light.

You know the help is there. The ladder is right behind you. But sometimes it takes all human strength, strength you’ve convinced yourself you don’t have, to turn your body around and climb.

And it’s as simple as this: I cannot change my overthinking as much as you cannot. I can do everything in my power to work at a better me, to hope for a better day, and to know that life is a gift.

But it is not as simple as, “you need to stop overthinking.”