Everything. And nothing.

There are two words that feel dangerous to me at all times. No points awarded to anyone who can guess what words they are because, come on, really?

Those words are “everything” and “nothing”. And it’s scary to me how often they can mean the same thing.

I’ve spent the past half hour on my bed, on my knees with my head pressed into the mattress, like I’ve been praying. Sometimes I have been praying. Not to anyone in particular. Mostly just praying to my own brain to be quiet. To just stay quiet and stop yelling at me with a thousand voices that are all impatient and angry.

I guess it’s not so much praying as pleading, really. But hell, I would turn to prayer if I ever found out it helps make the noise go away.

“What’s the matter this time?” You may ask. And that brings me to my point.

Everything… but also nothing.

Nothing is wrong. Not really. I have things I need to do. But none of them are so urgent that I need to panic. Honestly, so many of the things are so mundane and inconsequential I can feel the eyes oh a hundred people rolling from here.

But everything is the matter. Every. Thing. Every single thing that I have to do. That I’m not doing. That I’m putting off in favor of other things that don’t matter as much. Every thing that I have to do is beating itself against the walls of my brain, screaming inside my head, trying to get out, or to make itself more dominant. And — like a room full of angry children — instead of sorting themselves out and taking it in turns to tell me what I need to do, each thing just gets louder and louder and louder.

They’re still there. Sometimes writing helps calm all of the other thoughts. Because writing is something that my brain can focus on, with no other distractions. Right now is not one of those times. All of the other thoughts are still there, pushing themselves through my brain and trying to stop me from having any sort of focus, no matter how small.

“Why are you writing!? You have so much shit to do! You’re just adding to it! Now you need to write it all! Proofread it! Do pictures for it! Reword it! What is your problem!?”

“You’re going to forget. You know you’re going to forget. You’re going to forget to… you’ve forgotten. You’ve forgotten you great fucking idiot! You KNEW this was going to happen!”

“Just send the email, asshole. It’s not difficult. Everyone else can do it. Why can’t you?”

“You’ve been home for weeks now. And you’ve not sorted out your things. Useless. Useless. Useless. Do it now. NOW!”

“God where is your life going? You don’t have a job, you don’t have a plan, you don’t even TRY to get either of those things. You’re pathetic.”

Honestly, I can’t hear the other thoughts any more -the ones that are actually trying to tell me things I need to do. In they end they each just start screaming about how absolutely bad and wrong and stupid I am. Until that’s all I can hear.

And yet, really, nothing is all that wrong. Sure, I’ve got things I have to do, but that could be solved if I wasn’t so incapacitated with anxiety to actually do the things.

In the same way that people in movies slap their hysterical comrade, I want to slap myself. I want to snap out of this downwards spiral that leads to all my responsibilities piling up so high that I suffocate. But I’m trying not to do that any more. I’m trying. But god that moment of quiet when the only thing I can concentrate on is the burn of my palm on my skin is all I want.

How messed up is it that I long for that shit? Pretty damn messed up, I’d say.

I need to find something that works like that for me. Something that makes things quiet for a little while.

UPDATE: I didn’t do it. The thoughts are still there. They’re a bit quieter now though. There was no ‘snap’ moment. I started doing things, and their voices eventually got a little bit softer, and a little less cruel. It feels awful, just living with them all in the background. I want them to go away entirely. To not judge me and everything I do or do not do. But I’m not going to hurt myself. I’m going to try not to.

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Originally published at moreimpossiblegirl.wordpress.com on July 19, 2016.