When you are in busy home with two young children, you sometimes yearn for some kind of silence. A break from the cries for attention and what ever is on the Nick Jr. Then I finally get that outside peace. Both kids manage to nap at the same time. I change the channel to something I want to watch. Sometimes I just turn it off the TV and listen to the silence. I will sit and listen to the wind blow through the trees. The roosters, hens and ducks mill about outside. The soft hum of the interstate. Then it begins.

It starts with a thought. A single simple thought. Then another thought which leads to another thought. They just keep piling on and on. Like an snowball rolling downhill in one of those cartoons, just growing out of control. It seems so innocent at first. Just small wonderings. An ideas. Then it turns into worry and panic. No. I really don’t care for those moments of silence. When it is late at night and everyone is out cold. Yet somehow your mind is awake just screaming. Not anything truly linear that you could get out onto paper. Just one thought jumping to another. All you want to do is go to sleep but your mind is hopped up on its own kind of Red Bull.

I can’t imagine where the mind gets all its energy from. It seems like some days that it is the only thing that has any kind of energy. Even at my worst moments of depression, my mind will still race on like a thorough breed. I was always told that writing would help. It seems impossible to do when you have eight hundred ideas trying to escape your mind at the same time. Your fingers struggle at what to put down first. They try desperately to put it all down at once but it comes out as a jumbled mess. Two thoughts smashed together like some kind of awkward sandwich. It only causes so much stress and anxiety.

Then when you are trying your hardest to get to get it all out the “static” starts to build. At least that is always how I described it. When I am completely overwhelmed, it feels like there is static building pressure under my skin. I remember when I was a teen and I had no idea how to deal with it. When the “static” had built to the point where I couldn’t stand it anymore, I would subconsciously scratch at my wrist in an attempt to get it out. I didn’t even realize I was doing it half the times. My mind was so full of this “static” that my body would cope for me. Sometimes, I would make tiny cuts in my skin to release the pressure. Anything to make it stop. I will say that I haven’t done that in years. On the very rare occasion I will scratch my wrist. When I get overwhelmed sometimes you will see me swirl my pointer finger around my thumb. When I am really at the edge I will do it with both hands.

My husband always talks about going out west where you can be in the wilderness and hear absolutely nothing. I have always told him that that just doesn’t appeal to me. I think that is maybe why. I am afraid that my head will fill the silence for me. It gives me anxiety just thinking about it now.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by racing thoughts? If so, How do you cope?