Getting Clear

Your head fills up. Thoughts circling, problems turning in your mind, big ideas that won’t die, small anxieties that jolt you awake at 3 in the morning. The kind of mental static that makes straight thinking impossible.

The quick fixes work sometimes. Cold water. Moving. Sex. Buying something stupid. Jerking off. For a few hours the noise backs off and you feel lighter.

When it gets worse, you’re down to fight or flight. Actually facing the pile of shit, or running from it. Most people don’t have the strength to pick either one at first, so they sit with it instead, for days or weeks.

I’ve left town a few times because my brain wouldn’t stop spinning. Getting away from your apartment, your neighborhood, your routine - there’s something about distance that quiets the spinning. Or maybe it’s just distraction. I’ve heard people talk about moving away permanently to escape their own head, and I get it.

Everyone has their thing. Some people run, some drink, some use, some sleep with a stranger. I’ve tried most of them. None of it’s actually a fix, but it all beats sitting alone with it.

What I notice is that nothing works the same way twice. Whatever cleared your head last time won’t clear it the same way when you need it again. So you keep cycling through different things, hoping something lands.

I think real clearing doesn’t happen when you’re trying. It happens when you’re distracted enough by something else that the noise becomes background. Work. A project. Someone. The overwhelm doesn’t go anywhere; you just learn to carry it.