POV Overthinking

I get too many thoughts in my head. Sometimes I can't think straight because they cause too much noise and they don't stop. I haven't found a way to drown them out and there's nothing that can slow them down.

I've been told to breathe and wait for them to leave on their own.

They seem to come from a secret entrance in my mind, a location even I am not aware of. I can't close it and I certainly can't control what comes through it. I don't think I'm the only one whose mind is full of rush hour traffic. I know there are more people like me. I see them every day although they are indistinguishable from the rest of humanity.

I wish somebody would put a stop sign at every corner of my mind to prevent the thoughts from going too fast and spinning out of control. When I'm by myself the traffic gets worse, it starts moving in directions I didn't know it could. The thoughts start running into each other causing collisions that only I experience and they're indescribable.

Although the thoughts are intangible, they cause physical pain. I can feel their pounding on the left side of my forehead as if they were trying to escape but instead running into my skull. I wish the pain would stop. Controlling the thoughts is like hoping it rains even though the forecast says dry and sunny for the next 10 days or trying to catch said rain with a fishing net. Unlikely and then impossible.

Trying to describe the number of thoughts I can hear and feel at once is like trying to count how many people you see in a day when you walk through a crowded city or a mall. Turning every corner, you find someone you hadn't seen before, and your count is thrown off. You could start the count over again, but what's the point? Honestly. Sometimes it gets to the point where I'm not sure where my thoughts end and the automatic thoughts start.

It's hard to focus. 10 minutes of reading becomes a task that expends just as much energy as 8 hours at a job you don't like. Productivity drops to an all-time low. It's not impossible to finish tasks, they'll just be checked off even if they are incomplete. There's no quality control, which would expend more energy.

Maybe some of the thoughts in my head come from my overthinking about the thoughts themselves. When I think about what they mean or where they come from I spiral into questions of existentialism. I forget where I am. I start to wonder if there's any real meaning in my real thoughts. Will they ever lead to anything worthwhile?

Some thoughts come and go never to be seen again. While others return after long journeys only to escape before I can create something out of them. Then there are the thoughts that taunt me, they show half of themselves, and the other half I'm left to think about, trying to remember them even though I've never actually perceived them completely. Like waking up and not remembering more than a flash of a long dream, and wondering if it was that long at all.

On days when the thoughts are gone, I'm left in total silence. These days are rare. Tasks become easier, new-found productivity leaves me in an unexplainably positive flow state. Work and studies have meaning again. Relationships feel comforting and blissful. The silence feels strange but I welcome it. So I focus on other things. Until my inner rush hour starts again.