Warning: May Contain Flashing Images

My mind is always racing:

What if?

Why?

What will I do?

Why do I feel this way?

Is my mind open to all the possibilities as to why this is happening?

Oh God, what if I'm completely unaware?

It's extremely vexing. All I want to do is sleep.

Night-time is the most dangerous time for me, it's the most vulnerable time. I can go from fine to manic in just a few seconds.

There are two reasons why my mind is so plagued between the time of closing my eyes and drifting off.

The first is because during the day, I have tried to shut out all the things that have unsettled me. I have to do this because it is too much for me to process. It may sound strange but I am so sensitive to the suffering of the world (and myself, and those around me) that if I don't shut it out, it consumes me. RSPCA, NSPCC, starving children and overworked donkeys as well as the long list off issues posted on my news feed. It becomes overwhelming. So I blank as much out as possible but no matter how hard I try, it somehow seeps in to my subconscious and harasses me at night. That's when I can't shut out the noise and the flashing images in my head. I get so frustrated that I end up in a panic and I have to force myself awake and distract myself with something before I become inconsolable.

The second reason, in case the first wasn't bad enough, is that my mind likes to torture me with 'what if' and other ridiculous questions. My mind, I realise I am speaking of my mind as if it is a separate entity to me but as anyone with mental health issues will tell you, most of the time it is an uncontrollable beast that can become very destructive to itself. My mind creates scenarios, constructing every possible scene it can conceive until it finds the perfect one. It then gets disheartened by the notion that 'life just doesn't work that way' and proceeds to run every eventuality that could possibly lead up to that scene. Slightly insane, no? Usually it is just replaying moments, though. Usually the thing I am obsessing about has already happened and the reason I am obsessing about it is because I may not have handled it in the way I would have liked to.

I am fully aware that I worry too much, I am fully aware that I insanely over analyse everything and that is probably a deciding factor in my depression but I am taking steps to try and rework this.