Tired Ass Mom

Do your thoughts consume you to the point that you forget to communicate with others—because you’ve already played out the conversation so many times in your head that you forget you never actually said the words out loud?

(Yes, I know. Long intro sentence. But if you get it, you get it.)

My brain never stops. I’m way past being an overthinker. My mind is constantly going, to the point where mental exhaustion turns into physical exhaustion. I’m tired in my body because my thoughts refuse to rest.

This didn’t come from nowhere.

When I was 19, I spent a short time in rehab. High school—especially my senior year—was rough. That was the year my step-dad, Tom, stopped fighting his battle with bone cancer. The doctors told him the treatments were no longer about a cure—just buying time. Painful time.

At some point, he decided he was done.

When he was first diagnosed, they gave him six months. With treatment and a bone marrow transplant, he was cancer-free for a while. But it came back. Six and a half years after that initial diagnosis, he was living with tremendous pain every single day. The amount of medication he needed just to function was staggering.

And still—he was the best step-dad. He loved my mom fiercely. He loved us girls completely. I think about him every day, even now, 23 years later.

That year changed me.

I lost my footing. I got off track. My mom made the decision to put me in rehab, and while there, one of the counselors said something that has never left me: “Play the tape through.”

The idea was simple. Before making a choice, run the likely outcomes to the end—where it realistically leads. Jail. Loss. Death. Consequences.

I learned how to live inside scenarios.

And now, all these years later, I realize I never stopped.

All day, every day, I’m playing tapes.

Replaying past conversations—what I wish I’d said differently.

Pre-playing future conversations—what I should say, how I should respond.

Reading into tone, wording, pauses. Trying to understand motivations. Trying to stay ahead.

Sometimes I’ve had entire conversations in my head before the real one even happens. Other times, I forget I never actually said anything at all.

The constant thinking is overwhelming.

It looks like preparedness. It feels like control. But underneath it is vigilance—learned, practiced, automatic. A brain that decided long ago that staying alert was safer than resting.

I don’t have a solution here. Just an awareness.

And maybe a small hope that by putting these thoughts somewhere outside my head, they won’t need to keep circling quite so loudly