Currently Accepting Applications for a New Brain

Sanity and sleep required, qualifications optional.

I am overwhelmed by so many thoughts that I feel I’m drowning. I see myself going down, slowly, deliberately, as if gravity has chosen me for something I don’t understand. I try to breathe, but even that feels borrowed. My head is heavy, swollen with noise. Thoughts, so many thoughts, circling like insects in a jar I can’t open. I want to rest. If I could unscrew my skull and step out of it, I would. Just for a few hours. I want silence. No, not peace, just the absence of pressure. I want to lie still and whisper, ‘not a thought behind these eyes’, like that would save me. The noise is too much; I want out of this moment.

I’ve forgotten how I lived until yesterday. I wake up and can’t remember the hours before. I don’t know if I’m losing touch with reality, or if reality is quietly peeling itself away from me. What is real? What isn't? I’ve stopped pretending to know. I must know something, deep within, somewhere, but today, I don’t. Just for today, I don’t know anything. Days pass and each one scrapes away who I was. And if I no longer know who I was, then who am I now? Who is speaking? Who is asking? I don’t know. I think I’m running, but I don’t know in which direction.

I think something is chasing me, an idea, a decision, a shadow I stepped on too long. Should I run toward it or away? I don’t know who I am today. And if this continues, will I even notice when I disappear? And I wonder, what happens to people who forget who they are? Do they vanish? Or do they continue, hollowed out, going through the motions with a mind that betrayed them long ago? Is this dementia, or just the mind quietly devouring itself? Is this what madness feels like? A silent revocation of the self? A form stamped in triplicate that says, ‘no longer applicable’.

What is this stage of my life called? Insanity maybe. If it is, then how long will it hold me captive here where days feel like chains, months like locked doors? Or is this something else? An unmarked territory where reason no longer walks and I am left wandering, lost, hoping for a map that never comes. A place between who I was and who I might become, if I become anyone at all. And what if it’s not insanity at all but something worse, an invisible waiting room where the self dissolves slowly and no one comes to call my name, where time stretches thin and the edges of me blur into nothing. Now that’s a thought that feels too frightful to fully grasp.

I am happy. I really am. I’m satisfied with certain parts of my life. It’s just that I didn’t expect this awkward stage to come. But then again, I’ve been awkward my whole life, so no surprises there. It feels silly, really. All I want is a quiet life where I’m living my dreams. I want to achieve certain things so badly that I don’t know who I am without them. And I’m afraid that if I forget those dreams, I don’t know who I’ll be. I don’t want to be anyone else but this version of me. I like who I am, and I don’t want to let go of this self. In a way, I’m afraid that if this version of me disappears, I might just die. That would be better than losing myself. I know it sounds silly, but it means the world to me. I’m not against change. Change and erasure are different. I might change over time, but the complete erasure of self, how would I ever recover from that? I don’t want it. I know I probably shouldn’t feel this way, but but the thought refuses to leave, stubborn as a wound that won’t heal.

I used to go out with my grandmother, Dadi, often. But this one day surfaced in my memory just a few days ago. I must’ve been around twelve. Back then, there was a man in our neighbourhood who sold a very special kind of yogurt, and everyone in my family loved it. That morning, I had gone with my Dadi to buy it. It was early, the kind of morning when school kids fill the streets. It was either a Saturday and I had the day off, or a Hartal had been called by the Resistance leaders. Either way, the roads were mostly empty. On our way to the shop, we saw two boys around my age, in school uniforms.

We were walking, and so were they. One of them looked at my Dadi and called her an old woman. Technically true, but not entirely fair, she wasn’t that old. Her hair was still dark and shiny, and she walked with purpose. We ignored them and carried on toward the shop, determined to get the curd before it sold out. And we did. It was packed into the container we’d brought with us.

On our way back, we saw the same two boys again. Their school must’ve been closed too because of the Hartal, and now they were headed back home. One of them started about my Dadi, again. I don’t know what was wrong with him. But she wasn’t alone, and I wasn’t about to let it slide.

I was furious. Before I go on, you should know I grew up with three brothers, which basically makes me an honorary bro. I was the one carrying the yogurt. And I threw it. Right at them. Some of it landed on them, some on the road, the container and its lid clattering apart. It felt strangely satisfying. I think I may have landed a punch or two as well. It just… happened.

Thankfully, it didn’t escalate. Looking back, I’m grateful they didn’t hit me back. That would’ve been truly embarrassing. My Dadi? She just told me it was alright. We came home, and I told my brothers about the heroic thing I’d done in her honour.

I think about that day sometimes, and it feels good to remember how carefree I was. That kind of freedom, it didn’t last. Somewhere along the way, it ended. Now, everything feels like a calculated step. I’m not saying I want to go around throwing punches at boys again, but still, there was something unfiltered about that version of me. Something raw and unafraid. These days, I feel like there’s a different set of expectations for women, and those expectations slowly blur the line between where I begin and where they start. It gets hard to tell which parts of me are truly mine, and which ones I’ve shaped just to meet the image others hold of me.

I don’t know the exact moment it changed, when I stopped acting on instinct and started editing myself. Maybe it was gradual, like a slow tide pulling pieces of me away. Maybe it was one big moment I never registered until much later. But suddenly I was more aware, of how I walked, how I spoke, how much space I took up in a room. Everything began to feel like performance. I wasn’t trying to be someone else, not exactly, I was just trying not to give anyone a reason to question me. That’s the thing about growing up as a girl, the world trains you to become small in ways you can’t even name until you try to stretch out again.

It’s just a day, it will pass, I tell myself. It will pass. I know it will. What’s meant to happen is bound to find its way to me. Whatever my destiny holds, it won’t slip through my fingers. I believe that, truly. But still, I can’t help but hope, hope, that my dreams and my destiny are not strangers passing each other by. I just hope they’re looking in the same direction. That all this longing, all this effort, isn’t misplaced. That I haven’t poured too much of myself into something that was never mine to begin with.

Because what if they are misaligned? What if all I’ve ever wanted was never meant for me? What if I’ve built my identity around things that were only ever meant to pass through me, like visitors in transit? That thought terrifies me, this idea that I might have devoted years, maybe even my entire self, to chasing a mirage. I wonder then, would I have the courage to start again? Or would I quietly fold into whatever is left, reshaping myself into someone I never chose to be? I don’t want that. I don’t want to become unrecognisable to the very person I’ve fought so hard to become.

Despite all these thoughts, I am content, I really am. I just can’t help but imagine the worst sometimes. But that’s how humans are, right? It’s alright to spiral into an existential crisis every now and then. The important part is knowing how to climb back out. You dust off the thoughts, gather yourself, and find the strength to stand again. I know the drill. I’ve rehearsed it enough times to be fluent in recovery. So I tell myself, again, I’m alright. This will pass. It always does.

In the meantime, I really want to read a novel or maybe even a whole book series. I feel like it could reset my soul. Just this morning, I read a fanfic that moved me so deeply I could feel the tears on my face. It was so tragic. Both main characters died in the end, and they were buried together because one couldn’t rest without the other. No, really, the second one even died only because their soul was possessed by the one who died before them.

Right now, only a sprawling, endless Sarah J. Maas book series, packed with enough twists, heartbreak, and fierce heroines to drown out every stray thought, can drag me out of this fog and shove a little real happiness back into my world. Nothing less will do.

P.S. For anyone who thinks I’m spiralling, don’t worry, my descent has a sarcastic soundtrack and a very reluctant sense of humour. But by God, I really don’t want to end up like Ferrari strategies.

Advice to all: Keep moving forward, preferably with a really good playlist.

I really enjoyed this song: