Chaos Unleashed

I didn’t write this to be understood politely.

I wrote it because my nervous system was on fire and silence would have killed me.

This piece begins mid-panic because that’s how it always starts for me—no warning bell, no gentle incline. One second I’m standing in the world, the next I’m trapped inside my own body, breathing too hard, already behind. The white lights don’t just shine; they stab. My eyes burn. My hands clench like they’re bracing for impact. Something in me glitches and never quite resets.

That’s the first truth: it doesn’t stop.

When the sound comes in, it all comes in at once. Loud, soft, irrelevant, crucial—it arrives with equal urgency. My brain can’t triage. Every noise scratches. Every sensation bites. My head becomes overcrowded, a room with no exits. Even my clothes turn on me. Fabric tightens. Skin goes numb. Breathing stops being automatic and turns into a chore I’m failing at. I’m inhaling, exhaling, and still drowning.

This isn’t metaphorical suffering. My body is involved. My nerves are involved. There is no separation between thought and flesh.

When I say I can’t filter the noise, I mean there is no mute button, no dimmer switch. Every channel is screaming at full volume, and the pressure builds until something breaks loose and floods through me. Control slips away quietly at first, then all at once.

So when I shout don’t tell me I can make it stop, it’s because that sentence hurts more than the overload itself. It tells me this is a failure of will. That if I were stronger, calmer, better, I could choose peace. I can’t. I’m not refusing control—I’ve been overrun.

Time collapses next. Clocks become cruel. Five minutes stretch into eternity. Three hours vanish without leaving a trace. Everything dissolves into the same exhausting rhythm: perform, endure, repeat. Inside my head, voices pile on top of each other. One demands that I speak. One orders silence. One begs me to be authentic. Another insists I disappear. Whatever I choose, I’m wrong.

That’s when the question surfaces, heavy and sincere:

Why is existing this demanding?

The world doesn’t slow down for the answer. Instead, it throws contradictions at me like commands carved into stone. Slow down. Speed up. Shut up. Speak up. Are you even listening?

I am. I always am. That’s the problem.

The second chorus gets louder because the truth gets angrier. My brain feels oversupplied, wires crossed, electrified. Too much input, not enough insulation. I’m not asking for escape—I’m asking for a failsafe. If this were a machine, there would be an emergency switch. Something merciful. Something humane. But this is my ADHD brain, and there is no off button.

Then the conditioning kicks in. The rules I learned to survive start barking orders from inside my own skull. Don’t cry. Suck it up. Smile. Make eye contact. Pay attention. Focus. These aren’t my thoughts—they’re echoes of a world that demanded compliance before understanding. They loop until panic becomes discipline.

Rage follows. Not theatrical rage—exhausted, animal rage. I’m awake. Painfully awake. Drowning with my eyes open. The happy face goes on because that’s the cost of belonging. Every light, every sound, every thought pounds down on me, and I keep standing anyway.

That’s where God enters—not gently, not reverently, but in collision. I don’t whisper. I'm desperate.

If You made me like this, then look at it.

This pain. This pressure. This overload.

If there is intention here, prove it.

Why is there no emergency switch?

The system finally fails. Language fragments. Thoughts short-circuit. Data pours in, static spills out. People tell me to calm down while my brain glitches and freezes. I want to tear it open, rip something out, just to feel quiet for one second.

Then everything drops out.

No sound. No fight. No flight. Just stillness—the kind that comes after collapse.

And in that silence, something softer survives.

I don’t ask to be fixed. I don’t ask to be normal. I ask for meaning. If this wiring is deliberate, then let it matter. Aim it. Use it. Turn this sensitivity into sight. Turn this intensity into purpose.

God…

You made me like this.

Please don’t let it be for nothing.

Help me.

Lead me.

Use me.

I wrote this because overload isn’t a weakness—it’s a way of perceiving that cuts deep and wide. I wrote it to make the invisible violent, the internal undeniable, and the suffering sacred instead of shameful.

This is what it costs me to exist.

And this is me choosing to exist, in faith, anyway.

🤯Amy Lee Murr