The why to rewire

Truth is, when I finally broke, my head was a mess of someone else's words. It was beyond overwhelming. Pile on barely functioning, the crushing weight of depression, and this hair-trigger self-defense mode where even turning on a light felt like a threat – that was my life.

I’ve touched on this before, but it keeps hitting me because at the start, the idea of actually rewiring your own messed-up thoughts felt impossible, like trying to breathe underwater. Where the hell do you even begin to untangle that?

So, for a second, let’s not look at what dragged us down, but at who we became in the middle of it. Yeah, someone might have started things, but let’s look at it straight: how did I become a victim to myself? What was the outcome I created, and how the hell did I do it? Let’s own some of this mess, at least for now

Think about depression, the real soul-crushing kind. Here’s how I see it: it’s the final result of learning to cope with life in all the wrong ways, inside and out.

Anxiety? That’s your body screaming at you for not dealing with the emotional stress, for living in the fear you build up by avoiding what needs facing.

And phobias? Pure and simple, the messed-up end result of wiring an irrational fear to something that isn’t actually a threat.

How do I know? Because I lived every single one of them.

Used to be outgoing, a musician, loved sports, always moving. Laughed, loved. Then suddenly, walking into a mall full of people – a phobia – would send my anxiety through the roof, leaving me feeling like dirt, ashamed and depressed. All because of the twisted way I’d wired my own thoughts.

But hold on, someone’s gonna say, “Glenn, this isn’t all your fault. Someone hurt you.”

Did they, though? By just reframing that question, that idea, I started to see how I became a victim of my own making. There’s always a starting point, yeah, but I took it the rest of the way down.

We’ve talked about words and the power we hand them.

Depression, the emotional kind (not the chemical stuff with its own biology), is a loss of your own voice. Anxiety and depression? They’re a twisted pair; they can stand alone, walk hand-in-hand, or one can drag you straight into the other.

And what drives them? You do. Let’s keep this simple and real. Say someone close to you constantly picks, constantly chips away. They matter in your life. You’re an emotional person, hate the conflict, always choose the quiet life over speaking up. You swallow it down for peace.

You see where this is going, right?

They wear you down, bit by bit, eating away at your confidence. Their words become your own inner critic, the garbage you start believing. You start dreading seeing them, and the anxiety builds like a storm. It spills over, and now anyone who reminds you of them becomes them. This leads to avoidance, and you withdraw, and depression sinks its teeth in. The rewiring pulls you away from life, and now people see you different – weak, they think. And you, being you, give power to that message and start living that twisted lie. Maybe you turn to substances to cope, and before long, that just digs the hole deeper. Life loses its meaning.

You’ve confirmed the garbage everyone else seemed to think about you. “Life sucks, and this is all I’ll ever get.” That constant monologue of self-pity and lies drives you to do nothing but the very things that hurt you.

You became a victim to yourself.

But wait, you’re saying, “Glenn, I do try! I try so hard I end up exhausted, frustrated, and just plain don’t see the point because it always fails anyway. I can’t even be bothered anymore.”

Man, I hear that. I really do.

Let me lay this out straight. At the core, this is about what you put in and what you get out. I lived wanting all the right outcomes but making mostly the wrong decisions. And having been dragged through the mud of different depressive moments in my life, one that lasted eleven years, I know I have to own my own messed-up ways of doing things. Yeah, right down to wanting to end it all in an abusive relationship.

Same patterns, just different levels of hell. Now I can look back and write backwards how I got there, and that’s what this journal is for. You don’t need my exact story to start doing the same. Start today and write backwards to see where it all started for you. Why the hell did you wire yourself that way? That’s why I use the term "you become a victim of yourself."

Not to lay down blame or shame, but because we all understand what a victim is, we need to peel back some of that external blame and take some ownership.

Once we do that, once we see how our own actions, our knee-jerk reactions, and our twisted way of thinking actually shape the outcome, then we can start to change that wiring.

Change the sentence playing in your head, and rewire your brain to handle things differently. It takes time; there’s no magic fix. But there’s hope. It takes practice, and that builds a different kind of strength. So that the next time that familiar wave of doubt crashes over you, you fight back with a counter.

Build yourself a phrase, a mantra, a short, sharp sentence you can throw at yourself the moment you feel that emotional shift. Becoming aware of the physical changes first can be a real eye-opener to the messed-up thoughts that might be lurking underneath.

Everything’s connected. When you learn to stop handing over your power to words that don’t deserve it, when you learn to calmly tell someone, “Nah, I don’t accept that garbage, and I sure as hell don’t believe what you’re saying about me,” you start to reclaim the power to rewire those thoughts that lead to those self-destructive actions.

Sit with this moment. Write your story backwards and find that moment you gave the wrong words your power. See that vulnerable spot in yourself and build up some armor – not to become cold and hard, but to become more flexible, more resilient.

See depression and anxiety for what they are: an outward explosion of messed-up internal thoughts. Yank away the power of those words, rewrite the script you keep telling yourself. Find that pivotal moment and change your future.

One day at a time, my feet gently tread.

Unsure of my footing,

Battered and bruised, I rebuild,

Crumbling away the old.

Shiny and new, I become.

Hope in the eyes of the ones that love me,

A love that drives me on.

Taken I am not from myself.

Here I am again.

I never left,

Just hiding in the sight of others.

The mask is gone.

Do I like what they see?

My words, my power, I am the voice.

Yes, I am me.

Yes, I am worthy.

Yes, I am enough.

Yes, yes, yes!

Resilience I build,

The same me, but renewed.

The same me that I restored.

Pride in myself,

A new strength,

A new day,

A new honesty,

A new way.

Build yourself a plan in your own words. Know this will take time; there’s no instant escape. Create a framework to rewire those thoughts in a way that works for you.

Start when you’re ready, and start by writing backwards.

You are here for you ❤️