Screen Door Brain

September 27, 2026

My brain is like a house with only screen doors. The wind blows in anytime it pleases; shivering snow chunks squeeze through and nip at me; every sound waltzes in jangling my spirit. Everyone else, it seems, has nice thick wooden doors on their brain-homes. They can hear themselves think, feel calm while storms rage, cultivate peace. My quaking nervous system seems to have an open 24/7 policy.

Turns out there’s words for screen-door-brains like mine: Highly Sensitive Person. Empath. We soak it all up, internalize all the emotions/sights/sounds/needs twirling around us.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to navigate a life with screen-door-brain for decades. I do pretty well but a few times a year I get a “soul flu”. It’s when I’ve allowed myself to be overwhelmed by the outside world. It’s not anyone’s fault but mine. I should know by now that my little quavering sensitive soul needs quiet time to recover from the winds of life. But I’m a ding-bat and I forget. I think I’m 100% badass old lady who can wander through the world like I’m on a slick motorcycle with my gray hair blowin’ in the breeze. Ha! Not so, lady! Yeah, sometimes you’re that badass. But sometimes you’re that shell-less turtle, raw nerve endings and fluttering heart stumbling naked in the wilderness.

These soul flus suck in all kinds of ways. First, I feel like some horrid stew of being cold + being hungry + too much coffee + stage fright. Then, to try to regain footing, I have to ignore people as much as possible. So my hubby is left out in the cold, I’m turning down lovely offers from friends, I don’t feel like talking on the phone all that much to my kids or my mom, I’m not able to be there for peeps who need me…. And that all feels super shitty.

I’ve been reading a coupla books, writing in my journal, clawing out as much alone time as I can muster to right myself.

Here are a few tidbits I’m clinging to lately that have helped: