SensoryOverload
Dialogue with Brain: Shutdown Between Platforms
me
Brain… am I dead? Or was that just the end of Italian public transport?
brain
You're alive, but if you don't find isotonic drink soon, you'll restart like Windows 98, with blue screen and screeching. 💥
Lost all day
me
I was lost all day — metro, routes, names that didn't seem to exist, a map like an escape room with no exit.
brain
With each station life was dying in me, Villa Fiorita, Cernusco, who designed this, Dali on LSD?
Taxi? No. Small talk is too much.
me
Maybe I should have taken a taxi.
brain
No. A taxi means small talk, that 'car smell,' a driver saying things somewhere between espresso and philosophy. And me? I would have shut down like a shell. That wasn't fear. It was risk management for a leak of consciousness.
March mode: sound tunnel
me
So there was march mode, watch – training, headphones – full, one song, on repeat, sound tunnel. 🎧🏃♀️
brain
And finally: calm. I no longer had to analyze platforms or try to recognize names that made no sense. Just step, rhythm, step, rhythm. I was only a body, and that was OK. 🧘♀️🦶
Grass scent: something alive
me
Grass scent, remember? Hot, something lived in grass, like... not everything was dead.
brain
Who would have thought you'd need to walk '?' km just to hear a cricket. Maybe nature was trying to say: 'sorry the city let you down — here, have a leaf.'
Irony of survival
me
Irony: to feel calm had to get lost, overheat and strip from resources.
brain
Don't confuse with metaphysics, this wasn't gratitude, it was: 'oh no, something else alive besides me'.
Less sense than cricket
me
And it made more sense than Google Maps, the M2 line, or any man asking 'serve aiuto?'
brain
Especially the one who asked three times if I knew metro doesn't go here, I knew, legs already screaming.
Road closed: end of world
me
Road closed, dark, grass no longer rustled but growled, this was end, Brain.
brain
Don't dramatize, still alive, but admit if someone jumped out with 'e è chiusa' again, we'd throw ourselves into bushes and pretend stones together.
Italy: not VR, just Italy
me
Almost midnight, 3% resources, location: nowhere, route: alien project.
brain
This wasn't VR, it was Italy, simply Italy. 🇮🇹 And lack of my cognitive functions.
Who clicked “sign up”?
brain
Anyway, from what level was this decision – WHY are we here?
me
Don't know, wasn't me, it was ADHD (where is it now anyway? Creative support would help). It clicked 'sign up', wrote emails, found flight, chose workshop and said: 'will be great!'. And then? Did exit stage left, left us with backpack, map from cosmos and depleted body.
Transfer, control, ticket like dungeon key
brain
YES! With transfer, with control, with machine you had to 'touch, but not too long', with ticket like dungeon key, with metro that multiplied like octopus on stims.
Spirituality? No. Survival.
me
There was no spirituality, no 'getting to know yourself.' It was: survive without making eye contact with reality.
Workshop: 2 days at minus 7 social battery
brain
And now what? A two-day workshop? On a social battery of minus seven? Without a cognitive filter? With resources at the level of 'a band-aid and blind faith in coincidence'?
me
Yes, and we'll sit there with headphones, glasses with medical filter (which everyone takes as sunglasses and no one believes it's result of research project titled 'how to choose filter so brain 🧠 doesn't explode'), without eye contact, without speech. Doesn't matter what anyone thinks because 'nothing about us without us' is just slogan on poster, and in practice every expert already knows long ago what we should feel, think and do.
Assistant for return journey?
brain
Maybe at least that assistant for the return trip? Because on the way back we'll get lost again — unless ADHD comes back, though I bet it already got enough dopamine. We'll be alone with another migraine, the fourth in a row, mental chaos, looking for a toilet in case the contents of the stomach decide to return. Then ADHD — once we finally get back to the cottage — will comment: 'well, it was great, what an adventure, who could have predicted a 24-hour transport strike...' even though neither of us checked, because why check when you can suffer spontaneously.
me
Yeah... but lesson titled 'asking for help' in world that doesn't understand us – still under construction.
CONCLUSION: Pre-travel checklist
📋 CONCLUSION: add to pre-travel checklist – ✔️ check strikes
Narrator
Narrator: This is where this story ended, not with a moral, but with that one song that will haunt dreams for three months, new checklist element… and naive faith that next time it’ll definitely be better. 🎶📋😅
🧩 Examples of self-regulation mechanisms:
- 🎧 Headphones + one song on loop – protection from stimulus overload
- 🚶♀️ Rhythmic march: tension reduction through movement
- 🕶️ Cutting off social contact: glasses, no interaction
- 🧠 Self-irony and dialogue with brain: processing tension
- 💻 Minimal functionality mode: action without reflection
- 📋 Checklist: symbolic reclamation of control
Self-regulation mechanisms often go unnoticed by others and are frequently misread as “weird behavior,” “indifference,” “no reaction,” “shutting down,” or “strange facial expressions.” Coping does not always look tidy, but it makes sense if you know how to read it.