A few years ago I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. For years, I would ruminate in things that worried me until they became full-on panic attacks and it was pretty debilitating. People in my life would ask me “why don’t you just not think about those things?” Which was frustrating, invalidating, and unhelpful.

Then I found a therapist I clicked with. She never told me to stop thinking about the things that worried me, but in hindsight I realized that she taught me how to not think about those things. Over months of working with her I quit having panic attacks, and I no longer fit the criteria for the anxiety disorder I was diagnosed with.

So yeah, I think that in some ways you’re right. It’s like my brain was missing a little piece of code and I had to have it written in.