MENTAL PLAN CANCELLATIONS
There are days when tiredness doesn’t just sit in your body — it sits in your mind.
On those days, the thought of pulling a blanket over myself and writing another thriller or love story feels far more appealing than stepping outside and being around people who seem to know how to let yesterday go. People who somehow manage not to think about what may or may not happen tomorrow.
My thumb hovered over the phone.
One message.
One call.
One cancellation.
A night in instead of a night out.
I knew I shouldn’t do it.
But depression has a quiet way of convincing you that staying inside is the safest option. And sometimes I let it win.
It’s strange how the mind works when it is trying to protect itself from pain it created.
I know that when I actually get out, when I finally force myself to show up, I usually end up having a nice time. I laugh. I talk. For a moment I feel normal again.
But my mind doesn’t stop.
Negative thoughts follow me into every room. Thoughts that don’t even exist, but somehow feel real enough to ruin a good moment.
So I convince myself it’s better to stay home.
Better to sleep.
Better to avoid ruining someone else’s day with my awkward silences or those moments where my smile feels forced while my mind drifts somewhere else entirely.
Showing up is hard.
But saying no is hard too.
So sometimes the easiest solution feels like disappearing.
Retreating into my shell — the crabby shell that matches the cancer I am — convincing myself the world might actually be better without my presence that day.
I’m running from my own misery.
Running from trauma made of “what ifs.”
The kind of trauma that isn’t always visible to anyone else, because most of it exists inside my own head.
A world of sadness and depression I built quietly, piece by piece, until it became difficult to face.
Even harder to explain.
Doctor’s appointments are the same way.
I make them with good intentions.
I want to go. I really do.
But the moment the appointment is scheduled, my mind begins negotiating with itself.
Weeks ahead.
Sometimes a month ahead.
Just so I can mentally prepare.
And when the day comes…
many of them are cancelled.
Not because I don’t care about my health.
But because my mental health takes over the room before I even walk into it.
Plans I make for myself suffer the same fate.
Ideas.
Outings.
Experiences.
Entire days that only exist inside my mind.
Mentally planned.
Mentally imagined.
Mentally cancelled.
Friends and family invitations slowly become things I avoid, not because I don’t love them, but because crowds of people can feel overwhelming when your mind is already loud.
Self-pity becomes a quiet room I sit in too long.
And sometimes it feels like the only thing I want to cancel… is the world itself.
Just for a little while.
Just long enough to sit alone with my thoughts.
Because strangely enough, the mental world we create for ourselves — even when it’s painful — can feel safer than trusting someone to walk beside us in the real one.
And that is the quiet reality of mental cancellation.
The plans that never happen.
The phone calls never made.
The invitations declined.
The life paused — not because we don’t want to live it, but because sometimes our minds convince us that hiding feels easier than being seen.