The year is 2015. I am underneath a hay baler. Helping Dad tinker on one thing or another, I can’t recall. I do clearly remember the thought that washed over me when I was alone underneath the baler.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if this whole thing just collapsed on me right now?”

There it was. One of the early appearances of the dark thought machine. The machine that takes regular everyday things and turns them into potential death.

That machine has had a space in my head ever since. These days it is mostly dormant but it raged constantly for years. It had its say in every car ride, every bridge crossing, every time I saw a weapon. I remember leaving a Subway once because I was triggered by seeing a worker slice bread with a knife. I saw painkillers as potential overdoses, lakes, ponds, and rivers as a place to drown. And cold and snow as a place to freeze.

That dark thought machine found ways to turn almost every single situation into the idea of injury or death. And then it put the thoughts on repeat, slowly romanticizing them until they seemed glamorous.

The machine still has its place in my life. It takes over every now and then. It can still be very powerful when I am not well. But I am familiar with it, and I know all of it’s subtleties and tricks. I’m not a rookie anymore, and I have the advantage in this particular battle. I am the one in control. I get to choose how much I focus on the content coming from the Dark Thought Machine.

Today I choose to ignore it altogether.