Into The Dark

I'm restless. I'm not sure why? It's one of those weird times when nothing disastrous has happened, yet something feels not quite right. I'm a few days shy of a long break, and I've never felt less enthusiastic about having time off. I know, that's nonsensical. No work, free time, chance to catch up with family. I'm not entirely sure what's going on inside my head? Actually, I never really am. If I could illustrate it in image form I'd ask you to picture the Tasmanian Devil from the cartoons, this crazy dervish spinning and snarling, never settled, never still. I sometimes wish I knew how to switch off? I look at others and they seem able to do it? Me, my brain fires from one thing to another, a bit like a pinball battered around a table. How's it even possible to stop? To do nothing? To have a quieter mind? 
A confession. Or rather, an insight. One or two members on my Dad's side of the family went tits up in the mental health stakes. I can think of at least one distant aunt and perhaps a cousin that gave social services something to do during the course of their lives, and in a dark corner of my mind I've wondered whether these things are genetic in nature or just caused by the fact that they had rough lives? That's my way of saying that madness is something I fear, only then I put it in perspective. These things usually need a catalyst, and there isn't one in my life. More than that I appear to be able to absorb a lot of stress before the cracks show. 
It's interesting to reflect on the things that unsettle us, but I think that dwelling too long is unhelpful. Aside from losing my marbles, I fear the onset on debilitating degenerative illness, of being robbed of freedoms I take for granted. I'd have to work hard to get my head around that. And of course, I fear harm or illness befalling the kids, which is probably the most normal and common fear a person can have. Now I think of it I expect I'm not so different from everybody else? You've got your anxiety's haven't you? The dark places where the scary stuff curdles away? Funny how we spend much of our lives keeping a lid on it? Some places aren't easy to view, are they? And from my years studying counseling and working for the Samaritans I kind of decided that it's possible to open too many boxes in our heads. Maybe we keep certain things out of the way for good reason?