I wanted to watch something easy and couldn’t bear any voices at all

Dear Delyara, I sat down with the remote fully expecting to put on some harmless programme and disappear into it for a while. But every option felt like too much. Too bright. Too talkative. Too emotionally full. Too many characters entering me with their problems and music and movement. I switched the television off and sat in the half-dark instead. That was when I understood I wasn’t craving entertainment. I was craving reduction. Some days the whole nervous system becomes allergic to input, and even rest has to arrive very quietly or it stops feeling like rest at all.