I’m speaking specifically about those trying times of stress. Like say… quitting smoking, or the death of a loved one, or after a nasty break up with your significant other.
Those times when your brain is so seemingly on fire. There’s no hitting the pause button to take a break from it all. You’re stuck there with your own thoughts.
Does anybody know what the heck I’m saying? 
I know exactly what you’re saying, and it is maddening. Especially for those of us with psych disorders who know our brains will be tormenting us for the rest of our lives.
When I look at my current life problems, they are smaller in degree, but basically the same problems I had ten years ago. It’s hard accepting there are parts of your personality that are basically just you, and will never be fixed.
Well maybe, but I bet the unexamined mind is a hell of a lot less neurotic.
“Slighty”?
That’s what drugs and alcohol are for. To escape yourself.
Wherever you go, there you are
You can run from yourself, but you won’t get far
You can dive to the bottom of your medicine jar
But wherever you go, there you are
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Even worse, I’ve never been to me.
scurries away
Ain’t that the goddamn truth.
I like me. That’s the only way I can be assured of good conversation.
I was thinking more like this (Pink Floyd, A New Machine Part I):
I have always been here
I have always looked out from behind these eyes
It feels like more than a lifetime
Feels like more than a lifetime
Sometimes I get tired of the waiting
Sometimes I get tired of being in here
Is this the way it has always been?
Could it ever have been different?
Do you ever get tired of the waiting?
Do you ever get tired of being in there?
…
I find it enormously helpful to be able to step back and think of the standard Christian dichotomy: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Even if you don’t like the religious connotations, I still find it useful to think about how certain desires in me are the product of chemical signals, established neural patterns, instinctive desires, etc. And, from a scientific standpoint, I suppose even “the spirit” is the product of these biological and chemical issues. Still, the idea is that this desire/sensation is not me, it’s a biological process imposed upon me.
For me, this is the mental pause button. Not that it suddenly makes my brain stop being on fire (to use the OP’s words) but it does give me some distance from that sensation. I’m no longer trapped inside my house while it’s burning down; I’m across the street, watching the neighbor’s house burn down.
I was also going to suggest drugs and alcohol 
but meditation seemed to help a family member of mine who was suffering from bipolar disorder. Anyone here practice meditation?
Yoga works for me. Focusing on my breathing to the exclusion of all else gives me something to hold onto at times of stress, because I’m always breathing. It’s taking longer than I thought, as they say.
I think about how I should be doing it a lot. Does that count?
If you are serious, meditation can be very helpful.
The new book Siddhartha’s Brain is a great guide to meditation.
Not according to Last Thursdayism.
Oh yeah, meditation is great, back when I did it.
I have no self-discipline.
That left-handed part is bullshit.
Not exactly what the OP is looking for, but I think of this when I think of someone locked in solitary confinement with access to nothing but food slid through a slot in a door. No books or other media. No interaction, even visual, with another person. Nothing but you. It’s horrifying.
“Longer than you think, Dad! Longer than you think!” (The Jaunt)
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Some Buddhists would disagree. Especially wr.t. the stuck with your own thoughts thing.