It is there whether you think about it or not, this impulse that is below thought, or maybe beyond, or over, or in any case not fixed with your consciousness into a place where you can overcome it; it is simply there. Brought to you by a pet, maybe, or something you ate, a walk in the woods, a picnic; probably there was sunshine but not necessarily, and now you have it.
The way it affects you is impossible to ignore, it is stronger than desire, it is more than almost anything, and even when you manage to put your thoughts to something functional like work or reading, your hands wander back again and again to it; it is more than pain and you realize this when the red ribbon of blood unravels under your hands and you still can't think about anything but this.
Cover it if you can, smother it with magic potions, creams; wrap your hands in bandages; recite the songs of childhood forwards and backwards, spells and incantations, still it rises, insists, whines, cries. It will not be denied. It murmurs in your ear at night, wakes you with hot whispers, your physical response to it is stronger than your thoughts are quick, and your mind is mercury but this is faster, more, demanding.
How do you deal with it? The persistence of memory, the persistence of thought, the realization that it doesn't matter how it started or when it ends but all that matters is now, right now, how you will deal with it. Try for one minute giving it your focused and complete attention. The whole of you absorbed in this, the whole of you absorbing it. Realize you will never satisfy this. Finally now, you can accept it, even take pleasure it in, see it as a mark of where you've been; it's not release but it's better than it was. For now.