I know there are specific techniques you can use to deal with racing thoughts, but I've never learned them...maybe your therapist can help with that. There are a couple of things I do, though.
I often have trouble falling asleep because my mind won't slow down. I found that if I put a movie on, one that I've seen before so I don't stay up to see what happens, the voices in the movie help quiet the thoughts in my head.
You mentioned that your thoughts are often depressing. When that happens to me, I try to find something that is a "replacement" subject to think about. I usually think of something pretty benign, what I'm going to make for dinner, what plants I'm going to put in this spring, anything that's not real emotional. So any time I find myself thinking something really bad, I will try to think of the other thing. It's not so much of a focusing on something thing as just putting that new thought in you head alongside the other stuff, and doing it over and over again until the other thoughts quiet down a bit.
The last thing I do is deep breathing. I have a lot of trouble focusing, too, but I once read something about meditation that really helped me. That it was more a matter of letting everything go out of focus rather than focusing on one thing. So, I will close my eyes, and breath in and out very slowly, and let the thoughts come in, but I don't focus on them, don't think "oh no, I can't quiet my mind"...instead, I just keep breathing, and the thoughts stop bothering me, because they don't stick around enough to get a foothold. I'm not sure if any of that made sense...but just taking some deep breaths helps me.
Good luck.
mj
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If she spins fast enough then maybe the broken pieces of her heart will stay together, but even a gyroscope can't spin forever
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