Overthinking,

It can be, if left unchecked, absolutely all-consuming and crippling.

I received a book, funnily enough, called “The Book of Overthinking, how to Stop the Circle of Worry” by Gwendoline Smith. It was given to me for my birthday, now some of you might be thinking how awful that might have been, but not to me.

I am thirsty for knowledge, if I can learn something new, give it to me. If I can better myself as a result of that learning, even better.

I’ve had my fair share of experiences that left me broken and weak from days of overthinking something.

There are two types of overthinking. Positive and negative overthinking.

Now, I haven’t had a lot of experience with positive overthinking, so my focus won’t be there today. Most of the time, for me, negative thoughts plague my mind.

I experience two types of overthinking. First, when I had a situation presented to me, and not just any situation something that brings fear, anxiety, and a huge amount of uncertainty. The first thing I would do was let myself feel the emotion of that situation, but then what would happen is, I would start to think about what the outcome of that situation would be.

I would think up every possible outcome and mentally deal with it. In my head, if I had already thought about it happening, and it happened, then it wouldn’t affect me as badly when it came true.

Only, more times than not, those scenarios would send me into a panic or anxiety attack. Which was what I was trying to avoid in the first place. My thought was, that if I could predict what was going to happen, I wouldn’t be taken by surprise or be blindsided. In my mind, I was trying to prepare myself.

But the thing is, none of the scenarios that I had imagined came true. Well, most of the time, I would say 90% of the time, it didn’t come to fruition.

Then I was left with all this worry, all this stress and anxiety, over nothing.

It didn’t matter that every time I did this, I was left broken and tired. Because when the next thing presented itself, I fell right back into that pattern again. This could happen multiple times in a day, and many in a week.

Secondly, if I found myself in a situation where I’m left questioning my actions, or someone else’s, or I replay a confrontation I’ve had with someone, I would think about that situation over and over and over. It was like a tape running in my head on repeat. It is so frustrating because I would think the same thing, over and over. The situation didn’t change, the outcome didn’t change, but my mind would obsess over it.

I didn’t know how to break those cycles. I didn’t realize I could.

How do you break lifelong bad habits?

You have to retrain yourself. Relearn it.

I believe Taylor Swift said something along the lines of “I had to deconstruct an entire believe system, toss it out and reject it.” That completely resonated with me, it hit deep.

I’d believed, for so long, that this was how I dealt with things. I thought this was the only way I could deal with things.

Just a quirk of mine, right?

No!

I’ve learned that this way of thinking and acting, is destructive and damaging.

Just how damaging, is probably going to be for another blog, but my journey and how I’m learning to break these patterns is still ongoing.

There are times I fall back into them. But I’m quicker to pull myself up on it. I can recognise it; it’s become easier to acknowledge it within myself.

How? It’s been different for each one.

For my negative overthinking, I had a counsellor ask me to play a game with her, it’s called the “what if” game.

She would come up with a scenario and told me to come up with one of my “what if” negative outcomes and tell it to her.

I was like, okay!

No way can she beat me at this! I can reason and explain each and every situation I can come up with for every scenario she throws at me. But every time I said “but what if….blah blah blah….” Being all negative Nancy, and she would respond with a positive what if, or annoyingly she would say “but what if it doesn’t?”

But when things get as bad as it was for me, you tend to learn the triggers, you learn the pattern.

On the surface, it would be things like my partner asking what was wrong. He could see it in my face, my body language. I would start chewing my nails (I know, filthy habit) or I would just seem distant, at times I would tear up. My mind was wandering off to places you never want to go. Deeper than that can be a little harder to change.

The second is obsessive overthinking. This is a lot easier to recognize and can be much easier to put a stop to. You can become more aware that you’re in a pattern of overthinking something when it runs on a loop in your head. I’ve often caught myself thinking the same thing more than once. Sometimes it can be as easy as distracting your mind. And I’m not just talking about changing what you’re doing throughout the day, focus it on something else. Something that involves using your brain.

There are other, I’m going to say symptoms, of overthinking as a whole, that might be more noticeable to yourself or others around you too if it’s new to you. Your sleep can be irregular and you will be restless and fatigued, your anxiety high, and your breathing can be shallow. My mood was always low, I became fearful of everything, things I had no reason to be fearful of. I had just created this story in my head of what was or wasn’t going to happen and then be a mess afterward.

Lastly, and a little more worrisome I guess, I started to withdraw from everything.

At a time when it was at its worst, I remember feeling lost. I felt like I had no power or control over my life.

Because I would overthink things, my anxiety became worse, my depression became worse. I was not in a good way at all. I remember sitting down and feeling like the world went on as I sat still, unmoving, stuck in this destructive pattern.

I was so far from everything important to me.

With encouragement, I started to learn the pattern I fell into so easily. I started to fight back against those negative words that filled my head.

I was encouraged to seek comfort in my faith again. I was encouraged to see a counselor and work on learning who I was again.

Slowly, I started to change that narrative in my head. When I was presented with a situation or a trigger and found myself falling, I could pull myself up on it.

How did I stop those thoughts? At first, I had to distract myself. Distract my mind from it. Some days that would be easy, other days it could be a challenge.

Writing, reading, or playing a game on my phone or the Switch. Either by myself or with someone, my kids, or my partner. Walking, or driving somewhere. Playing music, or talking with a friend.

Anything, and it worked. It allows you to calm down, process emotions, and then revisit what triggered you in the beginning. Talking to my partner about my fears, or even the trigger itself could sometimes stop me from overthinking because I had a soundboard.

Every time though, I am learning more about myself. Sometimes it can be a new trigger that sets me off. More frustratingly, it can be something I’ve dealt with before.

And those times can be harder than discovering a new one. Just recently, I found myself crying frustrated tears to my counselor that I’m still triggered by something I’ve tried learning from. She has helped me see that the issue itself isn’t one I can move on from easily.

It allowed me to understand that I needed to go a little easier on myself. Some things will take longer to move past, maybe not even at all. More importantly, for me, sometimes the change will come through the actions of others around me.

So, completely out of my control! And just how frustrating is that? More than you’ll ever know, but it’s a part of the path, the journey. Without it, how do we become better versions of ourselves? How do we grow into the person we need to be?

It’s not meant to be easy, is it? I wish it were at times. But as the saying goes….’it is what it is’

Sometimes I’ve wanted to slap those words out of my partner’s mouth when he’s reminded me of it. LOL.

Anyway, I hope I’ve been able to help you see a pattern within yourself or someone you love. I hope I’ve been able to help with different ways of coping with it.

If you need to reach out, feel free to contact me, I’m always here to help out where I can.

Until next time,

Be kind to yourself. x

The book of over thinking, how to stop the circle of worry