There are a lot of us out there. A lot more than I thought at least. I see the Facebook posts and I sense the struggle. I understand as well as anyone. It’s always better when you know you’re not alone but the prevalence can’t be a good thing. While comforting for a period of time, there’s still no permanent peace that can be found, even when talking about it amongst the like minded. We can’t fix it on our own either. Some people don’t really get it. Sometimes I revisit moments and don’t get it either. It’s grueling though, being an over-thinker.
I’m an experienced over-thinker. I like to consider myself a polished, seasoned vet. I have advanced to the stage of fully recognizing it as it is happening but am still powerless to stop it. It’s a better place to be in all honesty. I used to not know it was going on. I just chalked it up to being analytical and everybody else just not looking at it from the same angle. Now I understand that I’ve created most of the angles I’m looking from. But knowing it’s happening and being ok with it are two separate things altogether. Just today, I panicked after I clicked send on an email. I pulled up the sent item and read it about 10 times to make sure I said what I meant. Modern technology has become the devil for the over-thinker. Emails, texts, even voicemails are triggers for the mind blender. Try multi-tasking and sending an email and leaving a voicemail at the same time. Whoa, I just got chills.
Those things are just the tip of the iceberg. Have you ever had a conversation with someone new or someone important and, as you walked away, you thought to yourself, “what exactly did I just say?” That sounds like paranoia but that’s a symptom of overthinking. See, you can’t have a normal encounter. Each encounter has to have some type of meaning. If it doesn’t, it will after you obsess over the events of the encounter. Did I smile? Did I act preoccupied? Did I say something stupid? What did I actually say? I don’t even remember. What are they thinking now after they left? Are they doing the same thing I’m doing right now? It can be quite exhausting. And 99 times out of 100, it was as mundane an encounter as you can imagine. But mundane is not in the over-thinker’s vocabulary.
It’s not all bad though. It makes us pretty detailed and thoughtful in our conversations. As I’ve become more experienced with it, I’ve learned how to structure my thoughts and conversations to withstand that mental questioning, post encounter. I can earmark high points that I know will come up in the playback. This may all sound absurd to some of you that haven’t been there but somebody is reading this and nodding their head in agreement. It helps me remember things I would otherwise forget. Some people ask me how I remember certain things. A lot of times, I’ve replayed it 30 times in my head. All of this has helped me be successful in my job. I’ve made a personal rule that I’m not going to talk work in my blog but I will say in a vague manner that my job can be a minefield of legal do’s and don’ts – highly regulated if you will. My over-thinking can absolutely bog me down but many times it proves to be worth it. Recounting phone calls and meetings has proven to be a viable asset.
It also makes us pretty good at analyzing music. I know that I aggravate my friends when I send them a video of a song that has some profound meaning to me. To them, it’s just a song; a collection of words put to music. To me, the song has elaborate meaning and somehow speaks to me on a different level and I expect it to do the same for them. It’s a great escape. Over-thinker’s don’t lay down at night and fall asleep in minutes so popping some headphones on and letting a few songs talk to our soul is sometimes just the perfect sleep aid. People may not get me but music does. That’s a primary driver in my taste in music too. No dirt roads and whiskey in songs for me. I need my lyrics to twist my thoughts into cryptic memos. Heath and I spend a lot of time breaking down what is said in songs and we have totally different views sometimes but they make sense. Over-thinking at its best is taking a sentence, lyric or message and interpreting it totally different than someone else but still seeing their point.
Clearly, the worst part of over-thinking is what it can do to our relationships. Many times, conversations or messages can be of very little consequence but we can force our interpretations on them and they become very impactful, to us. A delayed response in text? No response in email? No return call? These can all be misread very easily because we have a knack for making everything about us. We were taken the wrong way or we said something inappropriate or we just aren’t well liked. It’s most likely that the other person got busy or a response slipped their mind or it could even be that a response wasn’t warranted. Those explanations are too simple. I don’t think the government was behind the JFK Assassination but I can create a cospiracy about somebody not texting me back that would make Dale Gribble look reasonable.
Even this post is going to be analyzed several times before I click “post”. Even more times AFTER I click “post”. Limited views means that I suck at writing or my opinion is stupid. A lot of views means that everybody wants to stop and laugh at the crazy guy. I guess I’m the Goldilocks of the blog world; I need just the right amount of views. You see what I mean? The sad part is that this stuff barely even scratches the surface. It’s a prevalent part of daily life for anyone with this disorder. One thing I no longer worry about though is what people think about me admitting I have the problem. I have enough to worry about without throwing that in the equation. I’m an over-thinker! Odds are, you already knew that. But this is the part where I stand up to it and tell you that it’s ok if you have the same problem. It may not help you overcome it but you’re not alone with it. You’re not strange or different. You’re probably more normal than you realize. Unless you want to be strange or different. Knock yourself out with that too. All I ask is that you respond to my snapchat…..
Joey
I was nodding my head the whole time. Some people people don’t understand me. It’s hard to explain to people what being an over thinking analytical person is like. I think times people get frustrated with me because I am so detailed. They will stop me and just say tell me what you are trying to say without all the details. Well that is hard to do! Thank you Joey for being so transparent and making me feel better about being the way I am.
I will try to do better ?
I feel like I need to stand up in a room sometimes and do the AA introduction – hi my name is Heath and I’m an over thinker – do they have over thinkers ananymous? I read my own emails more than I read the emails people have and me sometimes analyzing every word – thanks for the post Joey
I really think you are finding the way to make overthinking work for you instead of against you. I think this blog is one of your best.
Dead on.