The Overthinking Mind

           

 The Overthinking Mind

      There is a song in which the lyrics say “worries crawling around in her clothes”. When you have a brain/neurotransmitter problem worries can become monsters around every corner.

     At one level of my mind I must know that the worries are groundless—that my mind is tricking me with lights and mirrors. But my mind also has a separate place where the anxiety lives and the worries hang out there. Anxiety and worry are best friends. I have been told I have a thin skin. I have been told my whole life that I am “too sensitive”. I don't think it's so bad to be sensitive. It keeps you caring about people, seeing things through their eyes and wanting to have compassion for others. It allows you to see small signs in someone's eyes that they need more help than they will say out loud. It helps you have connections with people that are real and deep.

          The downside of this sensitivity is that it can morph into overthinking and over analyzing situations to the point of obsession. You see things in people that they may be projecting and you play with it and turn it over and over in your mind like a cat with a mouse and because minds aren't perfect they can misconstrue these small changes in behavior or attitude even though nothing at all is wrong.

         There are ways I combat this tendency towards overthinking and obsessing is that I like to write, I listen and watch stand up comedians, talk with friends, watch something interesting on the computer or read something funny or engrossing online.

      I once had a book, and still may have it somewhere, called “The Worrywarts Handbook” and what it said was one skill which I have used is to put the worries up on a shelf when they come and then you set aside 5 minutes or so once a day that is “worry time” and you sit there and just let the mind get through all the worries. It departmentalizes those moments of anxiety and helps you to push aside the worries at the time. This may not work for everyone. But you have to find what works.

     Either that or anxiety will overwhelm you. If your mind is prone to do this you can drive yourself crazy. Try to put the worries on a shelf. Come back to them later. Maybe later on you will realize that what you were concerned with never even came to pass.