Anxiety and overthinking dating and new relationships

[gdubbs]

I have been someone who's always overanalysed situations and overthought everything, eventually leading to a lot of anxiety. While this has always affected me on the academic front, lately I've found myself overthinking majorly when it comes to dating people. I've had a few horrible relationships, which definitely makes me feel paranoid and cynical about things.

Recently I met a guy off tinder, and while I didn't expect much from the app, he turned out to be really nice, and we've been seeing each other for about more than 2 months now. And while I'm really happy when I'm around him and we have a really good time, and he seems very genuine and affectionate towards me, once I'm by myself and back to my routine, instead of looking forward to the next date I just get really anxious about things, about whether he likes me as much as I like him, whether he might be sleeping with other girls even though he said he doesn't use tinder. I keep thinking he's going to get sick of me soon and probably just ghost me. I'm constantly reading too much into each text he sends me, wondering why he doesn't reply sooner (despite the fact that he told me he barely texts people). The thing that worries me the most is that he's going to eventually see through these insecurities/paranoia and think I'm too much to handle. I don't want to ruin something possibly great with all these negative thoughts but I just can't keep a handle on it. Please help me out, any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Nurse_Jenn]

Hi gdubbs,

Great to see you posting on the forum and sorry its taken a while for someone to respond to your post. You post has resonated with me as I have a tendency to over think as well and in some earlier relationships had a similar experience with worry. I did a lot of 'What if?' type of questioning rather than focusing on what was good right in front of me. You are not alone. By finding a counsellor or guide to help you through some of your worry and learning to understand why you worry the way you do, you can find some healing to your symptoms and gain a better understanding of how your mind works. A good treatment towards resolving worry is a therapy called Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. This can be delivered by a health professional and there are also some online modalities you can try.

One program that many people who have success with is called Mindspot. It is for people with low mood and worry and uses a combo online support and phone calls to work through your symptoms. It is for people over 18 and can be found by visiting the webpage here www.mindspot.org.au

Another example of a program that can be used to support you is a developed by Beyond Blue program called NewAccess. It is for people with worry and low mood and is a free program but is only available in some parts of Australia at the moment. You can read about the program and see if it is being delivered in your area by going to the web page. https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/newaccess

Another way to understand anxiety better is to read more about it. You can do this by reviewing different threads on the forum as there are many strategies that you can develop yourself. For example, Mindfulness is a practise which teaches you to let your thoughts pass through you mind with out attaching worry or stress to them. When we overthink, we have a difficult time control where our thinking is going and then it can end up somewhere completely irrational which can cause worry. By practicing Mindfulness, you learn to let your thoughts pass and focus on what is in front of you. It takes practice to achieve this and people start with small amounts of time at first but once you get good at Mindfulness you can allow your mind to rest and stay in the now. You could try Mindfulness by using an app called Smiling Mind.

You have taken a brave first step by reaching out on the forum. Keep going! You can improve your worried thinking.

Wishing you the best possible outcome,

Nurse Jenn