Overthinking - it's driving me crazy!

[TinyDancer2017]

Hi everyone,

Lately pretty much every social occasion/interaction I have seems to go fine, but as soon as I go home I start to replay things I said/shouldn't have said.... my mind twists in knots overthinking of how certain things might have offended people, or how they might have found what I said embarrassing/stupid. Rationally I know this doesn't really matter, but the play-by-play leaves me really overwhelmed by anxiety.

Has anyone else experienced this? How did you get over it?

[white knight]

Hi tiny, welcome

Dwelling is common among some people and can lead to mental illness.

There is imo a portion of your personality that accounts for it, that you cant change. But the rest can be tackled.

Best to use google to read the first post of each of these threads

Topic: worry worry worry- beyondblue

Topic: depression, distraction and variety- beyondblue

Topic: fortress of survival- beyondblue

Topic: water off a ducks back- beyondblue

Topic: foot in mouth- beyondblue

Topic: guilt the tormentor- beyondblue

Topic: your temperament- beyondblue

Topic : festering issues or moving on- beyondblue

Topic: your own worse enemy- beyondblue

Topic: accepting yourself, the frog and the scorpion- beyondblue

Topic: vulnerable dwelling unprotected- beyondblue

I hope you get value from them. Repost anytime

Tony WK

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi TinyDancer2017,

Thanks for your post.

Preach to the choir TinyDancer! You are in a forum filled with people going through exactly this. It is exhausting and it is tiring and no matter how much we think and worry at the end of the day often we don't really feel better about it!

Ultimately 'getting over it' comes down to anything that can help general anxiety. For me personally; it was a massive combination of things like therapy, reading, mindfulness, relaxing activities, journalling, exercise... It's got to be about finding what works for you.

The biggest thing for me was being able to talk about it; because if we don't talk about it or let it out it generally spirals in our head and the 'what if' tangents go on forever. Whether that's with a friend, colleague, family or a therapist. Ideally someone who can be supportive and honest with you. Even now I will still ask people 'hey, what were you thinking when I told you that?'.

Tony WK mentioned a fair few threads on this topic which might be helpful to give more advice/experiences, and the other link that might help is here -

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/anxiety/treatments-for-anxiety

[geoff]

hello TinyDancer, thanks for posting your comment, and can I also say on top of what Romantic_thi3f and Tony have said, is can you google 'intrusive thoughts', there is an enormous thread on this topic and it may relate to how you are feeling.
I'd be interested to have your thoughts on this. Geoff.

[quirkywords]

Tinydancer

Welcome as Tony, romantic_thi3f, and Geoff have written you are not alone and they have written helpful advice.

I suppose overthinking everything is something I deal with everyday.

I used to struggle and try to ignore it , but I have decided to accept I am some one who will overthink but I try not to let it interfere with my life.

Before go somewhere I would worry about what would happen then worry what happened afterwards.

Now I allow myself one thing to focus on before and after and a limited time to think about it. This works for me mostly .

If I have a lot of thoughts I will just write or type them down and once they are on the paper I feel they have been set free.

I like your name- are you a dancer?

Quirky

[TinyDancer2017]

Hey,Thanks for all the really useful replies, and for helping me not to feel alone.

Tony: You're right, I think a normal amount of 'dwelling' is a part of my personality. To be honest, it probably also gives me the empathy/attention to detail to succeed in other areas (like work). It's become a problem as I feel like the volume has just been turned up to max. My brain actually woke me up last night to continue worrying about something I'd said.... thanks, brain, really useful at 3am!

Romantic thief: Thanks for sharing how you cope. I actually do a lot of those things you mentioned, but maybe I do need to talk about it more. I just worry the more I talk about it, the more I draw attention to it, and it kind of fuels the anxiety more (as I worry I've overshared about my mental state!)

Geoff: Thanks for the info about 'intrusive thoughts'. I think that could well be part of what's going on here, though I don't really imagine bad things - just more re-playing how (actually very minor) things I've done could be perceived badly.

Quirky: Thanks for sharing your experiences. The worrying before/worrying after thing is something I can totally relate to. How do you restrict your worrying to the 'limited time'? It sounds like an interesting solution, if I can get it to work. And thanks - it's a music reference, but I do love dancing (and am tiny) so it fits quite well 🙂

[quirkywords]

Tinydancer

Thanks for your reply.

Restricting my overthinking to a limited time is difficult but I try depending on my mood to say write about what is worrying me for ten minutes. then close the book I have written in and try to get on with the next task. Does not always work but the mere act of writing down nd then closing the book and putting it away, can give me a bit of closure. It takes practise.

I am someone who read 3 books at once and wakes up at 3am- why 3am.??

Can music help take your mind off overthinking. ? As you like music maybe that may help- need to pick music that calms you. Let me know if you have tried that?

Quirky

[T40]

Hello TinyDancer, I was in the same situation a few years ago where I would be thinking about a conversation for few days overanalysing with someone who had the same issue!

The first thing I did was to seek medical help, talk to your GP and get assistance. It's always the combination of medical assistance, lots of cognitive therapy book reading and most of all, realise you don't have to please anyone and you can't please everyone either.

Admit that you are unique and you respond to others in your own unique way, that's what makes you YOU.

Learn to NOT to please others (in my case anyway) and you will slowly start to free yourself from over analysing. It's such a burden to carry around which also leads to physical health issues.

Please seek medical assistance to have someone to travel with you on your journey.

Hope this helps.

[quirkywords]

T@40

welcome to the forum and thanks for your helpful comments to tiny dancer.

I am glad you received advice that helped you.

Being a people pleaser myself I know how hard that is to stop pleasing people so for me I realised this was part of who I was, and to not try to please people when it affected my health.

I think as you say one needs something that works for them and this maybe a bit different for everyone.

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge and experience.

Quirky

[romantic_thi3f]

Hey TinyDancer2017,

Thanks for your post and it's great to hear back from you!

You made a really great point about how talking about things can feel like it's fuelling the anxiety more; do you usually feel better or worse after talking about things? Does it help to get it off your chest?

I think that when dealing with anxiety it's about finding that balance with different strategies. The first thing that comes to mind is meditation. Hugely helpful; whether it's 2 minutes or longer. But take that to the max and then it can become unhealthy (unless Buddhism is your thing!). Likewise for music; helpful but if we only listen to music and don't want to talk about it or process it then that's where it becomes unhelpful.

So I guess in a way talking about it could be just one of the strategies that you use; I think if you can balance that out then it won't be an issue.

The other thing that's probably worth mentioning is what the conversations are like when you talk about it; is it 'ahh I can't cope I'm so stupid for doing that' or 'ah, that was embarrassing I'm so glad that's over'. Two situations but completely different responses. So being able to try and process it in a healthy way in whatever way suits you best 🙂