The Overthinker’s Burden: When Your Mind Won’t Let Things Go

I tend to be an overthinker. When something goes wrong, my mind locks onto it and starts running through every angle. What could have been done differently. What can still be done to make it right. How to prevent it from happening again. The prevention part is the one that gets me most, because once something has happened, it has happened. There is nothing you can do to change it, and I know that logically. I just have a hard time making peace with it.

The same goes for trying to fix things. You can only do so much. You make the effort, you try your best to correct course, and beyond that it is what it is. My rational mind understands this completely. And yet here I am, analyzing and calculating and going in circles anyway.

I think a lot of it ties back to anxiety. Anxiety is essentially fear of the unknown, fear of what comes next, and that tracks with how my brain operates when something goes sideways. The medication I take helps with the physical symptoms, the restlessness, the tension, the nerves. But the mental side of it, the looping thoughts, those are still very much present.

Something happened recently that was completely unintentional on my part. The intent behind it was not how it landed, but perception is reality, and it landed the wrong way. It created a situation I did not want to be in. My instinct in the past would have been to avoid it, sidestep the person, and let it quietly fade. That used to be my default. But I have been trying to operate differently lately. So I picked up the phone, reached out, and did my best to explain where I was coming from and work through it directly.

That part I feel okay about. What I am still working on is the dwelling. The part where even after you have done everything you can do, the mind keeps chewing on it anyway. It does not help me. It does not help the situation. It just burns energy and takes a toll on my mental health. That is the habit I most want to break, and honestly, it is the hardest one.

By the way, the featured picture was taken nearly 30 years ago, and even back then, I named it “Thinker.”