[MichaelApproved]

I’m guilty of overthinking everything. It’s come in handy as a programmer but it tends to hold me back socially.

I’d often think about social interactions ahead of time. My brain would create countless situations that I’d play out. Once I exhausted one situation, I jump into analyzing the next possible situation. On and on I’d go.

I’ve only recently been able to quiet down my beehive brain a bit thanks to a few realizations I came to about the damage it was doing to me:

- Even after analyzing 100 different possibilities, reality would often be much different than the scenarios I thought about.

- When the situation didn’t play out exactly as I’d imagined, I’d still react instantly without thinking through the new variances. In my foolishness, the unexpected scenario seemed close enough to the ones I had already thought about, so I’d respond off the cuff.

In reality, things were different enough that a pause to think would’ve been better.

- Thinking through 100 different scenarios also meant going through the emotional baggage that came with them. In my mind, sometimes people reacted positively and sometimes negatively.

Imagining all the negative ways someone could react would lead me to attributing negative feelings to them, even though they haven’t responded negatively.

On the flip side, if I attributed a specific positive outcome to someone that didn’t live up to my exact interpretation, I’d end up feeling disappointed with an outcome I should’ve been happy with.

- Lastly, I’d push to resolve a situation immediately because I didn’t want to go through another beehive of scenarios while waiting to continue the conversation another time.

Sometimes that push to resolve the conflict resulted in a positive breakthrough. However, other times the person would agree to a certain resolution due to sheer exhaustion which leave us with an unsustainable outcome.

Of course, there were other things that helped calm my brain down. Things that helped me take a step towards these realizations and act on them.

Hopefully, my comment can be one of those steps for someone else.

[sph]

This resonates with me a lot. I can be quite genial in social settings, but it's extremely taxing to my psyche because I unwillingly rehearse and predict all possible outcomes and how would I react. I catch myself having had a mental back-and-forth between myself and the person I have to meet, and if it's to be a particularly unpleasant occasion, I will have a heated argument all in my head that leaves me upset for hours.

Yeah, that's not very healthy.

[MichaelApproved]

> I will have a heated argument all in my head that leaves me upset for hours.

The conversation is imaginary but the emotions are real.

I used to think my ability to deep dive situations was a superpower but it’s really a curse.

Thankfully, I’m learning to shed the worst of it.

Hope you can too.

[csbingel]

Excuse me, sir. Kindly get out of my head, thank you. :)

[MouseTown]

> Of course, there were other things that helped calm my brain down. Things that helped me take a step towards these realizations and act on them.

Please share. Great comment, BTW. Enlightening for someone like me who suffers from the same situation and hates himself for it.

[MichaelApproved]

Thanks, it means a lot to know my comment help others! I thought it was going to be buried and didn’t expect an upvote, much less getting replies that it was helpful.

It’s tough to share many of the other steps I’ve taken on a public forum. Honestly, I doubt they’d be as helpful as my previous comment because they’re so personal. Because they are so specific to me.

However, I can share that group therapy is the main resource I used to take those steps. I highly recommend it.

What’s nice about group is that I get to hear various perspectives on a situation. Everyone there has gone through somewhat similar struggles but their interpretations of those struggles are different.

As each person speaks, I find a nugget of wisdom that I can use. A bit of insight that I wouldn’t realize on my own. A phrase that finally helps a concept click in my head.

Of course 1-on-1 therapy is helpful too but group is a treasure trove of insight for personal growth.