Overthinking

Overthinking

Analysing to the nth degree

Leading down the path to stagnation

If I ever get on the path

Constantly rethinking

écoute et répète

Incessantly

Excessively

But nothing changes in the thought

Between the third time and the tenth

Stagnation, catastrophization

Huge little obstacle, poses an insoluble problem

This is not a flight I fancy

I must wait a while

Return

And overthink some more

This poem I wrote last year sums up my experience. Thankfully, I seem to have mostly conquered this miserable habit. Thinking the same thoughts over and over, trying to figure something out from all angles, coming to no satisfactory conclusion, continuing to think, to gain some sense of mental control. Only to find out that what I overthought about never came to pass anyway. What a waste of time and effort!

While the desire to analyse and dissect is not in itself wrong, it can become obsessive and stifling. You become a prisoner in your own mind. Say it’s a decision you need to make. Of course you need to think about it, weighing up pros and cons. But at some point you need to decide on a course of action. Overthinking it just makes you uncertain what to do. You procrastinate. You think about it some more. You come to no conclusion. You do nothing. Then, when you can put it off no longer, you fearfully make a decision, worried everything will be difficult and go wrong. In fear and trembling you set the ball rolling – and everything is straightforward, runs smoothly, and you wonder why you made a fuss. And yet next time you go through that whole process again. It’s not a nice way to live, foreseeing imaginary problems, exaggerating threats.

Or another scenario. You know you’re going to have to talk to someone and you know what you want to say. So you try to anticipate how they may respond. Then for every possible response you consider counter responses. And so on. You end up with several potential ways the conversation could go. You get fearful. This conversation takes on a terrifying element. You’re expecting a big battle, a huge falling out. Or maybe you’re expecting to embarrass yourself. With sweaty palms, thudding heart, red face you enter the conversation and find out everything is perfectly cordial. You wound yourself up for nothing.

It’s clear to me that what needs to change is our attitude. When we notice we’ve started to overthink, we need to pause. We need to ask ourselves whether this is really necessary, whether the problem is real or imaginary, what will be gained by overthinking. By all means think things through, but agree with yourself you won’t keep covering the same ground over and over - that you’ll make a decision and stick with it. If you notice yourself going over the same thoughts again and again, calmly keep telling yourself, “I’ve been over that and now I understand, I know what I’m doing, I don’t need to think it through again”. If this is hard, go and do something to distract yourself. Maybe try to write your thought processes and decisions on paper. Then when you start to overthink you can say to yourself, “I’ve been through this already and have written it down – I don’t need to think about it again”. Realise that things are not likely to be as bad as you assume. There may well be difficulties but they’re unlikely to be devastating or impossible to overcome. Assess risk sensibly, don’t inflate it unnecessarily. Ask yourself what’s the worst that can happen, then tell yourself that’s extremely unlikely. Remind yourself of past situations when you worried for nothing.

It can take a long while to beat overthinking, but it is worth it. The temptation will often lurk there, but you can beat it.

God Wants You Miserable

This is one extreme of Christian belief. The idea that God wants you to avoid anything that you might enjoy. The cosmic killjoy, averse to fun and pleasure. The God of “Thou shalt not”. Big Brother in the sky, keeping a beady eye on you, ready to pounce if He sees a smile. To be fair, it’s possible to see why some would come up with that idea. There are a lot of rules and regulations in the Old Testament and the punishments can seem draconian. But they’re there for a reason. They’re not arbitrary. They’re boundaries placed for the good of the people of Israel. They’re not meant to squash, but to show how to please God.

Christians are not under that covenant. Yet some of us look to that Old Testament law and, instead of interpreting it as fulfilled by Christ, we try to apply it to ourselves as if we were still subject to it. By doing so, we’re in danger of acting as if Christ never died. We don’t mean to. I firmly believe the intention is honourable – we want to please God; we don’t want to offend Him like the Israelites did. 

This is a huge subject which has occupied greater minds than mine so I’m only going to make one observation. (If you want to get a grip on some of the issues, read Galatians and Hebrews.) Galatians 3:23-25: “Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.  So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.  Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.” The old Law was not meant to be forever. It was there to show us how sinful we are and that we need a Saviour. It was to teach us what God is like and what we are like – until Christ came. The Law taught us about God in words. Christ taught us about God in words and in flesh. He showed us what God is like. If we’re in Christ, we’re not under the guardianship of the Law. We’ve grown up. We’ve put away childish things. So we don’t need to work out what it means in our day. We don’t need to tie ourselves up in knots over little things. 

Does this mean we can do what we want, then? That God’s no longer bothered about holiness? That we can sin and be happy? No, it doesn’t! There’s plenty in the New Testament about that. Staying in Galatians, following a list of things which characterise those who will not inherit the kingdom of God, we have this: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23) This is one aspect of life under the New Covenant. These are things God wants us to be. They’re not things designed to make us miserable. They’re things which will keep us in step with God. They will make us free.

Why Are You Downcast, O My Soul?

“Why are you downcast, O my soul?”

What a question! And if were we to answer it, what would we say? This reason, that reason? And if we listed reasons, how real would they be? How fair? How balanced? How reflective of real life would they be? This might be a useful exercise – if you are feeling down, write down the reasons why this might be so. Then look at each one and ask, “Is this really the case?” Then look at the good things in your life. This may not necessarily change your mood. You may still feel down in spite of focussing of the positive. But it will at least prove to you that good is there.  It will help your mind to refocus, even if it doesn’t necessarily translate into your emotions straight away.

Another possible answer to the question is, “I don’t know”. I don’t know why I’m feeling miserable! I can see the good things and be focussed on them but I feel down in spite of it. We all have times like that, but if it is persistent, then a trip to the doctor to get checked for depression (or not) would be a good way to go.

Whatever reason or lack of reason you come up with, this is important to note:  is this constant and long-term or is it just a one-off and occasional thing? If it’s only occasional, they maybe just write it off as a bad day and don’t attribute too much significance to it. If it’s always there and has been for a while, seek help.

If you are a Christian, put your hope in God and keep praising Him. Read Psalm 42 and 43. The writer is having an awful time but chooses to stick with God. Not due to “blind faith” but because he has known God’s favour in the past. He feels God has forgotten him now but remembers how it used to be and this gives him hope. Whether you are a Christian or not, in the midst of trouble you can look back at good times and recognise that the bad times could be temporary.

The Day That Time Stood Still

I have a friend who is lovely but is at the same time draining to be with. Literally every time I see her she talks about the same past hurts, complains about the same people. And these are the same past hurts and often the same people she was complaining about 25 years ago. And she doesn’t just mention them. She goes over the same details in a non-stop lecture which lasts a good hour. This is sad. It’s as if time has stood still and she is unable to move on. 

How many of us are like that? Old grievances which we can’t let go of, eating us up, while the person responsible for the grievance is unaware of the moans and is merrily living their own life as if nothing had happened? We just hurt ourselves. We need to let go for our own sakes. I appreciate this is harder to do in some circumstances than others. A criminal act may have taken place and that is in a sense another matter, but the principle of moving on for your own wellbeing still applies.

We can feel trapped in time by small things, too, not just big things. We need the wisdom and courage to break out of the chains, to leave the past (which we can’t change) behind and start living in today with a view to making a more positive future. You don’t really want to be bitter and angry all your life, do you?

Here are some things you can try which may help. You may need to try and try and try again. Are you associating with other angry, sad, bitter people? Try pulling back from them a bit and seek out positive people to befriend. Set some positive goals in life – things to look forward to, rather than looking at the past. Instead of letting what happened in the past dictate your life, set a new agenda which will transform you. Tell your friends and family that you no longer want to be held back by the thing that is troubling you. Ask them to interrupt you if you start to dwell on the problem. Have a plan of action for when you are alone – decide on some things you enjoy doing and agree with yourself that, if you start dwelling on that old problem you will go and do something positive instead which will take up your attention. When you start thinking about the bad things life has dealt you, be thankful instead for the things you do have. It’s also going to be necessary to forgive if your problem is the result of what someone did to you. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you are saying what happened was okay.

You can’t change the past. You only harm yourself by living in it. Try these things. If you have suffered abuse or are unable to overcome, seek professional help where you can.

Misery Loves Company

It shouldn’t really be a surprise but it’s not always opposites that attract. And when it comes to negative or miserable or weary or unpopular or depressed people, we can often spot each other and seek out each other’s company. This will undoubtedly be true of people who fit into other categories but, hey, this is primarily a mental health blog. Having spent much of my life in those categories I have quite some experience of this. We probably do it because we want to talk to people who can sympathise or maybe even affirm us in our misery. But this is possibly one of the worst things we can do. It keeps us chained in the attitude as we commiserate with each other.

But… Doesn’t it feel better to know that we’re not the only ones? Well, perhaps people have different responses but I think the answer is probably “not really”. The fact that someone else is also depressed doesn’t make you any less depressed. The fact that “there’s always someone worse off than you” doesn’t actually make you feel better. You’re so engrossed in feeling your own pain you are not so easily able to feel the pain of others. If I have a raging toothache I’m not going to be cheered up by the thought “well, at least I’m not having my leg amputated”. 

Misery loves company but only serves to perpetuate itself. If you are a negative person and you associate with other negative people you know that association is only going to lead to one thing – moaning, complaining, griping and making you feel worse. You may have “put the world to rights” but trust me, the world ain’t listening and carries on as it always has. The best way to change the world is to become a positive person and use that positive attitude to do something to help rather than bemoan its state.

But how do you change? Can you? Yes, you can! You are not a leopard! Specifics on how to change will depend on the specifics of your issue. (For which, see a health professional or google Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.) But here’s a good principle – seek out company which is positive, happy, unburdened, popular and emotionally stable – basically, everything you’re not! Yes, yuck! But maybe it will lift you up and give you something to aspire to? Some would say abandon your fellow depressives. I don’t think so. Like you, they need help, not abandonment. But be aware. Negativity is a monster that feeds off itself. Start to be a light. Look for the positives in your own life and help the negative people to see the positives in theirs. Change yourself and model the new way for others. And try to make sure you have people supporting you.