I Think Too Much

During a girls' only lunch, someone made a comment that I "think too much." This is not the first time I've been accused of this heinous thing. It's a congenital disorder that I've struggled with for decades.

I am not an unusually intelligent person. I'd say I'm pretty smart. And I'm not dumb either. But I have to admit that I have a tendency to over-think things through. Worst of all, I do over-analyze. That's the downside of my overactive thinking. It can be devastating. Sometimes, my mind races through various scenarios and perspectives and before you know it, I am haplessly emotionally invested in an event or a notion before anyone else gets there. It can be unnerving when I'm the first one to react to something and I start crying before anyone else even realizes that there's something to cry about. By then, that moment is sucked out because everybody's attention is drawn to my reaction and nobody knows why I've been reduced to this babbling idiot because the cause will have simply poofed, vanished.



Variables that are often overlooked by or are invisible to others are very clear and obvious to me. So, before anyone realizes the problem, I will have already reacted---oftentimes, quite ridiculously. So I've learned to hold things in. That produces a side-effect that is very undesirable: depression. As things mount in my head and I realize that there's nothing that can be done but let things happen, I stew. Many times, people get gobbsmacked at how ridiculous my thinking gets.

But there are also very good advantages. I tend to over-analyze myself. So I consistently try to find better ways of being me. Many times, I fail at the execution of my plans to alter negative behaviour but sometimes....I get it and get it good. Those are good days. I tend to keep evaluating my goals daily, asking myself questions about how I comported myself during the day and then figuring out how to be better. I also like to find patterns of my own behaviour that need squashing. The older I get, the more frightened I am that my bad patterns will become permanent. You know that saying: you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Well, this dog (or female dog, if you wish....) wants to learn new and better tricks. And if I am not on board, I will be consigned to become....well, a very old and cranky female dog.



Another advantage is that I don't have to be surprised when what's inevitable by my vista, happens. Because I think too much, I can see patterns where others can't. When I was younger, I often tried to control the outcomes of these patterns. But as time went by, I realized that you can't control anything outside your person without paying a hefty price. So, I sometimes amuse myself just waiting....and watching as the predicted outcomes happen. This is probably the most difficult aspect of my disease because giving up that control requires a bundle of serenity that I never had. But I find that the more I give up, the more I find peace....which is, in a huge way, strange.



Thinking too much, while it very well IS a handicap for me, can be my biggest and best gift if I can learn to harness its overbearing power into a power for good. It's akin to finding out that you can fly but don't know how to navigate, control and set boundaries. Therein lies my constant challenge.



I need to take my brain to the spa.