Anxiety, overthinking and worrying

A big part of my anxiety and my social anxiety is overthinking and worrying. I’ve been told some overthinking is normal in our day to day life but my mind can overthink like runaway train with no off switch. When you have anxiety your brain can constantly question or overthink everything you might do or have done, or what’s happening in yours or your loved ones lives.
 As with all of my blogs no two people are the same, and everyone’s experiences are different.

Those of  you familiar with having anxiety, you’ll be aware of the physical symptoms which  many people can accompany the overthinking and worrying. I’m planning a separate blog about anxiety/panic attacks so I’ll talk about these more in depth there.

I have a very vivid imagination and a very visual thinking brain, which is great when I want to be creative or write a story, but when it comes to anxiety it can make it difficult. As with dyspraxia, not every dyspraxic will also have anxiety nor be a worrier or overthinker. But given the nature of the condition  and the unpredictable world we live in it’s understandable why some do. But for this blog I want to focus on my anxiety/overthinking in general.

Anxiety can make you think the worst will happen in a situation, analyse all the “what ifs” whilst constantly question and doubt yourself. I recently read a blog which describes this really well. Anxiety can make simple tasks seem challenging. It can be caring far too much about what other people think and self- doubting your achievements, when rationally you know how hard you’ve worked for them It’s worrying about health, the health of people you care about and thinking bad things might happen to those you care about.

It’s overthinking things you might have said in social situations from years gone by, or things which might have happened before, maybe something like an anxiety attack. It’s taking ages to actually formulate and write a message to someone or make a post on social media or approaching someone especially someone you’ve never met. It’s worrying about offending someone or  your quietness being misunderstood as rudeness or boredom. It can be having a fear of judgment or embarrassing yourself and struggling with confidence/self esteem.

In short, my brain and body struggle to relax, calm down, switch off,  self esteem struggles and be in the here and now (not the Steps song!)  For such a long time I thought all of this was me being me, and this is why I wanted to write this blog to help others feel not alone in their struggles with social anxiety/anxiety.  In time with therapy I will be able to manage this better and balance my thoughts. I find blogging helps.
If you are feeling anxious or down, talking to someone you trust can help get out of your head.

 If you know someone who is a big overthinker, don’t tell them to simply “stop overthinking/worrying.” You can actually make them feel more anxious, rather than helping.  Please be mindful that a little bit of reassurance, encouragement and a listening ear can mean a lot. Hang in there, keep going, you’re a lot stronger than you think you are.

Until next time…..