Challenges Faced by an Overactive Mind

Navigating life with an overactive mind can be a formidable challenge. The struggles of an overthinking mind often revolve around incessant rumination, where thoughts spiral uncontrollably, leading to anxiety, indecision, and sleepless nights.

To overthink means to overanalyze, worry excessively and get too bothered about something. And this can result in a lot of anxiety and tension that can cause depression and a lack of self-worth. It also means seeing things not as they are. You tend to depict a wrong picture of what is actually happening.

We all do this often a time, though not in full consciousness of it. I mean, which mind in its normal state will want to just induce trauma and unnecessary anxiety to itself through overthinking?

But then, we still find ourselves constantly in that state, and it can be dark and so scary and feels as if you want to lose your mind. Overthinking makes it feel as if you’re trapped in a very dark room with no one to help you out, yet you keep screaming for help.

Everyone has their own description of what state overthinking puts them in. And you know, it is not just the overthinking that is the problem, the problem is the issue leading to the overthinking and the results it comes with.

OVERTHINKING VS PEACE OF MIND

Peace is something that every one of us yearns for. We all totally want peace of mind. We want a state of mind that is stable, not constantly wandering and wobbling about. Also, we crave a steady-state mind that we can control and not lose grip of.

Yet, we still end up getting the exact opposite of what we wanted; a destabilized mind that just wander and drift away and we totally have no control of it. This is utter chaos if you ask me.

Sometimes, I wish I’d just stop overthinking and just enjoy life as it flows out of me, but no! I can’t help it most times, the intensity of it makes me feel so down and so in shades. I would feel like I’m just shadowing my life and I just don’t know exactly where I should be.

Even the thought of the future is way scarier than I’ve imagined. When I think about the future and the uncertainty that comes with it, it unnerves me, I just lose myself at some point, and as such, I would have to try to pull myself back before she is completely lost.

I tend to smile a lot, like a whole lot. So, I can easily smile when I’m out there. But when I’m in my closest, all by myself, I break into tears. Like, I can’t remember the number of times this has happened to me, but it just does.

But I can be strong if I want to. So, what I do to get out of this misery is to encourage myself. The sole fact that I cannot even help people around me, makes me overthink. I would wish I could help when for a fact I cannot really do anything, because I truly can’t.

The world can be scary at times, but I think the mind is scarier when it’s in an overthinking state. Overthinking can make you miserable if you don’t quickly gain control of it.

SO WHAT REALLY ARE THE STRUGGLES OF AN OVERTHINKER?

Over-thinkers sure do have lots of struggles, trust me. I can say this for sure because I am one myself. A lot of things goes through the mind of an over-thinker, and most of the time, they just can’t control it.

READ Pitching Your Business Idea to Investors in 2023

An overthinking mind is a detailed mind. It’s always looking for every tiny little detail of everything. That is why it doesn’t find surface conversation fulfilling, rather it is draining because it will have to think of all other things that were not said and that leads to excessive thinking.

As an over-thinker, I struggle with so many things both inwardly and outwardly, and I believe it is the same for other over-thinkers out there. Some of the struggles I often go through are;

1. WANTING TO KNOW MORE THAN I SHOULD

I often find myself doing this and it can be so inconvenient, especially for those who don’t really know me. Now, I know that wanting to know more is a really good thing, of course, it is!

But when you’re actually going beyond what you should know, especially in people’s lives, it becomes bad. I am one inquisitive being, and I think I got it from my dad. But then, not everybody likes to be questioned, and I happen to love questioning people and being questioned.

So constantly, I find myself struggling with all these things. That’s the more reason I don’t just want to talk with everyone I see or I know because I can get so curious and want to start asking questions, even the irrelevant ones. And once I don’t seem to be getting any answers, I begin to think about possible answers for myself.

My brain will not rest until it gets a fulfilling answer and that makes me begin to overthink.

2. WANTING DETAILS OF EVERYTHING

Like I said before, an overthinking mind is a detailed mind. And this is true for everyone else that overthinks. I find myself wanting to know every teeny, tiny, little detail of seemingly everything. Also, I don’t know why this always happens, but it just happens. I really can’t help it you know.

A friend of mine might say something about him/herself and the next thing I would want to ask is questions to reveal every other detail that they left untold. There’s always an untold story you know, and that’s what my mind is always after in people—their untold stories.

This is a struggle because not everyone is willing to give you details of their lives; I totally understand this. But then, if I’m close to such a person, I would really want to know such details and I know I won’t even get bored from listening to it.

But, for people that I’m not close to, I try as much as possible to refrain from asking too many details about their lives, because, at all times, I’m always tempted to. And then, when I get these feelings of unanswered questions within me, I begin to think out answers, again, just like before. And this can make me feel distant from a lot of people around me.

3. HAVING TOO MANY UNCONTROLLED THOUGHTS

I know you might be thinking that this is quite normal for an overthinking mind. But it is way worse than you can think of it. When I overthink, thousands of thoughts are always running through my mind. And some of these thoughts might not even be related to what is going on presently, but they just come.

Say, for instance, I have issues studying for school and I’m thinking of possible ways to do so because exams are fast approaching. So while I’m thinking about that, other things run through my mind like; “why hasn’t my mom called me yet, has she forgotten her only daughter?”, “why did that food taste so good this morning, I wonder how it was prepared?”, “how come my younger brother is taller than I am?”, “why do men cheat?”, and so on.

4. EASY LOSS OF FOCUS

Ask any over-thinker and he’ll tell you that yes, he does lose focus easily. This is one of my biggest struggles as an over-thinker. I am a focus-loser. Like, it is so bad that I can’t even concentrate for even 15mins without getting my mind wild.

I’m so easily distracted, especially with someone around me. Others might not know this because I don’t really show it, but inside of me, I would wish I was alone all by myself doing my thing. Then, when I’m done, I can then go out and mingle.

Even when I’m writing, I still lose focus, at a minimal rate. Writing is the only thing that keeps me 100% focused when I really get into it. From the onset, I might be a little distracted, but once I kick off with the writing, I do it till I’m done eventually.

READ Efficient One-Day Exam Preparation: Tips and Strategies

CONCLUSION

There are other struggles that I go through though, but these are the ones I can spare for now. And going through life every day with these struggles inside of me can be unbearable. I just hope I don’t end up losing my mind someday.

Well, of course, I won’t lose my mind. I mean that’s why I’m writing about it now so that I and other people that go through these struggles can know that for sure it is a struggle and that there is always a way out of it.

And one of the ways out is to always take deep breathes whenever you catch yourself amidst all these struggles. Nowadays, I take lots of deep breaths, and it is really helping me. It helps me to stay relaxed and to be more present in whatever I was doing.

Wait, what? Did you think I was going to say something so complex that will help with the struggles, hell no! this is one of simplest way you can employ and you don’t need an expert or a yoga instructor to tell you how it is done.

Again, deep breathes exercise work, a lot. Try and make taking deep breathes a ritual and you begin to appreciate things that go on around you, instead of resenting them. And also, managing those struggles will be a possibility.

Thanks for reading. Kindly leave your comments below and don’t forget to share.

ALSO READ:

Dysart Unified School District 2023/2024 Academic Calendar

Exploring 7 Types and Classifications of Law: In-Depth Insights

Jamb Recent Repeated Questions on Government | Likely Jamb Questions and Answers