Inside an Overthinker's Mind

Is a myriad of toggles, fine-tuned to fire, to explode, if one of them is flipped the wrong way. Through uncertainty my mind slowly begins collapsing, melting into a disastrous puddle; sequences of events that you just think about. And keep thinking about. This article stems from a recent interaction with a wonderful friend of mine, what I went through.

I hate to always speak for others. I am not a representative of all overthinkers; this is how I function. If I place trust into something (as in emphasis), I think about it. If it’s a person, every single word that they have said and I have said doesn’t just mean what’s at face value, or what’s between the lines. It’s all the meaning behind the message, and all the different possible outcomes; of what they can feel and what they can say.

Communication is meant to be clear, and that is what we are taught. But when you talk to someone, it’s more like an exchange of their mental states, through words only so much can be done. For the same reason, LLMs like ChatGPT can only do so much to replicate human behavior. They just can’t replicate the complex emotions you undergo when you talk to someone, especially about something that isn’t just your everyday casual topic/work topic. You share your emotional states, your feelings; and you want them to feel a certain way in response, accepting/supporting it, rejecting it, or wanting you to continue, etc.

And when you share these feelings, the way it is perceived can change drastically from what you mean. Subtle differences in wording can change things subconsciously, and they can also be interpreted differently between person to person. This is why there are so many possible outcomes of a single communication, did they feel what you expected them to feel, and will they positively acknowledge what you have said?

If you say one thing to one person, they may be very happy about it. Another person can interpret this message very differently and think you are a narcissist. I apologize for the lack of context. This does bring me onto my next point. This is where I begin to worry, what do they think of me as? Did I unintentionally hurt them? Are they offended, are they happy, and most importantly, do they positively acknowledge the idea I just shared? Because if not, things can go out of control.

I like control. I think everybody would like some control in their lives, and especially how they want conversations to go. You want to leave a certain impression on them. In case of my friend, I wanted to leave an impression of my true self on them, what I really behave like in my numb, programmer life; who I really was and the fact that they should talk to me more (because I love talking to them very much). However, as the conversation went on, I worried. I received positive acknowledgements, which didn’t ring any bells, but the more I thought after it ended, what did I portray myself as? Was I in control of their emotional state, or did they lose it and get the wrong impression on me?

Control here does not refer to control over someone’s freedom, but rather a set of expectations as to how you want them to acknowledge your ideas. It’s kind of hard to put it into words, just know that it isn’t control in the classical sense. The sense that you want to know how they feel and you want to change that fact in your favor to get your idea across.

Context is also very important in discussions, which contributes to what the other person can take your message as; the different outcomes the conversation can branch into depending on what they think. A message, like “if you want me to text you, I can”, can sound very different depending on the context, like if the person is sick. It may either be said person wanting to share that they are happy to keep them company while they are sick, or that they are some superior figure that must be asked for them to reply (which they may interpret as basic decency).

This culminates to worrying. What happens if I come off as a horrible person? Did I annoy them? Am I being an asozial™¹ piece of shit? Did my idea I wanted to share come across as okay? Did they think what I said was so cringe/uncomforting that they left me on read, or was it that they actually have a busy life? They may have shared that their mental health is insanely bad, did what I say really help them?

Those are all questions that I have asked myself. And it can be very dominating in the mind; it can take over whatever you’re doing and put this feeling of uneasiness in your mind. Neurons start firing. The brain begins to overheat and throttle. Bombs start exploding in your head, and you wonder about all the horrible outcomes that may come out of that situation. This explains the introduction, inside my brain I expect a certain set of behaviors from some person, expect as in internally expect to see, which are the toggles. But if some things randomly feel off (triggers vary), I consider too many branches of the possible outcome tree. All the bad things flood my mind, and it slowly implodes.

My apologies for the lack of structure and context, I am dumping words straight from my heart out into this document. I wish you have enjoyed reading this. I am still overthinking about that interaction, I just want to be better friends with them :)