Overthinking; it’s something that is embedded in my routine without me realizing it. I overthink the smallest things, like how uneven my liquid eyeliner is and how much cat hair is on my dark-colored clothes. I overthink the outfits I put on and how they make my body look; are the clothes too big on me and make me look sloppy? Are they too tight and are emphasizing every bad curve on my body? I overthink to the point where I allow it to consume and eat me alive inside until it completely takes over me.
I’m even overthinking as I write this.
Hi, my name is Liz, and I spend a lot of time in my head; an unhealthy amount of time.
A little over a week ago, my therapist asked me if I was comfortable adjusting our meeting times. She said, “You’ve made so much progress that in my professional opinion, you are ready for biweekly visits instead of weekly.” I agreed because I’ve come to a place where I felt like I didn’t need therapy as much as I did in the past. So when I showed up to our last session with the same anxious thoughts and panic behavior, I felt defeated. How did I allow overthinking to get me to a place where I was now feeling like I needed weekly therapy and anxiety meds again? I know progress is not linear, but for fuck’s sake, it felt like I reverted back to where I was before.
I’m no stranger to saying that I’m in a very weird place in my life; I don’t have the same friend group I had for the last couple of years, my interests are shifting, and I’m feeling uncomfortable in my skin; figuratively, not literally. I feel my soul wanting more, yearning for more, and it’s not because I’m not appreciative of the things I already have in my life.
I learned in therapy years ago that your soul cannot be ignored. Your soul speaks to you in various different ways to let you know you’re not listening to it. It speaks to you in your behavior, the decisions you make, the thoughts you have, and even how you act toward your surroundings. When we try to ignore what our soul is trying to tell us and not go for the things that it wants, that’s when we feel like we’re having this internal battle with ourselves. Who do I listen to? My mind and emotions and thoughts, or do I listen to what my soul is trying to tell me? Getting to this place is the scariest in my opinion, because the outcome of it all usually is losing something you cherish forever, but eventually reflecting back and seeing that had to happen in order for this to happen.
I learned it the first time I went through this, and you would think it would be easy the second or third time around, right?
Heh. I’m terrified.
See, overthinking will allow you to think that having these many occurrences of the same outcome means you failed or you are destined to live in this state of uncertainty. Things are constantly changing in my life; why can’t I just stay in one place and not self-sabotage things? What is it about me that projects this new and confident version of myself that makes the things I love in my life up for question? Am I doing something wrong? Being in this constant state of uncertainty will no doubt have you thinking about every negative thing about yourself and eventually, you fall back into old patterns. You stay silent. You blame it on yourself rather than the external things. You sit it out until you’ve slithered yourself back into your comfort zone and you conclude that it was all in your head. But you fail to realize that every time you do that, you lose a sense of yourself, and your confidence, and you allow that overthinking to take your peace away, hinder your progress, and set you back into old, bad habits.
Let’s be very transparent about something that I’ve dealt with these last couple of months; I still mourn the loss of my friend group that I had during the pandemic and who was very influential in my hobbies and interests at the time. I lost that friend group for many reasons, but the main reason for me was that I had to stand my ground and defend myself when I felt disrespected and when a line was crossed. As much as it hurt me to lose the people who I called my best friends at one point, I needed to put myself first and my feelings first. The “new me” congratulates me on that; she reminds me that there was a time in our life that I would avoid confrontation by simply allowing people to walk all over me and disrespect me just because I was afraid of losing them. But the “unhealed” me, the one that still deals with different forms of social anxiety and wants to please those she loves and emotionally take care of others before taking care of herself, she overanalyzes every little thing that happens and is afraid that the same outcome will happen again and–
“Don’t let it.“
I looked at my therapist when I was going on and on about this fear. “I’m afraid that I’m reverting back to the person I was. As much as I’m trying to practice assertiveness and projecting my self-worth when I feel like I’m not being respected, I feel like when I do that, everything leaves.”
“I know it’s easier said than done, but you are not giving yourself enough credit with just how much progress you’ve made. You are making these changes in your life because of that growth; that voice that keeps telling you to speak up and honor yourself means you are aware enough to know that you deserve people who uplift you and enhance those changes. You challenge these relationships in your life because one way or another, you figured out that they are making you revert.”
Overthinking only happens when my soul is telling me something in my life is not aligning in the way that I thought it was, but don’t let the overthinking consume my being and influence unhealthy self-talk to the point where I lose sight of what I need, what I’m working toward, and what my goals are.
“Keep honoring yourself, Liz. You’re doing what you’re doing because you love yourself enough to know what it is you need and want out of life, and if you ever feel like what you’re going through is familiar or similar to what you went through when you weren’t honoring yourself and are afraid of going back to what that was; don’t let it.”
I won’t let it.
Letters From Liz. 