Adulting: Overthinking and Overreacting

As I continue down the road of self-discovery and growth, I am discovering that many of the factors that make my life unpleasant are the result of overthinking and overreacting. While I am working on combating the issues, it makes everyday life for me difficult, but I am strong.

Many times autistic individuals have the comorbidity of anxiety. Coming from a family line of such, I am no casualty to that. Factor in that I have autism and take everything I see and hear literally and many times have no “gray space” of thinking of a way it could be, it makes going through the motions in life extremely difficult sometimes.

As such, I continually feel that I am the target of conversation between others that do so discreetly. I know that I am a highly sensitive person and this contributes to that. Having history with others that hasn’t at times been the greatest along with a construed view of just some of their factors has been not only traumatic but very damaging and can make the ability to not overthink or overreact about things they are involved in difficult.

When situations become triggering for me, it constantly sends me into a state of overthinking. Before better at controlling my emotions, I would overreact to things because my brain would do just that. I am at times unable to see the whole situation or be reluctant to change or reverse the way things were done years ago because “it wasn’t it was just done, so why do we have to go back to that?” 

I have discovered that we don’t have to and we sometimes can’t know the answers to everything we need to know and have to understand that it is the way it is and as long as we are free from harm or challenges, we have to do our best to cope with the situation handed to us. 

We may not like it, but that doesn’t provide us the right to overreact because our brain is doing the same.

 I certainly know that being autisitc I sometimes experience difficulty in having a filter to prevent harmful things being said to others, particularly in places I have a history or those that are loved ones that care for me deeply. I have realized that I have hurt those I have reacted to time and time again and they keep trying their best. I know I need to do better and I am trying my best by learning new skills and applying them.

Someone once said to me that we “need to live a little.” I think that they are right and I should do that sometimes instead of constantly living in fear of something bad happening in my life. I am such a smart person and am so well-liked and my anxiety holds me back so much from doing so much. I think of the answered texts and Facebook messages along with the need to interact with others so I can expand my social network. If I didn’t think the worst all the time, maybe I could enjoy the world that I am in right now instead of staying where it is safe all the time.

Sometimes you need to give life a chance and just get out there! More on that tomorrow!