overthinking things

[Gina Trent]

Does anybody sometimes worry how you have said something to other people, and then are thinking, oh no, did that sound cocky or sarcastic? Then your wittling about it either till you ask the person, or just wittle for days and go over it and think about what you said and how you said it...I know it might be difficult to see if I was being funny on a computer but, a relative of someone at work said, thanks for my mums card, and I said it's ok, it was for you and (the other person) aswell, And he said we've got one for you, and I just went, awww, smiled and walked off...typing this now makes me think I'm overthinking it...I do that a lot and I annoy myself because if I ask someone about how I said something to them, they say, it sounded fine..why? Then I feel silly for asking....

[Jim]

I think it's easy to feel misinterpreted and fear that someone will take an offense when none at all was intended.

[Andrea]

I over think things all the time. Ill say something, spend the whole weekend worrying that I might have upset someone to go back to work on Monday and find the person has no idea what I am on about. I also do that when I am trying to get an idea just right. I tend to make so many changes to the original idea that it goes wrong and then I get asked 'Why didn't you do ...(the original idea)' Ahh!

[Captain_Ludd]

Yeah, I often find my self loosing sleep over some relatively minor comment I've made or incident I may have been part of 999 times out of 1000 it will end up being nothing but that doesn't stop you worrying about it.

[screengreen]

yep I am a worrier too, real convinced I have offended people when none was taken!

[Wayward]

Me too! I've always been a worrier, always overthought things.

[Jo-]

Yeah, same here and it's almost constant! I worry over every slight that I think some one has said or if they took something wrong and was it my fault and why do they hate me and do I hate them and why can't anybody understand me and why do I always get things wrong!... It goes round and round and i still worry about things that happened years ago. My husband calls me a nut-job!

[sofiazoe]

Then your wittling about it either till you ask the person, or just wittle for days and go over it and think about what you said and how you said it...I know it might be difficult to see if I was being funny on a computer but, a relative of someone at work said, thanks for my mums card...........

[Moot]

I'm another overthinkererererrrr.

Funny how the pretty inconsequential to life words we might say to others (did that sound nasty?? Oh I hope not!! etc.) can bring forth so much worrying. :p

[bacondrink]

I was just thinking of this when I stumbled across this board. I'd spent an hour and a half composing a very short email to a friendly acquaintance about meeting up, weighing every word, deciding whether or not to include certain bits. In the end I didn't send the email.

I think part of it maybe to do with verbal reasoning. I believe I'm right in saying that some dyspraxics perform above average in verbal reasoning tests, and I reckon this bleeds over into every day interactions. When we communicate, so much of what we say isn't overt and is merely implicit. So if you're very good at understanding the conceptual baggage of a sentence, it stands a good chance that you're much more aware of the minute differences of meaning in two fairly similar statements than most other people would be. You get that what you're saying has all this other meaning, and everyone else is blissfully unaware. This is particularly difficult as language is a far from perfect medium for communicating things (counterintuitively)

So in this email I was writing, the whole issue was whether I would come off as overly presumptious about the status of my friendship with the recipient. My issue was that if I acknowledged the fact that I was asking to meet outside the official pretense under which we normally meet (uni stuff), I would then have introduced the idea of the official stuff, which would make the meeting a kind of quasi-official catch up. At the same time it seemed remiss not to mention the fact that hitherto this point we have always met for the same reason. It's difficult to describe without going into specifics but it was driving me round the bend.

I'm now deliberately not going to agonise over this post, although I should say, I really really want to.

[Tom fod]

Hi Bacondrink

Welcome I hope you find some answers/comfort here.

I find I much prefer email/text as I can be explicit. No not in that way! 8-)

Email/text allows me extra time to craft what I need to say and gives me time to feel sure about what I'm trying to get across. That said, even then people tend to only half read things so sometimes I still end up having to re-explain. I find speaking on the telephone/in person is not really my favourite way but sometimes it's actually more effective. Trouble is choosing which is best and when.

Oh for a more perfect world for me.

[Peardrop]

I often get told I over think things especially by my family and usually I don't think I am on these things.

Other times I tend to over think things about what I've said at work - generally this is when I've said something that ends up coming out a bit awkward (I know this bit), the thing is I'll worry over it for days without telling anyone, even though I know it is highly unlikely that the other person is still thinking about it.

I now try to reassure myself of this and ask myself this...

Will this still matter to me in 1 year?
No, will this still matter to me in 6 months?
No, will this still matter to me in 1 month?
No, will this still matter to me in a week?
Maybe - but is that because the other person is still thinking about it or because I am (the answer is usually the latter)
So, will this still matter to me tomorrow? Yes, but only if I let it.

I try to use this to put things in perspective and although that sinking feeling is still there I find this helps push it away and block it out.

Hope it can help you too.

[neil f]

i know how you feel as I'm over thinking things as I'm typing this!
Just been diagnosed about a week ago (I'm 43) and have always had a problem with over thinking things be it how people think of me or things that have happened to me that day (it's even worse at night as i usually wake up at 3-4 am unable to go back to sleep as my mind is thinking or worrying about what happened. point in fact as here i am typing this worrying about work as i am on a performance improvement frame work due to my poor memory

[Welshcakes11]

I'm always over thinking things, I analise everything I say and see if I could have said it differently, I worry whether it has offended that person, apparently my sons often tell me I say things which sounds a bit aggressive and my face is always frowning as I'm talking to them, my jokes come across as telling offs, I don't understand it as I'm not a nasty or aggressive person and for this I get upset and apologise and tell them I didn't mean it like that and so I question everything I now say hoping I've said it in the right manner.

[Endo]

I was just thinking of this when I stumbled across this board. I'd spent an hour and a half composing a very short email to a friendly acquaintance about meeting up, weighing every word, deciding whether or not to include certain bits. In the end I didn't send the email.

I think part of it maybe to do with verbal reasoning. I believe I'm right in saying that some dyspraxics perform above average in verbal reasoning tests, and I reckon this bleeds over into every day interactions. When we communicate, so much of what we say isn't overt and is merely implicit. So if you're very good at understanding the conceptual baggage of a sentence, it stands a good chance that you're much more aware of the minute differences of meaning in two fairly similar statements than most other people would be. You get that what you're saying has all this other meaning, and everyone else is blissfully unaware. This is particularly difficult as language is a far from perfect medium for communicating things (counterintuitively)

So in this email I was writing, the whole issue was whether I would come off as overly presumptious about the status of my friendship with the recipient. My issue was that if I acknowledged the fact that I was asking to meet outside the official pretense under which we normally meet (uni stuff), I would then have introduced the idea of the official stuff, which would make the meeting a kind of quasi-official catch up. At the same time it seemed remiss not to mention the fact that hitherto this point we have always met for the same reason. It's difficult to describe without going into specifics but it was driving me round the bend.

I'm now deliberately not going to agonise over this post, although I should say, I really really want to.

Excellent post, I immediately understood precisely what you meant. The hindrances of an above average verbal reasoning - perhaps trying to compensate for our other shortcomings? - is a fascinating point you raise.

I'm looking at my CAT scores (anyone remember those? Cognitive ability tests you are given in school at different stages 9, 10, 11, 14?) and for my verbal reasoning, aged 11, I was in the 96th percentile. I was in 97th for quantitative and 63 for non-verbal. The huge 33/34 percentile drop came courtesy of dyspraxia, but even still it was better than 62% of similar aged children. That makes it clear to me that our other powers of reasoning can and will compensate for the failings in areas that dyspraxia affects us.

It leads to, in my view, a lateral approach. We have to devise ways of bypassing areas of perception, analysis, memory and understanding that aren't fit for purpose, that don't work for us, especially those years diagnosed (those test scores apparently raised no alarm bells.Was spotted through an Art teacher!) wherein we must operate within the confines of systems that take such abilities for granted. At the very least, systems that like to pigeonhole: you're either below, above, or merely average as a whole. If there is a difference between your performances in different areas then it's placed at your door: how many times did we get lazy, easily distracted, lacks attention, unmotivated, doesn't follow instructions, doesn't listen e.t.c. I mean if you can get 20/20 on your spelling test, why can't you do some simple cutting and sticking?

So I think other areas overcompensating mean you can hone, say, very powerful verbal reasoning. You gave a perfect description of exactly how I've experienced it: I have an intuitive understanding of every word I'm using, I can just appreciate the subtle differences between words people usually class as interchangeable. I hate the thought of being misunderstood, because I know when I read something I give every word attention.

Maybe this is why, as the OP said, they get very nervous around people and conversations. When you grasp the depth of your vocabulary to the extent we do, we are constantly evaluating the permutations of every word both in itself and when used as part of a sentence, and finding the perfect combination of words to express our thoughts feels essential. The problem is that most people this flies over their heads and the subtleties are lost on them: not only do they not always appreciate the nuances of what we're saying, but they often don't appreciate the nuances of what they're saying, leaving you to fret over some inference you've made into the way they phrased some off-hand comment they had no idea could or would be interpreted the way we manage to. That is the final, embarrassing nail in the social coffin: anxiously pressing the unbeknownst person into a full explanation of something they didn't even know they'd implied in part. They're bound to think we're weird... paranoid/oversensitive, even. However you want to phrase it.

But, honestly, I am happy to think this way... I feel a twinge of dyspraxic pride that deficits in some areas have led me to develop an almost unique reasoning power others: I love that I see the world and perceive things around me differently, because I've realised it isn't my (or our) mistake. And understanding this has helped me completely change my outlook. I shouldn't be depressed about the failings of others, just aware that I need to do my best to accommodate them but importantly, stop blaming myself first. Trust my own intuition no matter what, even if 90% of people around me think differently. I've never looked back