Overthinking everything. Depression. Anxiety. Reframing negative thoughts. Mental health. Just some buzzwords because why not?
The mind is so interesante.
I heard somewhere that the person you speak to the most is yourself. Inside your head.
But what are you thinking about? What are you saying to yourself? What are some of the thoughts you’ve had that you would never dare to voice out loud?
Repeating negative patterns
So back in #9, I wrote about the dark thoughts I used to have annually.
I recently learned from Tiphani Montgomery that when you see repeating negative cycles or patterns in your life or even in your bloodline, that is a cause for concern and could possibly be a symptom of a curse. For more info on curses, you can watch these videos: Art of War and Covenant Keeping God.
, she said you should begin to see your life as a tree. So whatever you see in your life is the fruit. Even Matthew 7:16-20 talks about recognising people by the fruit they produce in their life.If a tree is continuously producing bad fruit you can’t just cut the fruit off and expect it to now produce . You need to go to the roots.
Likewise, in your life, if you’re seeing repeating negative patterns, you need to go to the root to figure out what is wrong.
If I was having annual negative thoughts then what on earth was wrong with me?
Too many thoughts in my mind
Most people have probably gone through some sort of trauma that has impacted their life. In my case, it was a mixture of past trauma and the current circumstances at the time that was impacting my mind.
I also never told anyone the thoughts I was having but would allow my thoughts to run wild. Positive thinking wasn’t even a thing for me and I would indulge in self-pity. It’s like I was already sad, but I would think about things to make me even sadder. What on earth?
I know I hadn’t healed either as I didn’t accept certain things or even speak about how I was really feeling. I don’t think you need to share every single thought you have, but if you can see your mind is becoming negative and polluted with lies, I think it’s important to speak up and get help.
Overthinking everything
So, I’ve noticed my tendency to overthink. When I would hear people say they’re an overthinker I didn’t really pay attention to it and didn’t realise how much of an impact it can have on your wellbeing.
I think my tendency to overthink stems from self-reflection. I love reflecting and analysing situations but sometimes it gets longgggg as I really be overthinking everything.
Sometimes I replay a conversation in my head, thinking about what I said/should have said or how the other person responded to me. Just over-analysing when no one asked me to.
As in, nobody asked me so why was I doing it?
Other times, before speaking to someone I would think about the different ways they would react, what they would say etc. It’s like I wanted to make sure I was prepared before going to speak to them, but it just used to make me anxious. The sad thing is, I didn’t even realise the effect this was having on me mentally and how destructive this was.
This whole overthinking thing didn’t and doesn’t (your girl is still working on it, pray for me thanks x) happen all the time, but just with specific people and in specific situations. It’s not a nice feeling because you just feel on edge.
Hospitalised due to negative thoughts and overthinking everything
Last month my church had a women’s breakfast and they brought on a lovely lady called Dr Nkiru who was interviewed by one of the pastors.
Dr Nkiru shared her story of coming from a supportive and loving family and not going through any traumatic experience, but while in medical school found herself hospitalised after having a mental breakdown and suffering from hallucinations, delusions and suicidal thoughts.
So what caused her to become hospitalised you ask? Nothing specific happened to her so what caused her to become so depressed?
It was the thoughts in her mind.
Dr Nkiru mentioned that when she had the breakdown, even her family was shocked. It didn’t look like anything should have caused her to go down that path as nothing major happened.
Your thoughts can make you sick
Dr Nkiru said she believes the trigger that led to her severe clinical depression and anxiety was her personality. She was a high achiever and always did well in school, however she was very negative and pessimistic towards herself. Coupled with (watch me with the vocab) having an inner critic and finding it hard to look past her mistakes – she was essentially an overthinker as well. She shared that she was also a perfectionist and had this sense of not being good enough despite other people praising her.
Due to her overthinking, she used to worry a lot which contributed to her having anxiety.
Overall, her mind was very negative caused by the constant negative thoughts she had toward herself. It was this build-up of negative and toxic thoughts that eventually led to the decline in her mental health.
Hearing her story was very scary because as she was speaking I felt like she was lowkey explaining my life.
Her story gave me more insight as to why my mental health declined back in 2019. But it also explained why I felt like my mental health was about to decline again in this 2022…
So how did she overcome this battle? How did I overcome this battle? Carry on reading this post: #74 – Overthinking everything and reframing negative thoughts part 2
Resources
YouTube
I’m so happy they recorded it because I really needed to watch it again.
Here are the videos that talk about curses, how to break them and the significance of covenants
