Overthinking Isn’t a Flaw—It’s My Unofficial Second Job
And grief? That’s my most stubborn coworker.
I’m not just grieving. I’m running mental diagnostics on every conversation, every silence, every what if, as if clarity were hidden in the mess. Turns out, my grief isn’t just sorrow. It’s an overthinker’s endless buffet of unfinished thoughts, unsaid words, and what-ifs with no expiration date.
I’ve been told that grief gets easier with time. Tick tock, tick tock. They never mention that if you’re an overthinker, time just gives more angles to analyze. And if there were medals for dissecting every possible scenario until exhaustion, I’d have a shelf full of them.
So, this is where I find myself at the moment:
My grief is amplifying my overthinking.
My brain will not stop dissecting details.
The emotional weight of analyzing loss distorts my memory, creates false conclusions, and keeps my thoughts looping, around and around and…
Overanalyzing grief is exhausting.
I have tons of doubt, I’m second-guessing, and there’s a loss of focus.
Grief has hijacked my cognitive space, making clarity much harder to reach.
Grief amplifies my overthinking.
When grief arrives, it doesn’t come alone. No, siree Bob. It drags in uncertainty, self-doubt, and a relentless need to make sense of something inherently senseless. Add a dash of Tinnitus and anxiety to keep my mind racing—why not? Tossing and turning all night, I wake up feeling drained and frustrated. When loss hit, my overthinking mind treated it like an unsolved puzzle—replaying moments, analyzing words, and searching for hidden meanings in conversations that have long passed.
My thoughts spiral. Re-reading an old text from someone who’s gone, dissecting their last words and wondering if they meant something deeper. Replaying an interaction, wondering if I should have said something differently, or prevented something entirely by keeping quiet. These are the loops my grief locks me into—the belief that thinking harder will somehow undo reality.
My over-analysis vs. memory distortion.
This is where overthinking turns grief into something even more complex for me. Instead of simply remembering, my mind starts reconstructing situations, exaggerating, diminishing, and twisting the past in search of answers it will never get. The small details that shouldn’t matter suddenly feel monumental. HUGE. A sigh becomes regret. A pause in conversation transforms into lost meaning.
Often times I find grief makes my memory feel unreliable; overthinking warps the truth and creates new layers of sadness that weren’t there before.
My emotional weight of the what-ifs.
Then there’s always the question of what could have been, what I could have done, or what I should have said. But at some point, the weight of the what-ifs becomes unbearable. If left unchecked, my overthinking turns grief into a never-ending mental audit, a cycle that prevents actual processing.
Should I acknowledge that grief doesn’t need overthinking to be valid? And maybe, sometimes, can clarity come not from more analysis but from allowing my emotions to exist without explanation?
I’m discovering that clearing mental clutter is about creating space for thought without getting trapped in over-analysis.
Reframing my thoughts to separate signal from noise.
Not all thoughts deserve attention. My grief and overthinking magnify the insignificant, making every memory or regret feel urgent. I often question whether a thought is providing clarity or just fuelling more noise.
Is this thought helping me process or just exhausting me? Instead of Why did this happen? Why don’t I shift to What do I do now?
I need to look at conscious decision making as an art, like writing—amazing how the two work hand in hand. Instead of drowning in every possible interpretation, I need to learn to make small, intentional choices:
Decide what’s worth thinking about and not thinking that everything needs analysis.
Limit my mental loops, so if I’ve thought about something two or three times with no new insight, move on. Try at least.
Set boundaries for deep reflection and avoid spiralling past them.
Making decisions, even small ones, can reclaim a huge amount of my mental space, like deleting old photos from my iPhone to reclaim a few extra megabytes for a new app.
My new rituals for mental clarity.
Grief and overthinking are thriving in the chaos of my mind. So maybe, just maybe, I can find clarity by creating structure:
I’ve started journaling to help me release words and thoughts and externalize emotions, not to analyze, but to understand those thoughts. (I’ve shed a few tears in the process, and it’s amazing.)
Try engaging in something tactile, mindful distractions, like running to help shift focus—I’m running again, and wow!
Verbalizing my thoughts, an inherent challenge for me, will make it easier to recognize when they’re irrational or unhelpful. It’s working.
Finally, allow my thoughts to exist without fixation.
This is the hardest but most freeing step for me: Accept that some thoughts won’t have answers. Not everything is meant to be solved, and sometimes clarity comes not from thinking more but from letting go.
I think I’ve thought about this enough… for now.
