My thoughts are like rubik’s cubes. I will hold them in my hands, turn them over and over until I’ve pieced all the right colors together. I am determined to solve it. I want the colors to line up in the right ways so I can accomplish my goal and move on. Just like the cube, I want to make sense of the things in my head. But the truth is, I oftentimes try so hard to make sense of things, I end up just pulling the stickers off and replacing them with a different color instead of considering how to actually solve the cube. Everything has to make sense to me, and sometimes the connections I make are not necessarily a true representation of what I want and need, or what others want and need from me.

Constantly overthinking every move I make causes a great deal of indecisiveness, even with the simplest of tasks. I can’t easily decide what to wear in the mornings or choose a place to eat for dinner. Others think I’m just being complicated, but it’s not that simple. I wish I could effortlessly make spontaneous decisions without considering the consequences, but it’s something I can’t control. Even if I try to make a decision going with my gut instinct, I will think about that decision for days and come up with a list of ways I should have reacted instead. If I wear shorts on a chilly day, I’ll spend all day thinking about how I should have worn pants. I spend so much time thinking about what should be or what could be, I forget to accept what already is.

At any given moment, there are always a million things running through my head. Tornadoes, avalanches, and tsunamis of information swirl around inside my mind, making themselves at home. Ideas, pictures, memories, goals, and concerns move around simultaneously, leaving a complicated mess of feelings and desires behind. Building relationships in the wreckage is difficult. The way I bring up the same subject a million times with a new angle each time tends to annoy other people. Due to the way my feelings on a subject changes so often, occasionally even mid-sentence, relaying how I feel is problematic.

There are so many people that don’t know how to handle those who overthink. They write me off and say that my opinions and feelings are no longer valid because I thought about them for too long, as if there were a time limit on how long an idea can live inside your brain. People think that by pointing out that I’m overthinking, it will solve everything. As if saying “you’re thinking too much about this” that whatever it is I had been contemplating will just disappear from my mind on command. Dismissing me is not helping me. Believe me, I know there are other things I should be devoting my attention to. I know that life would be so much easier if I could just make a decision and stick with it. Stop telling me my thoughts don’t matter.

Regardless of how difficult it is to deal with me--and trust me, I know it’s difficult--my thoughts are not meaningless. Whether it’s the first time you’ve heard me mention an idea, or the hundredth, do not tell me it is insignificant. Do not try to put me in a box of how you think a person should be interpreting the environment they’re in. Do not pressure me to expedite my decision-making process, or stop forgiving me when I change my mind a million more times. Do not tell me I’m “just overthinking”, because I’ll probably think too much about that too.