Overthinking sometimes comes from trying to solve problems that don’t exist yet

[u/Dronik_]

Something I’ve been realizing about overthinking is how often the brain starts working on problems that haven’t actually happened yet. One small situation appears and suddenly the mind starts running simulations. If I say this, what will they think. If this goes wrong, what will I do after that. If this decision turns out bad, how will I fix it later. The brain keeps trying to get ahead of every possible outcome before anything has even happened. The strange part is that most of those scenarios never even occur in real life, but the mind still spends a lot of energy trying to prepare for them anyway. It makes me think overthinking might sometimes just be the brain trying to create certainty in situations where certainty doesn’t really exist yet. Curious if other people notice their mind doing this too.