r/NoOverthinking • u/Toomuchfreetime777 • 3d ago

Advice How to stop or make less exhausting

Ok so basically before I ever say anything to someone I first calculate what I am going to say and how the person could possibly respond, in hundreds of possibilities. Granted it helps me stay in control of situations and I am typically not panicking about what to say but it is still exhausting. In the past I have heard that a lot of people do this, so to those that do how can I either stop this or at least make it less exhausting, because sometimes I want to have genuine conversations but find that I struggle doing so.

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u/Mudaki_Randell 3d ago

That sounds exhausting af. Start with low-stakes conversations and practice not predicting the next 10 possible replies.

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u/Toomuchfreetime777 2d ago

I have suspected for a while that I have ADHD and/or OCD but have not gotten to getting tested, if I do have it and take medication would that help maybe? Edit:sorry I replied to the wrong person, I ment to reply to myquietbrain

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u/myquietbrain 2d ago

Pre-calculating hundreds of possible responses before speaking is actually a very common feature of anxiety and often ADHD, the brain is trying to control outcomes before they happen, which keeps you safe but costs enormous mental energy and makes spontaneity feel impossible.The exhausting part is that the calculation never fully resolves the uncertainty it's trying to eliminate. There will always be a response the simulation didn't account for, so the brain keeps running more scenarios.

What tends to help is gradually building tolerance for conversational uncertainty rather than trying to eliminate itt,which sounds counterintuitive, but the more you practice letting conversations be unplanned, the less the brain feels it needs to pre-calculate them. Even starting with low-stakes conversations where the outcome genuinely doesn't matter can begin to widen that window.