Complex Trauma and “Over-Thinking”

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The Connection between Complex Trauma and “Over-Thinking”

“Over-thinking” is indeed a response to Complex Trauma (C-PTSD). Complex Trauma refers to the long-lasting effects that Adverse Childhood Experiences (such as neglect, abuse, abandonment, as well as other forms of trauma that occur during crucial stages of life development) can have on a child’s growth into an adult — especially in areas of the person’s physical, emotional, and psychological well-being.

Here's how Complex Trauma can lead to what is commonly called, “over-thinking”:

Hypervigilance: Individuals who have experienced trauma in their formative years may develop hypervigilance as a way to protect themselves from potential threats. This hypervigilance can manifest as constantly analyzing situations, anticipating negative outcomes, and planning repeatedly (all considered “over-thinking”) about how to ensure safety.

Fear of Repeating Trauma: People who have experienced trauma may fear similar experiences happening again. This fear can lead to excessive forethought (“over-thinking”) as they try to stay one step ahead to anticipate and avoid situations that could potentially trigger similar traumatic events.

Difficulty Trusting Others: Complex trauma can erode trust in others, leading individuals to overanalyze interactions and relationships. They may constantly question the intentions of others, leading to persistent worrying (“over-thinking”) about social situations and relationships.

Difficulty Trusting Self: A history of trauma during early development also erodes a person’s trust in themselves. Almost more significant than the not trusting of others is the persistent rumination and self-incrimination (“over-thinking”) a person can have over everything they do. This includes actions taken or not taken and words spoken or not spoken.

Sense of Control: “Over-thinking” can provide individuals with a false sense of control over their environment. By constantly analyzing, preparing and and planning, they may feel like they are preventing future harm or controlling outcomes, even though this may not be the case.

Emotional Regulation: Focusing on thoughts and analysis (“over-thinking”) can also serve a person as a way to deal with overwhelming emotions associated with trauma as it becomes a temporarily distraction from the painful feelings or memories.

Spiral Mind Psychotherapy, LLC looks at hypervigilance, analysis, rumination, worrying, planning, excessive forethought and more (“over-thinking”) as a healthy, albeit overused, coping mechanism to adverse childhood experiences.

The approach I use to reduce the oppressive nature of your overused “thinking” coping mechanism is to work with you find the answers for what caused you to need the coping mechanism so much in the first place. Likely there are events, relationships and milestones that adversely affected you and disrupted your healthy development. After we: 1) Understand the disruptions and how they impacted you, we focus on: 2) Building Trust that your new understanding of your history is legitimate, valid and worthy; and then we 3) Honor the trust you now have in your understanding of your history by healing and grieving the losses it contained and empowering the current adult You.

Are you an “Over-Thinker?”

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INSPIRATION

  • "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

    — Maya Angelou

  • "It's never too late to be what you might have been."

    — George Eliot

  • “Until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

    — Carl Jung

  • "The deep critical thinker has become the misfit of the world, this is not a conincidence. To maintain order and control you must isolate the intellectual, the sage, the philosopher, the savant before their ideas awaken people."

    — Carl Jung

  • "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

    — Thomas A. Edison

  • "Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."

    — George Bernard Shaw

  • "There's a power in words. There's power in being able to explain and describe and articulate what you know and feel and believe about the world, and about yourself.

    — Tracy Chapman

  • "I don't try to project any image at all, other than the person that I am."

    — Tracy Chapman

  • "The important thing about "brave" is, it doesn't mean you're not terrified."

    — Sinead O’Connor

  • "Never hide things from hardcore thinkers. They get more aggravated, more provoked by confusion than the most painful truths."

    — Criss Jami

  • "To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment."

    — Eckart Tolle

  • "Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity."

    — Thomas J. Watson

  • "I'm not a fast thinker, but once I am interested in something, I am doing it for many years."

    — Haruki Murakami

  • "Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."

    — Aristotle

  • "[A person's] greatness lies in [their] power of thought."

    — Blaise Pascal

  • "In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility."

    — Eleanor Roosevelt

  • "Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them."

    — David Hume

  • "Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you."

    — F. Scott Fitzgerald

  • "Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be."

    — Thoreau

  • ""To find yourself, think for yourself."

    — Socrates

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  • "The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."

    — Albert Einstein

  • "The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks."

    — Christoper Hitchens

  • "We must dare to think about 'unthinkable things' because when things become 'unthinkable,' thinking stops and action becomes mindless."

    — J. William Fulbright

  • "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."

    — Marie Curie

  • "Obstacles, of course are developmentally necessary: they teach [people] strategy, patience, critical thinking, resilience, and resourcefulness."

    — Naomi Wolf

  • "We will fail when we fail to try."

    — Rosa Parks

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