I already saw it 2 months ago when I was overthinking.

Virat Kohli getting out or hitting a six really depends on how I was positioned, what I did a moment ago. I carry the silly weight of blame. Oh, he got out because I did this. Fuck, argh. Perhaps the Indian team should come to me, take me on tour with them, because clearly whether they win or not depends on my position.

But ah, my memory. I take a deep breath, my lungs expand as I do that. And I release it all together. It is almost funny how this is the one thing I can't relate to, my brain muscles aren't flexing for this. The overthinking? I inherently am very trusting towards other people. Astonishingly, despite having so many betrayals and been cheated on. I take pride in it. How can I not have trust issues? How am I not an overthinker? How have I possibly not figured out all the worst case scenarios?

I sit with these questions. It's dreadful.

But it doesn't end there. Not wearing green in my exam like I wore on day 1, because the paper was too good that day and today it's difficult because I didn't follow the same process. Pchh. Family fights depend on which animal I see. I saw an owl, came home so happy because it was the first time I saw one so clearly, came home, fights in family. Uff, I forgot. Bad luck, bad luck, bad luck. My mobile got stolen because I lied to my mom about my whereabouts. I am punished for it. And oh, the guilt. The sense of intense worry that I feel in my forehead, despite my friends trying to put logic in my head. But how can I believe them? No, god works differently to help me realise my wrong doings.

It's funny. I laugh at the meme. But why is it not landing to me like it is to others? They speak about it like from familiarity, like they live it. Why am I giggling if I don't see it that way? Or relate to it? Probably because I have it under control. With my rituals, my actions, right? I can simply copy paste the same exact thing I did yesterday to avoid having a bad day today. To avoid getting hurt or abandoned.

It's funny but at the same time it's so real. I am probably much better than these pessimists, the overthinkers who feel so stuck with situations, who can't decide, who can't take action.

I mean, I don't think of the worst case scenario.

How does that work? Like, what? Does it make you feel the hurt less? Perhaps it's how you get immune to the emotion so then how can it hurt you? I sit with this knowledge with great confusion. The muscles of my forehead narrowing together to make a frown. Apparently I wear that as a queen.

I feel so out of control not knowing this. This feeling, this thing that I am writing a blog on. How do I relate to it? Because I still feel hurt. I still feel abandoned. And I can certainly not sit with any uncertainty. I grieve as I lose a hope. Does it make it better? Having it thought in every direction? Where do you get these directions? I breathe out heavily. Feeling extremely uncomfortable with this, my face moves sideways, chin resting on the front of my shoulder as I sit to think. I can't. Except I feel this part of me in my head that feels absolutely out of control. Like it's slipping. But as I do this, it's probably what I am doing. I am overthinking this whole thing. Almost like my way of controlling, but it feels abnormal, obnoxious.

But this obnoxious thinking gives me a gateway to blame things, to make sense when the hurt doesn't. To perhaps guard me from the emotions that I am so uncomfortable with.

I tilt my head only to think of the possible commonality between the two ways we guard ourselves. So different but yet so similar in nature.

One thing is external and the other, internal. It ultimately does narrow down to control. Uncertainty. Not knowing.

And maybe that's the thing. We're all sitting with the same uncomfortable feeling underneath; the uncertainty, the not knowing, the fear of being hurt or left or caught off guard. But how we carry it looks so different that we don't recognise each other in it.

Some of us overthink every possible ending. Some of us build rituals and follow them religiously, half laughing, half desperate. Some of us go completely quiet and call it being fine. Some of us grieve things that haven't even ended yet.

It looks different from the outside. It can feel isolating, even strange. Like nobody else does this quite the way you do.

But we're probably all just trying to make the unbearable feel a little more bearable. In whatever language our nervous system learned first.

We're in the same boat. Just sitting in different parts of it.

And somewhere, someone is probably repositioning themselves so Virat Kohli doesn't get out.

You can't hurt me. I already saw it coming.

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Written by Tanisha Sanghavi

Tanisha is a counselling psychologist and co-founder at Therapea, working with young adults on food-body relationships, attachment, and complex trauma. Work with Tanisha →