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It’s better to overthink and to be over-prepared, don’t you think?
Well, maybe not ALL the time, but there are definitely some situations where overthinking can really come in handy.
AskReddit users talk about situations they were prepared for because they are over-thinkers.
Let’s see what they had to say.
1. Got it covered.
“All the teachers at the Middle School I taught at knew I was a pack rat and one day a kid split his pants and the school counselor came to me and said ‘Mr. Thehogdog, would you happen to have a pair of sweats or gym pants in your truck’. YEP.
So the the kid spent the rest of the day in a pair of nylon pants I had behind my seat. He is lucky because if he didn’t fit he would have spent the rest of the day in a white disposable ‘coverall’ I had in case I had car trouble in nice clothes.
Icing on the cake: It was a student I really liked who was super helpful to other kids and teachers, so it was nice to do something nice for him.
I also carried a ‘Swiss Army’ brand soft side brief case (yard sale find) STUFFED and it had a few of each size of battery.
One day Phil Niekro and 2 Braves players were there for an assembly and Phil’s mic battery was dy**g so I SPRINTED upstairs to my classroom, grabbed a 9 volt from my bag, then basically rolled across the panel and switched out his battery and got back to the PA avoiding getting on TV News cameras.”
2. Thank God!
“When my son was still a baby, we had to take an 11 hour flight. As an over-thinker, I brought at least 25 diapers for him to go through.
He didn’t need that many, but the mom sitting close to us was very grateful when she ran out of diapers not even halfway through the flight and I gave her a few.”
3. Wow.
“I found a nickel-sized lump on my fifteen month old daughter’s temple, freaked out, obsessed over it, researched it exhaustively, and concluded it was a dermoid cyst that had worn through the skull.
I was told by a pediatrician that it was a bone bruise that would fix itself over the course of three to six months, no imaging was needed, and I shouldn’t make an appointment at the children’s hospital because it would resolve on its own. I got an X-ray done anyway and the radiologist confirmed every one of my suspicions, but the pediatrician still said to wait and see because that’s what you do with dermoid cysts and it was definitely not through the skull despite what the radiologist said.
Made an appointment at the hospital anyway, and the surgeon swore up and down that although it was a dermoid cyst as I’d suspected, it would not be through the skull since in all his years of practice it never had been. Well guess what? It WAS through the skull, and it was pressing on the membrane between the skull and the brain, a hair’s breadth from breaking the membrane or pressing on the brain.
A couple more weeks of waiting and my daughter could have had seizures, a brain infection, lasting damage. I overthought it and now she’s a happy, healthy three year old.”
4. Fire.
“This was at 9 years old. We had driven home and seen the beginning wisps of smoke for the California Cedar fire in 2003.
Naturally, I assumed the worst, and packed up all my clothes and spent about an hour making a travel cage for my guinea pigs. I tied their water bottle to the side so they could drink, packed up their food and their favorite furniture just in case.
I then spent the next few hours monitoring the fire on the news and out in the distance from our window, periodically asking my parents if we needed to evacuate.
At some point in the night the fire sped up like crazy and was literally on the hillside across the street. I went in to my parents room and said “the fire is across the street are you sure we shouldn’t evacuate?”
At this point we all went crazy grabbing important documents and supplies and as we were about to lock the doors and drive I realized I forgot my guinea pigs. My parents told me it was too late and I didn’t have time to grab them, but when I cried and explained I had them packed up, I was able to grab them and go.
The house ended up ok thanks to a neighbor putting out embers before they took, but we were gone long enough my pigs wouldn’t have made it.”
5. There you go.
“I was supposed to get married at the end of May last year.
At the beginning of the year, before any of the pandemic stuff happened, I became obsessed with thinking about all the things that could go wrong and how we would lose our money spent on the event.
As a result, I purchased a very high coverage insurance policy for the event. As luck would have it, this type of insurance had no clause that prevented collecting if there was a pandemic. We got all of our money back.”
6. That’s impressive.
“Getting lost in a foreign country. Relying on phone GPS to navigate, data stops working.
I had over-prepared and memorized the map of the downtown area ahead of time.”
7. Perfect!
“I always carry a small sewing kit whenever I go to a wedding.
I have sewed two brides into their dresses so far!”
8. Creepy.
“Mace.
A person I worked with was a registered s** offender and he had a thing for me. I told him multiple times that he made me feel uncomfortable and to stay away from me. For some reason I had nightmares about this dude, he was 6 and half feet tall and f**king hideous. Anyways, he said he was going to stop at a store that I stopped at all the time after work, and it was obvious he knew my direction when I left.
I pull up to this store and he’s already there, walks up to my car and I just roll down my window and spray this dude, and he dropped a billy club out of his sleeve. Everyone always told me to stop being paranoid and stop thinking he’s going to attack me or r**e me, that “he’s been to jail and learned his lesson”.
F**k that dude. He should’ve never been let out of prison. For reference, I’m also a 6 foot tall dude who is always prepared for the worst.”
9. Terrifying.
“My school went into lockdown because of a potential active shooter.
I’ve thought about that scenario a thousand times in my head so when it actually happened and we went into lockdown I barricaded the doors just how I imagined a thousand times.”
10. Getting easier.
“Being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease after researching it thoroughly and knowing I had it, but everyone in my family telling me I was just being a hypochondriac.
Was prepared for the diagnosis, not so much the life with it, but it’s getting easier.”
11. What a relief.
“I built a first aid kit once in which I tried to imagine every wilderness emergency scenario. I was a wilderness whitewater guide.
A client going into a diabetic episode asked me, “ you wouldn’t happen to have any sugar packs would you?” I replied, “as a matter of fact, I do!”
She was so relieved and thankful that my planning included persons with her affliction.”
12. Lifesaver.
“My boyfriend who has zero history of seizures narrowly escaped dy**g from one because my overthinking led me to break into his house when he didn’t answer the phone.
My overthinking had begun a few nights prior. He mentioned that he but his tongue in his sleep and woke up with a bloody pillow and sore mouth- but he had no memory of it happening.
That for some reason led my overthinking brain to question ‘Wow, did he have a seizure and not realize it?’ He has zero history of seizures, and we had been together multiple years (didn’t live together but spent nights together) and I had never seen a hint of a seizure. But for some reason, this stuck in my mind.
Fast forward two days. We usually don’t hang out in the morning because he likes to sleep in late, but on this day we had an appointment to go see a specific dog at the shelter I was thinking of adopting.
He wouldn’t answer the phone that morning. I called multiple times before I went to his place, but he never picked up. I started getting a bad feeling but quelled the ‘He’s having a seizure’ thought, because that was clearly SO unlikely, meanwhile making an action plan for that very scenario.
I got to his house and he wouldn’t answer, so in a completely NOT ME crazy girlfriend move, I climbed over his fence. Luckily his door was unlocked.
I found him unconscious and unresponsive, lying in his back with the sticky remnants of foam all around his mouth.
I jumped into action- I rolled him on his side to help curb aspiration, put a pillow under his shoulder to keep him in that position, and called the ambulance.
Had I not hopped the fence to get in- had I not driven over when he didn’t pick up the phone- had we not had plans to meet up hours earlier than we usually did- he would have been d**d by lunch. His kidneys were already shutting down by the time he reached the ER.
If he had never mentioned biting his tongue in his sleep, I don’t think I would have been overthinking at all. No crazy worries about seizures would have pushed me to go over and find him.
Turns out to be a weird brain disease that’s bizarrely endemic to New Mexico kind of- cerebral cavernous malformations .
Several days later, after we got home from the hospital, I got a call from a friend who said the dog, against all odds, was still at the shelter- as in the very dog we were supposed to be seeing that day. I had given up hope on getting her, pushed it out of my priorities while he was hospitalized- but they had forgotten to take down my 24 Hour Hold sign on her cage, so no one inquired about her.
She’s now our miracle dog and is the sweetest animal I’ve ever owned. My boyfriend wouldn’t be alive today if we hadn’t made an appointment to meet her.”
Are you an over-thinker?
And have you had an experience like this?
If so, talk to us in the comments and fill us in. Thanks!
