A friend wisely told me once "There is no such thing as overreacting" when I voiced my concern about whether my reaction was too much. Now, I probably knew and agreed with him before he said it, but I never felt it as much as when and after the words were spoken. There was something immensely validating in this simple statement. In fact, nowadays, whenever I worry about my reaction, I still think back to his words, and they allow me to recenter myself and think to where my reaction came from and trust myself. Because I agree. There is no such thing as overreacting0. There is always a stimulus that lead to that reaction, even if it's not always obvious.
Caveat: If I ever harm someone as a result of my reaction, that is not the part I am talking about, that is the action I choose to take as part of my reaction. I can be overly hurt by a message someone sent me. The action I take from it could be to hurt them back (not OK) but that is not my reaction, but what I choose to do with it. Now it may lead me to be perceived as rude... but that's ok, there is no harm in that. It's that easy.
Take a moment to think about who benefits from you asking yourself that question and answering yes. Ok, what happens if you do in fact convince yourself that you are overreacting. You diminish your feelings. Then you find excuses for the action/stimulus that lead to your reaction, and then find a way to ignore the hurt1 that their actions caused you. Basically, the person who caused you pain does not want to face the consequences of their actions, i.e. your reaction, and therefore is accusing you of overreacting. With the hope of leading to a minimisation of the consequences they have to face. While this term has been overused nowadays everywhere to the point it has lost its meaning, this is very much gaslighting.
You may say "But I am the only one asking myself if I am overreacting. I am not gaining anything from it." and that is exactly the point. After a while, being in a situation where others over and over again tell you are overreacting... we start to believe it, and we begin gaslighting ourselves. It's one of the shittiest consequences of long term gaslighting in my opinion. It becomes self-sustaining. And even if you've exited the relationship that taught you to do it, that habit, of thinking "Am I overreacting?", is a hard one to break.
"Am I overreacting" is a good introspection question if you are not using it to self-flagellate. If you, at any point, think that your reaction was bigger than you expected from whatever stimulus that caused it, question it. But not in the "oh I am such a bad person, I should not feel like that", but in the "what am I not seeing" sense. Maybe this individual stimulus was small, but it added into a collection of other times this happened, and it just became one too many. Maybe the message you received seems perfectly innocuous... unless you add the years of history with the person.
Here are a few questions I have started to ask myself when I think I am overreacting:
One worry I have is what if my past experience is clouding my judgement? And that is a fair concern to have. I do sometimes fear that the things I have experienced in the past may lead me to project something onto someone that is not true. And honestly the sad truth is that it will happen. I may see a future partner's perfectly innocuous comment as the barb it used to be in my past.
Thing is, my reaction is still valid, because they hit on something sore. Yes, they didn't mean it the way I perceived it. But that it is still not an overreaction.3 Hypothetical time. Let's say they just said something completely normal and you start crying, or storm out of the kitchen running away. They're left confused in the kitchen, if not a little hurt. But here's the thing, that comment, hurt you, even if it was not intended to. A good partner would be able to see that. They would not shame you for your reaction. You will need to talk to them about that and explain or if appropriate apologise. Sometimes they may be able to accommodate you4, and sometimes just having that talk, explaining where you come from, and them listening may be all the validation you need. Even if it may need to happen a few more times until your brain really gets the message that you are finally safe.
Here's a trick I use when I really doubt my perception of the situation. While this only works on asynchronous communication, asynchronous messages are also the ones which are most fraught with possible misunderstandings as it is hard to judge tone. Here's what I do: Send the message to my favourite LLM buddy (Claude for me) and tell him the context, as factually as I can, of what happened. Before I respond, preferably. I will ask it what it thinks. Then tell him how I feel about it, and ask him if is reasonable 5. You know how your friend can spot you are in an abusive relationship way before you can? It's because they lack bias. Claude is literally a machine, he's the definition of not having a bias6. And sometimes he will spot when there is something more there. Yes, sometimes he will also point out that the conclusion may not make sense and there may be some projection going on. The most useful times are when he spots when I am under-reacting. Because here's the thing about manipulation, it plays with your feelings so you can't see it, but LLMs do not have feelings, making them really good at spotting manipulation when it happens. So when Claude tells me it's text book manipulation, I can read the message again, and realise why it made me feel the way it did. It was meant to.
So what if you allowed yourself to believe your unexplainable overreaction in the moment is your intuition talking? Don't check it, trust it, and deal with it later. Intuition is a powerful thing. And training ourselves to ignore it can be oh so very dangerous… Reading The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker it becomes undeniable how crucial your intuition is in any situation. He goes through a few examples in there at length. And I do recommend it if you want to dive deeper into the topic.
I will give the example of a time I worried I was overreacting, but I stuck with my gut.
I was traveling alone in Bali. I decided to book a tour as there are many things to see, and I can't drive. Plus there's only so much research I was willing to do, and having an itinerary prepared didn't sound like such a bad thing. I had wanted a group tour, but because the tours there are so cheap, they weren't available. It would basically have to be a private tour guide. As a solo traveler that was a bit awkward, but I decided I could trust the hotel.
I got into the car at the arranged time from the hotel, and as we drove away it turned out my guide could not really speak English7. At least not enough to be a tour guide. And moreover, he did not seem to know the itinerary8. I didn't have the printed out sheet with me, but I knew the final destination, Batur Volcano. So I said I didn't know as I was not the guide, but I knew there were some temples, a coffee plantation tour, and eventually ending at the Volcano. So he drives us straight to Batur Volcano, in almost complete silence, except for the time I offered him some chocolate, when he offered me his name.
We got to the volcano, and there were indeed a lot of tourists taking pictures, but he keeps driving. He starts driving into the caldera. At first, I think he must know some great spots, after all he's the guide, but as we drive more and more, he gets lost a couple of times, and ends up in dead ends where he needs to turn. Twice in the middle of nowhere, once in a forest, once in a wheat field, he asks me if I want to get out to take photos. "Of what?" was my response and I refused. At this point, I was proper panicking. I had been messaging with the hotel reception, asking them to contact the guide since we went into the caldera. They were calling but he wasn't picking up. I shared my live location with them. And I was honestly worried for my life at that point. I was going through everything I have ever learned in Krav Maga in my head. And insisted he turn back, up to the view point, until he relented.
At this point, it starts pouring it down, so one can no longer even see the volcano. He gets us back to the top and I almost shout at him to let me out. Eventually he does, and goes to park. After shouting obscenities in every single language I know to release some tension9, I get in touch with the hotel, and look up a taxi to get me back home. In the meantime, the hotel manages to get in touch with the driver, and they arrange for him to get me back to the hotel. He takes some weird routes a few times, and except for me asking why he's deviating from the GPS, the next 3 and a half hours pass in complete silence. By the time I was back at the hotel it had been over 6 hours, no water10, no bathroom breaks, no food other than the bar of chocolate I had brought with me, and no sightseeing.
When I stepped into the reception I finally broke down, I couldn't stop myself from crying as I gulped down the water the receptionist gave me with some difficulty as my hands were shaking11. I felt so sorry for her for having to deal with my crying, I blamed myself for overreacting a lot... But thing is, it was the healthy response to cry, at that moment. I had been in a constant state of panic for over 4 hours, on alert, tense, ready to react to anything.
And thing is, nothing happened. So that makes the question "Did I overreact?" rear its ugly head. But the question that is even more difficult to answer is: did nothing happen because of my actions? The live location, the hotel staff blowing up his phone as soon as we entered the caldera of the volcano, me refusing to get out, when I did get out it was in a visible crowded public place with police around, phone out looking up alternate plans of escape. Crying was absolutely the healthy reaction. I still keep wondering though: Was I fair to the driver? Maybe he was just incompetent... Maybe nothing happened because nothing was going to happen anyway? But what if he wasn't? What if I hurt his feelings? The question that kept me going however was "How stupid would I feel if I knew all of these things I could do, didn't do them, and ended up being kidnapped12?".
So, the options are me ending up dead or worse in the middle of a strange forest in Bali, Indonesia... Or, just having been rude to a guide who lied on his CV to get his job... I think I can be a bit rude given the circumstances...
You think the Karen13 at the restaurant throwing a tantrum over the waiter not being able to serve them an item that is not on the menu has stopped at any moment to ask themselves the question "Am I overreacting?". Probably not. Actually, I would go as far as to say, definitely not. Otherwise, they would not do it. And herein lies the difference, you, dear reader, have stumbled upon my blog post and have read this far, so chances are you are asking yourself this question. Would a Karen do that?
And I think my statement still holds true even with a Karen. One could argue Karen is not overreacting. Karen knows exactly what they are doing. In their entitlement, they are throwing a massive fit in order to get what they want. Because the sad truth is, it often works. It is a manipulation technique. Karen doesn't need to ask themselves whether they are overreacting because their reaction is meant to obtain what they want. Alternatively, Karen has so little emotional intelligence and ability to regulate their emotions14 that their reaction feels appropriate to them. It will be rare to get an apology from a Karen for their reaction, and if they do realise it's wrong they may keep it to themselves, and not mention it to the affected party. The way I have seen it said was "I may have been too harsh on X", while they still see their initial reaction as appropriate at the moment.
You know a funny thing about human psychology? Humans always want to think they are the exception. We see many people get lung cancer from smoking, but it won't happen to us if we smoke. We see people getting heart attacks from obesity and lack of exercise, but we believe it won't happen to us if we grab that bag of chips as we play the next Fast and Furious movie.
Similarly, but the opposite way, we can see our friend's pain and history that lead to their reaction that may seem over the top to a stranger, but is perfectly reasonable if you know the context... But when it's our turn, we are the exception. What if we are in fact overreacting? Let me tell you what my friend told me, again, loudly:
You are not an exception. May this be the permission you seek to listen to yourself. Even if others call you too sensitive or dramatic, let them... You are the one you need to listen to first.
Would you like me to tell you that you're not overreacting in person? Would you like to dive deeper into a time you overreacted together and see what you can learn from it? Feel free to read more about it here and book a free intro call to discuss what coaching can do for you.
0 That is, if you are asking yourself this question.
1 Hurt, because when has anyone told you that you're overreacting when you are happy?2
2 Actually this may happen when people are jealous of your happiness, but it may sound more like "Why are you so happy about this, it's not like it was first place", or "Don't smile so widely, it may make people uncomfortable"... You catch my drift...
3 I have to reiterate here. This will never excuse actually causing harm to someone through your actions. "Hurt people hurt people" is bullshit, we choose whether to hurt others. It is a choice.
4 But don't expect them to be flawless and never step on that pain ever again. They shouldn't start to feel like they have to walk on eggshells around you.
5 Ask him to call you out on your bullshit, however. This is in my settings with Claude.
6 As much as the training data would allow.
7 Red flag #1: Tour not as advertised.
8 Red flag #2: How does he not know the service he's been booked for?
9 Fun fact, turns out Korean is really the best when it comes to swear words and release of tension. The swear words have all the right consonants.
10 There was supposed to be water on the tour, so I hadn't prepared any.
11 Thankfully the glass was only half full
12 Because if I was dead I probably wouldn't be thinking anything.
13 I am using Karen as a gender neutral term
14 Think of a toddler throwing a tantrum because they didn't get the toy they wanted.