Overthinking is actually a form of self-protection. People tend to overthink when they no longer respect their own feelings first, but instead attempt to cover their emotions with rationality. This reflects that they may have experienced a state of helplessness in their childhood or during their growth, where they often could not act according to their true feelings. Behind them, there may not have been adults who respected all their feelings, supported them, and helped them. Thus, as a young child, they had to constantly face special dangerous situations, repeatedly simulate and anticipate outcomes, and calculate risks alone. So what is trauma? It is not an event, nor is it a cognitive distortion, but rather a reaction; it is the fixed response left by our self-protection in countless situations of anxiety, tension, and unease.