Overthinking kills

I am a very emotional person, not the one that cries excessively though but the one that is always reading meaning to every damn thing, from the blinking of your eyes to the pouting of your lips, I read meaning to every freaking thing, and guess what happens when you are like that? You tend to read things wrongly most times and get into trouble.

“Take it easy IB”

“It’s not that deep,” they all say but to me, it’s deeper than you can ever imagine. When you are an overthinker do you know what other trait you possess? Making decisions on impulse, this trait is added to the mix.

I worry about the most minute thing all day long, things that get sorted out in a matter of minutes, and whenever I am in my overthinking state I am usually nervous and restless, good thing I don’t fall sick easily and surprisingly I do not have high blood pressure as that would have been devastating to my health.

source

A tragic event occurred in 2021 that shook me, and one would have thought that I would learn my lesson after that.

In mid-2021 while I was living in a corpers lodge, a corpers lodge is a house built for young graduates who are rendering community service to their country for one year. I made some friends then but one particular girl was a problem, she was always fighting with everyone until one day she had an asthma attack.

Prior to having the attack she texted me that I should take her to the hospital, I immediately ran outside to confirm if it was a prank or if she was being serious, to my surprise it was not a prank she was truly sick, since it was late and I was dressed in my pajamas I had to quickly go into the room to change and that was when I heard someone scream. I ran outside and I saw some other corpers gathered around my friend, my friend was on the floor and was having an asthma attack.
I have never witnessed an asthma attack before except in movies so everything was strange to me, I thought she was dying as she was gasping for air and was saying she was dying.

The first thing that came to my mind was what if I was fully dressed and I immediately took her to the hospital what would have happened if the attack happened on our way to the hospital, would she have died there with no inhaler and a sane person by her said? This thought flashed in my head and watching my friend almost unconscious made me scared, I panicked, I started crying, and was pacing like a mad woman, while they tried to stabilize her with the inhaler which was not working and we later found out that the inhaler had expired, for a year plus she hadn’t had any attack until that night.

I saw no progress in what they were doing, I rushed to get my phone and started calling all the people in charge of us as we were under the guidance of a church and none picked up my calls since it was really late. I called my friend's dad and broke the bad news to him, still in my panicked state, my friend's father heard the news and just when he was about to get his car keys to drive down to the city where we were he fell down and this added to his deteriorating health condition and later had a partial stroke.

I was oblivious to what was happening in my friend’s family house. We rushed my friend to the hospital on getting there the beds were too old as we laid her on the bed she fell flat and sustained some injuries.

After they were able to stabilize her, hours later I called her family to inform them that she was stable, her mum broke the sad news to me that her dad fell while trying to get his car keys, my heart sank, she left the partial stroke part out of it but when my friend broke the news a few days later I felt so guilty and stupid, why in God’s name did I panic when I called her father?

The fact that I panicked and my overthinking nature clouded my judgment which in turn ruined someone else’s life hunts me to date.
My friend keeps telling me that her dad is better now and it wasn’t my fault that he wanted to drive by 10:30 pm to a city that was 5 hours away from where he was.

I still can’t help but feel bad, if I had been calm, the narrative would have been different but no I let my emotions get the better of me.

To date, I try my very best to stay calm at all times but I still lose it most times, sometimes for the most minute thing, it is a very big problem for me and I am on a journey to change such a lifestyle.