Can Overthinkers Like Me Survive Working Online?

It’s a mess here for sensitive people

Today I’ve felt mildly depressed all day and I can’t shake it.

My mind is that huge whirlpool of plastic in the ocean, 620,000 square miles of thoughts swirling uselessly around, contaminating everything. The longer I sit with it the larger it gets, collecting new junk thoughts and adding them into the mess.

“You don’t have what it takes.” “You’re failing.” “Why don’t you just do something else.”

I know I’m an overthinker. Was it smart choosing a job where all I do all day is think?

It probably doesn’t help that it’s winter here right now.

I tend to get down in winter. The cold sucks my energy and drains my mood. Freelance work also cools off this time of year. I prepare for it, but every year I watch my savings, worrying whether I have enough to cover us until it improves.

I’ve lived before with zeroed out bank accounts and unpayable debt. I haven’t forgotten how that feels: the stress and mental energy it takes to pull yourself up off that ledge by the fingernails. My body hasn’t forgotten, even though it was years ago.

The thing is, I love this job and I know there are ups and downs.

There are times where you have endless fountains of energy to write; there’s so much work, you can turn down what you want to.

This job is so good when you have more work lined up than you need. It’s incredible when you can focus on the actual writing, meeting deadlines, working with great clients. When it’s like that I’m part of a tiny percentage of lucky people who love their jobs. When it’s not…

I don’t feel so lucky. I feel useless.

Those months where you feel desert dry are long. Your page stays blank or everything you write is uninspired and dull. Every job is boring and badly paid. Every client is difficult. The gigs disappear and you spend all your time scrolling freelance sites with job titles like “Need Freelancer to Write 1000 Product Descriptions for $1”.

My brain gets loud with it. With the options and the searching and the competitiveness.

My brain gets loud with it. With the options and the searching and the competitiveness. With trying out new avenues and designing new income streams. I know that’s part of this job — an essential part — but it’s still exhausting.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m too sensitive to write online.

It’s not the comments or that anyone is awful to me — most of my readers are incredibly kind and encouraging. The community of writers and online creators is one of the most supportive groups you’ll find.

I still struggle with the mental load.

I’ve been doing this for years. I’m over 40 now and I’m not good at anything else. I was the worst teacher! I barely lasted two years. I worked with babies in a hospital for a while, but I had more complaints at that job than I’ve ever had in my life. I’m great with babies, not so good with their beyond tired parents apparently.

This is all I’ve ever wanted to do. It’s the only job I’ve loved.

Yet on days like today, I become the protagonist in a tragic dystopian future: is this the end of it? Has technology swum ahead and left me behind, struggling; discarded and suffocating in my whirlpool of rubbish thoughts.

It’s easy for the sensitive ones among us, like me, to catastrophize.

It took me years to unravel from that habit and I don’t want to pick it back up. As a sensitive person, how do you manage the ups and downs of it? How do you stay steady and manage your mood when it’s such an emotional job?

I haven’t worked that out yet. Right now, it feels tough.

Tomorrow I could be fine. Perhaps tonight I’ll be fine.

I’ve been working online for over a decade now, although it has gotten significantly louder here. For overthinkers, it leaves our heads buzzing.

When the noise turns to junk, I need to shut myself in a quiet room, turn on my laptop, and resist the urge to scroll.

Maybe overthinking is, in fact, the gift that makes a writer?

I open a clean white page instead and do what I know works. Isn’t this why we started writing in the first place? Isn’t writing the antidote to our overthinking? Maybe overthinking is, in fact, the gift that makes a writer?

Like many of us have done in thousands of journal pages, I let the power of writing filter my rubbish thoughts and, just like I knew it would, clear my mind ready for the next job.

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