Overthinking is rarely an advantage

‘I couldn’t simply “turn off” my thinking – in the same way that someone who is diabetic cannot think their way to producing more insulin.’ Photograph: Oleg Breslavtsev/Getty Images

I was delighted to read Polly Hudson’s article on overthinkers like me (Faithful, sensitive, forgiving: overthinkers like me make the best partners, 29 March). I am 51 now and have spent most of my life at the mercy of my ability to “turn even the most pleasant, benign interaction into a horrifying encounter that definitely caused offence”.

Someone once described me as a sentinel – forever observing and analysing myself and, as a result, never actually living in the moment and enjoying the freedom from guilt and shame and self-loathing that the under- and perfect-level thinkers around me appeared to achieved without effort.