“Always be prepared” sounds good on paper but it is very hard to put into practice. And that’s due to one single reason: it’s impossible to be prepared for everything. No matter how gifted you are, you can’t prepare yourself for every single risk and eventuality (and who wants to live their entire lives in paranoia?). However, what you can do is prepare for the most likely risks and scenarios... and rely on your gut instinct that something might be wrong.
There are some cases, however, when someone’s overthinking and over-preparedness have saved either them or someone else, both in actually life-threatening and completely mundane situations. What follows is an honest account of what happened, as shared by the overthinkers of Reddit.
Scroll down, have a read, and let us know in the comments if you’ve ever been glad that you overthought something or when your instincts told you something might be wrong, dear Pandas.
#1
When my wife and I were getting married and looking for a place for the ceremony we have found this beautiful but quite remote garden. We were signing the contract for the event and I kept thinking that it was quite remote, so I asked: "how much time does it take for the ambulance to get here?"
I became the laughing stock of both families. My (then future) mother-in-law, who was present at the meeting, literally fell down from the chair laughing. The wedding organizer, remembered it for weeks, telling everyone we met about it. My dad ended every sentence with "...but maybe you need an ambulance for that". My wife was making siren noises when I was saying something we disagreed on. Every family dinner all the aunts and uncles were "checking" if the ambulance was present. You name it. The entire package.
Still, I couldn't get rid of this weird feeling. It would have taken over an hour for the ambulance to get to the garden. After a few weeks, I ended up paying a private ambulance to be present at the wedding.
Fast forward to the ceremony. As my wife literally walks down the aisle, at the back of the garden I see two Paramedics running with a stretcher and my dad squeezing my hand whispering: "that's not of your god da business, let them to take care of it. "
What happened was that one of our older guests got a heart attack and almost died at the ceremony. Was saved by the private ambulance.
Ever since then, when my wife tells me that I'm overthinking, I just do the siren noise.
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487points
#2
I began having chest pain at 21 years old. I'd have difficulty breathing and something they call 'impending doom.' I knew I was going to die, and I told everyone who would stand around long enough to listen. I just knew it. Every night I’d cry, afraid I wouldn’t wake up. For six months, I fought every nurse, every doctor, every provider to be taken seriously. Even my own family turned their backs on me, embarrassed by what they thought was a psychiatric episode. I became obsessed. I went to medical libraries to look for cases like mine. I did online research. I consulted doctors around the world on the internet. I never stuck a name to what I thought I had, but I had a very good idea of what I had and how it would behave. I gathered medical documents as evidence, and put it all in a binder so I could show doctors I saw. Somehow, I actually predicted the cardiac rhythm that would cause my death: polymorphic vtach
I got two of my closest and medically intelligent friends to legally become my durable powers of attorney. Then on June 6 in 2018, I went into cardiac arrest three times during a study on my heart that they were basically doing to humor me because they didn’t believe I was sick.
I was told I had a very rare, very deadly genetic channelopathy in my heart's conduction system. I had to have an automatic implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (AICD) installed in me, which I will have the rest of my life.
I’ll never forget the day I was recovering in the hospital from my AICD insertion. I was lying in the hospital bed, and my doctor entered. On the bedside table was the big, fat binder I had been carting around for months. He asked if he could look through it, and I said yes. After a few minutes he said, 'You showed this to every provider you saw?' And I said, 'I did. You are the first one to actually read through it.'
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352points
#3
My boyfriend who has zero history of seizures narrowly escaped dying from one because my overthinking led me to break into his house when he didn’t answer the phone.
My overthinking had begun a few nights prior. He mentioned that he but his tongue in his sleep and woke up with a bloody pillow and sore mouth- but he had no memory of it happening. That for some reason led my overthinking brain to question ‘Wow, did he have a seizure and not realize it?’ He has zero history of seizures, and we had been together multiple years (didn’t live together but spent nights together) and I had never seen a hint of a seizure. But for some reason, this stuck in my mind.
Fast forward two days. We usually don’t hang out in the morning because he likes to sleep in late, but on this day we had an appointment to go see a specific dog at the shelter I was thinking of adopting.
He wouldn’t answer the phone that morning. I called multiple times before I went to his place, but he never picked up. I started getting a bad feeling but quelled the ‘He’s having a seizure’ thought, because that was clearly SO unlikely, meanwhile making an action plan for that very scenario.
I got to his house and he wouldn’t answer, so in a completely NOT ME crazy girlfriend move, I climbed over his fence. Luckily his door was unlocked.
I found him unconscious and unresponsive, lying in his back with the sticky remnants of foam all around his mouth.
I jumped into action- I rolled him on his side to help curb aspiration, put a pillow under his shoulder to keep him in that position, and called the ambulance.
Had I not hopped the fence to get in- had I not driven over when he didn’t pick up the phone- had we not had plans to meet up hours earlier than we usually did- he would have been dead by lunch. His kidneys were already shutting down by the time he reached the ER.
If he had never mentioned biting his tongue in his sleep, I don’t think I would have been overthinking at all. No crazy worries about seizures would have pushed me to go over and find him.
Turns out to be a weird brain disease that’s bizarrely endemic to New Mexico kind of- cerebral cavernous malformations.
Several days later, after we got home from the hospital, I got a call from a friend who said the dog, against all odds, was still at the shelter- as in the very dog we were supposed to be seeing that day. I had given up hope on getting her, pushed it out of my priorities while he was hospitalized- but they had forgotten to take down my 24 Hour Hold sign on her cage, so no one inquired about her.
She’s now our miracle dog and is the sweetest animal I’ve ever owned. My boyfriend wouldn’t be alive today if we hadn’t made an appointment to meet her.
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319points
There’s nothing wrong with wanting a sense of security and clarity. However, life is fundamentally unpredictable. The fact is, it will surprise you, even if you think you’re doing all you can to foresee any possible inconveniences or risks.
Earlier, Bored Panda spoke about how to deal with the fact that life is full of unexpected and unpleasant events with British psychologist Lee Chambers.
"As human beings, we have a desire for certainty and routine that keeps us feeling safe and able to plan what lies ahead in an organized manner. When unpredictable situations or accidents impact us, it can be traumatic, and we will likely feel a sense of disappointment, frustration, and loss," he told us during a previous interview.
#4
So maybe not quite this, but my little sister:
Through a long serious of events, my parents (who where not Foster parents and not looking to adopt) ended up taking care of an infant (who was not at all related to us) whose mother had just died. It was only supposed to be for a few weeks until she could be moved to a more permanent placement. As soon as I found out that my parents had agreed to help watch her temporarily, I knew where this was going, and I had all the initial adoption application paperwork printed out before she ever got to our house. Needles to say my parents were pretty surprised the day they said they were thinking of adopting her, and I handed them a folder of forms and my handwritten notes on how the process worked. (For the record, she has legally been my little sister for 7 years now.)
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276points
#5
I was overwhelmed and swamped my first year at university, but I’m a keener who’s determined to do well. One of my hardest classes involved a final exam that was in essay format. It was one essay question, and you had three hours to write on the topic. I asked the professor if we could see exams from previous years to help us study and prepare. I figured it would give me a better idea of what type of question to expect. At first he seemed hesitant, but he wound up giving me an exam from a few years back so I could study. The day of the exam, I opened the test booklet — the exam question was the same exact question from the previous exam he had given me. I looked at the professor, and he was looking directly at me and smiling. I have never been so prepared for an exam.
I wound up acing my hardest class. Afterward, the professor told me he’d been using the same exam question for 20-plus years and that I was the first person to ask to see an exam from a previous year.
265points
#6
I found a nickel-sized lump on my fifteen month old daughter’s temple, freaked out, obsessed over it, researched it exhaustively, and concluded it was a dermoid cyst that had worn through the skull. I was told by a pediatrician that it was a bone bruise that would fix itself over the course of three to six months, no imaging was needed, and I shouldn’t make an appointment at the children’s hospital because it would resolve on its own. I got an X-ray done anyway and the radiologist confirmed every one of my suspicions, but the pediatrician still said to wait and see because that’s what you do with dermoid cysts and it was definitely not through the skull despite what the radiologist said. Made an appointment at the hospital anyway, and the surgeon swore up and down that although it was a dermoid cyst as I’d suspected, it would not be through the skull since in all his years of practice it never had been. Well guess what? It WAS through the skull, and it was pressing on the membrane between the skull and the brain, a hair’s breadth from breaking the membrane or pressing on the brain. A couple more weeks of waiting and my daughter could have had seizures, a brain infection, lasting damage. I overthought it and now she’s a happy, healthy three year old.
234points
"It is important however that we embrace the fact that the world can be unpredictable and uncertain, and become more tolerant of this being a reality. Understanding that things are sometimes out of our control helps us to accept that not everything goes to plan, and accept when things happen to us that are negative.”
The psychologist continued: “This acceptance allows us to embrace the change and difference, and manage our expectations so we can become more resilient to the ups and downs that all our lives lead."
"Post-traumatic growth isn't always simple to explain or utilize, but often the adversity we face can create a precedent for what we can overcome, help us to see what we need to be grateful for, and give us an understanding of the support we do have,” he told Bored Panda.
#7
I’m Asian, so my default is to overthink, especially when I’m on a field trip/ holiday/ etc. Essentially it’s just what if I need X, Y, Z JUST IN CASE.
One time, while I was living in another SEA country, I went on a middle school field trip with my (mostly white) classmates.
Side note: in most SEA public bathrooms, bidets are the norm, toilet paper is not. But in this particular country, even the bidets are not encouraged to be used. So toilet paper is a luxury during trips.
At the hotel we stayed at, my classmates made fun of me for taking 3 rolls of toilet paper from the hotel's bathroom. They were embarrassed & reported me to the teacher in charge, who told them off for wasting her time. I told them they were going to regret laughing at me but they continued to mock me for overthinking.
Cue to the bus trip back & a couple of them had diarrhea & guess who was the only one able to provide enough toilet paper. You bet your a** I made them pay me for toilet paper (per square cause f**k you guys for laughing at me).
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232points
#8
I moved my family from Kyiv to a safe place before the war started in Ukraine. I did this completely independent, not as a company policy or anything, and with my family protesting, not believing a war would begin.
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218points
#9
I always hoped I would be the action-taker in a life-threatening situation, so I would always listen and read gore and 'it happened to me' type of stuff. It came in handy when a motorcycle in front of me ran up the back of a flatbed truck. The bike driver tipped over, skidded, and was unconscious. The flatbed never even knew anything happened. Five other drivers just stood around staring at the guy in the road, so I came up and directed one person to call 911, asked another to check his pulse after confirming they knew how to, and stopped another person from trying to wrestle off his helmet. I was also able to relay to EMT that he had a seizure as the other bystanders thought he was 'trying to wake up,' and that he had multiple broken ribs. I could feel shifting and grinding under my hand while gently consoling him once he did actually come to.
I felt pretty good about being able to take charge and actually direct to get help, especially since I was the smallest person there.
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218points
“A big part of opening the door to grow from our struggles is finding acceptance and taking ownership over what you can control and finding healthy ways to express the negative emotion that comes with challenges that test us.”
Psychologist Lee revealed that he himself had to learn to walk again. "Using journaling and talking about how I felt played a significant part in my recovery when I had to learn to walk again, and gave me the space to grow to become mentally stronger as a result,” he said.
“It is also important to reflect on all the hurdles you've overcome, so you can see what skills and lessons you've learned to apply in the future, and adversity often helps us to see what really matters, and gets us closer to knowing our values and purpose."
#10
In college, on occasion upperclassmen would randomly steal the underclassmen's towels from the shower stalls and then lock their room doors so they had to go to the RA bare a**ed. I had the idea to stash a towel in the drop cieling tiles for just that event. Maybe a week later I became the victim of a towel snatching. However, the upper classmen were very unhappy to see me strut out with a nice clean towel from my ceiling stash.
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210points
#11
I overthink what to do in the event of being kidnapped or being in an event that could lead to a kidnapping. Anytime I'm on the sidewalks at a late hour, I let someone know where I'm at — call it paranoia. I was walking home at 3 a.m. at a college campus, when a truck in the parking lot turned their lights off. It caught my attention. Someone got out of the car and started walking on the sidewalk, too, just a few yards behind me. I texted the girl who knew I was walking my phone number and told her to call me immediately. I said hello loudly, announced my exact location, and implied that we were going to be seeing each other soon. The guy broke off — I don't know where he went after.
I don't know if it was all in my head or not. All I know is that I'm still alive.
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200points
#12
Went through a stage as a teenager where I thought I was psychic. I know, I know, stupid. A friend asked me jokingly to make a prediction. I told him to get a flashlight because tomorrow would be dark. I grabbed one myself when I got home and put it in my purse. No idea why, just did it. The next day the Eastern seaboard blackouts happened. He still asks for predictions to this day.
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192points
#13
I was once driving on the highway behind a car with a couple of kayaks strapped to the roof. My anxious brain kept saying “what if they fall off the car, final-destination style?”
I tried to convince myself that it was an irrational fear, but the anxiety got the better of me and I decided to change lanes and make some distance.
About 30 seconds later, cue kayaks: they both slip off the roof and go rolling around the highway.
Luckily no one was hurt, but man that did not help my anxiety at all.
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187points
#14
I am an amateur clarinetist. I've played in the local orchestra and the like. My son was in the high school band (also played clarinet). Prior to a football game, at the warmup area, he called me as I was about to head to the game, saying that someone in his section had a problem with their instrument, so did I have a loaner?
Now the thing about being a clarinet player is that everyone you know calls you every time they see a cheap plastic clarinet for sale at a garage sale or the like. So over the years (especially when my son was in jr. and sr. high) when I saw one of these for $50 or $100 I grabbed it. Didn't happen every day, but at the peak of my collection I had a couple of beater plastic clarinets in addition to the pretty good wooden one my son played (and lord knows I wouldn't trust anyone with my good clarinets in Bb and A I used in the orchestra).
So I grabbed BOTH of these plastic jobs, which actually played okay, and brought them. I pulled the one I thought was the better of the two out of the car and gave it to my son's friend. Meanwhile, he says "hey another person ran into a problem..." and I got the second clarinet out of the car.
"How many clarinets do you HAVE?" was my son's question.
It was a proud moment.
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187points
#15
I was supposed to get married at the end of May last year. At the beginning of the year, before any of the pandemic stuff happened, I became obsessed with thinking about all the things that could go wrong and how we would lose our money spent on the event. As a result, I purchased a very high coverage insurance policy for the event. As luck would have it, this type of insurance had no clause that prevented collecting if there was a pandemic. We got all of our money back.
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186points
#16
Mace. A person I worked with was a registered sex offender and he had a thing for me. I told him multiple times that he made me feel uncomfortable and to stay away from me. For some reason I had nightmares about this dude, he was 6 and half feet tall and hideous. Anyways, he said he was going to stop at a store that I stopped at all the time after work, and it was obvious he knew my direction when I left. I pull up to this store and he’s already there, walks up to my car and I just roll down my window and spray this dude, and he dropped a billy club out of his sleeve. Everyone always told me to stop being paranoid and stop thinking he’s going to attack me or rape me, that “he’s been to jail and learned his lesson”. F**k that dude. He should’ve never been let out of prison. For reference, I’m also a 6 foot tall dude who is always prepared for the worst.
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177points
#17
I carry a fire extinguisher in my auto. I witnessed a car accident where the engine caught fire. I quickly put it out before it burned the inside of the car. Everyone survived.
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176points
#18
Injuring my dominant hand... as a kid I had an irrational fear of having it chopped off. I spent all of grade 6 teaching myself to write and do things with my left hand. I made a conscious effort to remain as ambidextrous as possible. As an adult I broke a few fingers on my dominant hand... but it wasn’t a big issue because I could do most things equally with my left hand. Anticlimactic, but it was useful lol
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175points
#19
I was in fifth grade walking home alone because my sister left from school early, and noticed someone following me. As a child with a massive imagination, I had thought of scenarios where I was being followed. I even googled what to do in that situation, so I knew which of my plans would work. So when the guy was following me, I took four lefts. When I checked behind me, he was still following. I was pretty close to my house already and knew not to go in, so I went a few houses down to a neighbor and knocked on their door. 'Hey Mom!' I yelled. 'I’m home. Is the door unlocked?' They opened the door. In a whisper so quiet my lips almost didn’t move, I said, 'It’s an emergency; please let me in.' My neighbor tilted her head just enough to see outside without being seen, noticed the man, and said loudly, 'You don’t have to ask to enter your own house. Come on,' and let me in. We shut and locked the door, then waited until the man left.
I never saw him after another encounter, but I described him to my mom in case we did see him again.
170points
#20
Years ago when I was in high school, I used to wait at the side of a busy road for the school bus early in the morning. I would often think of what I would do if a car ever went off the road and headed straight for me. One morning, I was waiting in my usual spot when a car towing a trailer was driving down the hill. I thought, What would I do if the trailer came off? A split second later, the trailer detached from the tow hitch and came full speed toward me.
I dove over the wall behind me and frantically crawled on the grass to get away from it. Sure enough, the trailer hit the wall exactly where I was standing and banged up the wall. I did exactly what I always thought I would have done if a car was ever racing toward me.
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167points