For a long time, I carried most of the responsibility for my family’s well-being and safety. A big part of that responsibility was raising my son as he grew up while I continued building my music career.
I understood that everything depended on my physical and mental effort. It seemed that if I relaxed for even a moment and lost my grip on what was happening, the entire structure of stability I had built would collapse like a house of cards.
Of course, my mother helped me, and my faith in God’s promises sustained me in moments of doubt. Still, the responsibility of making every important decision, choosing our direction, supporting my family financially, and running our home trained me to stay fully engaged with everything around me.
I had to think ahead.
Anticipate consequences.
Analyze risks.
Make decisions and take responsibility for the outcome.
My work as a performing artist, teacher, and speaker added another layer. It required close attention to detail, sensitivity to the audience’s response, complete focus, and the ability to react quickly: to make changes in the middle of a performance, improvise, and rescue the situation when necessary.
Over time, I developed the habit of analyzing everything deeply, anticipating possible consequences, and keeping events under control.
Today, we often call this overthinking. Yet beneath excessive thinking, there may be a deeper mechanism: an attempt to protect ourselves from uncertainty.
They say that what does not kill us makes us stronger.
Perhaps.
But we hear much less about how the strength that once saved us can later become our vulnerability.
Especially when we fail to notice that the danger has already passed.
In everyday life, I tend to appear calm, composed, and rather modest. It would be difficult to imagine that the moment I step onto a stage, I become a lioness and sing or play as though it might be my last performance.
If an event begins to unravel and someone needs a way out, I am usually one of the first to step in. Under pressure, I mobilize, and I do not give up until I find a solution. Live performances taught me this, as did the difficult circumstances I faced as a mother raising my son on my own.
Anticipate.
Foresee.
Prevent.
Detect the danger and neutralize it.
That is me.
For a long time, I saw only strength in this.
And it truly was strength.
But eventually, I began to notice its price.
Control had become my armor. The problem with armor is that danger eventually passes, while the person inside it continues to wear it.
When we spend years in a state of total responsibility, our circumstances may change long before our inner sense of safety does. Life may no longer demand constant mobilization, yet the person remains on guard.
They keep watching, checking, calculating, and preparing for whatever might go wrong.
Not because they enjoy telling others what to do.
Not necessarily because they distrust everyone.
Sometimes they simply remember too well what happened when no one was there to rely on.
Sometimes a person who is highly capable in a crisis discovers that calm is much harder. In a crisis, everything is clear: there is a problem, and it must be solved. But when nothing remains to be rescued, the habit of constant readiness does not always disappear. It continues searching for the next threat, the next weak point, or the next situation that must be held together.
Science offers an explanation for this pattern.
One mechanism behind excessive control may be difficulty tolerating uncertainty. This applies to both men and women, although people may cope with the unknown differently.
The cycle looks something like this:
Uncertainty → perceived threat → anxiety → checking or organizing → temporary relief → a stronger need for control
Imagine someone who does not know how an important meeting, project, or performance will turn out. They create the perfect scenario, review it repeatedly, and try to make everything follow the plan exactly.
Their anxiety briefly decreases.
The learning system registers an association: careful control was followed by relief and success. The next time uncertainty appears, it offers the same protective strategy, only more insistently.
In psychology, this mechanism is called negative reinforcement: a behavior becomes more likely because it temporarily reduces distress.
The problem is not planning itself. Planning is useful. Attention to detail, responsibility, and the ability to anticipate consequences help us work, create, protect the people we love, and navigate difficult circumstances.
The problem begins when a person can no longer stop checking.
Can no longer delegate.
Can no longer relax.
Can no longer tolerate a change of plan without becoming deeply unsettled.
This is the point at which control stops being a tool and gradually becomes a prerequisite for peace of mind.
But what exactly does science mean by control?
The word describes several very different processes. Saying that someone “likes to control everything” does not explain what they are doing, what they fear, or why control feels necessary.
Where does responsibility end and excessive control begin?
Why can one person make a plan and move on, while another cannot sleep until they've considered every possible deviation?
And what are we really trying to control: our circumstances, other people, or our own anxiety?
That is what we will explore in the next chapter: When Control Becomes the Master.