You wouldn't know it by looking at me. I don't fidget in class. I don't talk too much. I get decent grades, and I laugh when I'm supposed to. But inside?
Inside, it never stops.
My mind is like a room with twenty TVs playing at once, all on different channels, and someone lost the remote a long time ago.
I wake up and I'm already behind. Not in school just… mentally behind. Like my brain already ran a mile before I even opened my eyes. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if I made things weird yesterday when I said "you too" to the lunch lady after she told me to enjoy my meal.
Stupid, right?
But that's what it's like. That's what overthinking does. It doesn't wait for a big moment to break you. It chips away at the smallest things, the things no one else would even notice.
And being a teenage boy, Gen Z, in a world that screams at you from all directions it makes the noise louder. Everyone says, "Talk about it," but when you do, they look uncomfortable. Like they didn't expect you to actually say anything real.
So, I keep quiet.
I walk the hallways with my headphones in not because I'm listening to music, but because I don't want anyone to talk to me when I'm in the middle of arguing with myself in my head. Sometimes it feels like I'm carrying a hundred conversations that never actually happen. What if I bump into her today? What if I say something dumb in class? What if my friends secretly hate me?
The worst part is... I know it's irrational.
But that doesn't stop it.
And maybe that's the hardest thing to explain. That knowing doesn't fix anything. That sometimes, being aware of your own thoughts only makes them louder because now you're overthinking the overthinking.
I'm just a 17-year-old guy with a backpack full of books and a brain that won't shut up.
Welcome to my mind.