Echoes of overthinking

One question. One what-if.

And then it spiraled.

Sophie sat on the edge of her bed, the soft hum of the city night outside her window barely registering. Her room was dim, lit only by the faint glow of her laptop’s sleep light and the blinking red dot on her charging phone. She stared at the floor, unmoving. She hadn’t spoken to anyone in hours.

She’d had a conversation earlier that afternoon — simple, harmless, or so it had seemed. A friend had said something, something she couldn’t even fully remember anymore. But it had lodged itself into her chest like a splinter.

"Was she mad at me?"
"Did I say too much?"
"Should I have laughed at that joke?"
"What did she mean by ‘you always do that’?"
"What do I always do?"
"Oh God, I must be so annoying."

Each thought echoed into the next, overlapping and bouncing around like voices in a canyon. The original moment had passed hours ago — but inside Sophie’s mind, it was still happening. Over and over.


---

She remembered once reading about how overthinkers could analyze a situation to death. That phrase stuck with her. To death. That was how it felt sometimes — like every moment, every decision, every word spoken in a casual setting could be dissected under a microscope until it bled meaning she didn’t even know was there.

Overthinking wasn’t just a habit for Sophie; it was a way of existing. It shadowed her joy. When she laughed too hard, she’d later wonder if she looked foolish. When she shared something personal, she’d spend the night wondering if she’d shared too much. Even silence wasn’t safe — she’d analyze the gaps in conversation, assuming others were bored or annoyed.

And the worst part?

No one ever noticed.

To the outside world, she seemed fine — kind, thoughtful, attentive. Maybe a bit quiet, but never visibly anxious. She smiled at the right moments, asked the right questions, and always followed up with a "Did that make sense?" or a "Sorry, was that too much?"

But inside, she was crumbling.


---

Her therapist once told her that overthinking was a form of control — a desperate attempt by the brain to predict and protect. If she could replay every situation in her head, maybe she could prevent rejection. Maybe she could be loved more easily. Maybe she could finally stop feeling like she was too much and not enough at the same time.

Sophie had nodded, then spent the rest of the day wondering if she’d nodded too eagerly.

She laughed to herself at the irony now, alone in her room. Her thoughts were so loud tonight, she could barely hear anything else. It was as if the inside of her skull had become a hall of mirrors — every thought reflecting a distorted version of itself, impossible to trace back to the original.

"You’re being dramatic."
"Just let it go."
"People have real problems."

She tried to quiet it. Breathing exercises. Journaling. That one grounding technique — five things you can see, four you can touch… she couldn’t remember the rest. Her thoughts interrupted every attempt.

She wished her brain had an "off" switch. Just for one night.


---

When morning finally came, it wasn’t light that woke her, but exhaustion. Her body ached from stillness. Her face was puffy from silent tears she hadn’t even noticed falling. The echoes were still there, but fainter — like a radio left on in another room.

She walked to the mirror, brushing tangled hair behind her ears. Her eyes met her own reflection. And for a moment — just one quiet, breathless second — she didn’t overanalyze what she saw. She was just… a person.

That second passed.

But it gave her hope.


---

That afternoon, she went for a walk — no headphones, no distractions, just the sound of her own steps. Her mind still wandered, of course. A look from a stranger turned into an imagined judgment. A missed text became a potential friendship fading.

But she let the thoughts come, and — this time — let them go.

Not everything needed to be solved. Not every word needed to be reprocessed like evidence. Maybe, just maybe, she didn’t need to find meaning in every silence or certainty in every action.

She still had a long way to go. The echoes wouldn’t stop overnight. But she was starting to see them for what they were — echoes, not truths. Repetitions, not revelations.


---

Back home, she sat at her desk and opened her journal.

"I am not my thoughts," she wrote. "I am the observer. I am the one who hears the echoes, but I don’t have to believe them."

She paused, pen hovering above the page. A new thought crept in:

"What if this is pointless?"

She smiled.

"Let it echo," she whispered aloud.

And for the first time in a long time, it didn’t scare her.