Someone asked me a simple question today, and my brain responded with a 13-minute lecture on archetypes and survival mechanisms. Sorry if I’m coming off as too intense or if I’m “psychologizing” things. It’s just my way of processing stress when I’m not sure what to say.

I’m not trying to be the smartest person in the room. I’m just trying to find a map because I’m lost in the hallway. My silence isn’t a lack of interest; it’s just a massive file download in the background. If I’m coming off as “intense,” it’s because I’m processing a thousand thoughts at once. I’m not ignoring the conversation; I’m just trying to find the right words in a language I’m still learning: Surface Talk.

The Lecture Trap

I often find myself diving so deep into details that people think I’m being arrogant. They think I’m trying to give them a lesson on how a word or a sentence was born in our vocabulary. But for me, a conversation is a physical struggle. Sometimes I literally have to bite my tongue to stop myself, because I realize mid-sentence that I don’t know how to hit the brakes.

And if you interrupt me? My brain goes right back to the start. I begin a silent post-mortem: Did I say it right? Why did your expression change? Being interrupted near the finish line of my “lecture” sends me straight into analysis mode. What? How? When? these are the constant echoes in a conversation with me.

The Bridge: Why the Office is my Sanctuary

Here is the secret: the very thing that makes me “socially awkward” in the hallway is exactly what makes it efficient in my cabinet. In the real world, my hyper-analysis is a glitch that makes me stumble. But behind that closed door, that same glitch becomes a precision instrument. The social “noise” that confuses me at a party disappears, replaced by a crystalline focus on the human being sitting across from me. I don’t have to guess the rules here; I am the observer. What others might call “over-thinking” is, in my office, a high-definition radar that detects the truth beneath the surface. I have learned to take this “strangeness” and use it exactly as it was meant to be used: as a map for someone else’s journey.

The Psychologist’s Mirror

With my adult clients, I see everything: the tiny gestures, the way they sit, the micro-movements when they speak. I see where they want to go and what lies behind every story. I make connections I sometimes wish I didn’t make.

As a therapist, I’ve had to learn how to “dose” the truth. I might know exactly what you’re trying to say, but if you aren’t ready to hear it, I have to wait. It’s about the client, not about my need to speak what I see.

Holding the Ocean

Being a psychologist means seeing everything but staying quiet because it’s not the right time yet. After a session, I sit and write until everything is on paper so I don’t lose the thread. Even if I know a client’s entire life story, the tiny details of a single session can be crucial for the future.

It’s like an ocean with waves so massive they could crush you. As a psychologist, I am there to hold those waves back so they don’t knock you down. I am there to offer you a mirror to look into. Because in that chair, “I” don’t exist. I left myself at the door when you walked in. I am only a mirror of what you feel.

The Mirror Needs a Mirror

Also I must always read my own emotions so they don’t intersect with yours. I work through my own feelings alone, or when it becomes too much, with another psychologist. Yes, even psychologists have psychologists. We rarely admit it, but even the mirror needs a mirror to see itself clearly.

A Final “Alley Cat” Confession: If I didn’t believe this “glitch” was actually a superpower meant to make people see themselves, I’d probably just feel like a dumpster where my brain throws all its random, chaotic ideas. Some days, I’m just standing there with a stick, stirring through the mess, and occasionally lighting it on fire just to stay warm. Because let’s be honest, being a stray cat in a dark alley is a pretty cold job if you don’t have a bonfire to sit by.

This is exactly what I tell the children with dyslexia that I work with. I put myself in the same boat with them because we are on the same barricades. Too often, the world looks at our “glitch” and labels us as “slow” or even “ retarded”, a word that was thrown at me more times than I care to count. When they come to my office crying because someone called them that, I show them my own scars. I tell them that we aren’t broken; we just have a superpower that the world doesn’t know how to measure yet. I teach them that even if the alley is dark and the world is cold, they have a fire inside them that can turn any “dumpster” of chaotic thoughts into a beacon of light. We aren’t just surviving the glitch; we are learning how to lead the way through it, together.