Help i feel like everyone’s watching

If you relate to this article, you’re not alone.

This is for the people who spend half of their day overthinking, who spend their teenage years feeling worthless and alone in a room full of people. For those who replay every word, every glance, every silence, and convince themselves that they don’t belong. I see you, and I want you to know that your feelings are valid, even if no one else seems to notice.

As someone who has grown up with severe with social anxiety, I truly believe I spent half of my lifetime overthinking. Every conversation, every silence, every look—it all loops in my mind. I replay things that probably meant nothing, imagining how I might’ve been misunderstood by others and then i would spend another week or month replaying that thought in my mind every moment i get. It’s like that thought is in the back of my mind—always. No matter how happy I am or who I’m with, I will overthink everything quietly in the back of my mind.

I think that’s my curse.

I always feel like I’m being watched—like eyes are on me, waiting for me to make the smallest mistake, waiting for something they can laugh at or hold against me and remember it forever. My mind won’t stop asking, “Why do I feel this way?” “What do they think of me now?” “Was I too much?”. Every day I carry this pressure to be likable, confident, effortless—as if that’s the only way I’ll ever be enough and worth anyone’s attention. But then I remind myself: no one is really like that, not all the time. And when it gets too heavy, I hold onto that line from the film Gia: “Gia. This is life, not heaven. You don’t have to be perfect.”

I stumble during class presentations—my chest tightens, and I panic when silence fills the space between me and someone else. I overthink the number of letters you put in an “okayy” or an “okkkaaayyyyy,”. Sitting at the end of a table makes me feel invisible, like I don’t belong there. When you take a deep breath, I convince myself it means you’re tired of me. And when you go quiet, I hear it as a sign that I should too. A delayed reply, a shrug, a glance away—they all feel targeted, like they carry some secret judgment I can’t escape. I replay every word, every movement, trying to decode some meaning that probably isn’t even there. I can twist a simple conversation or interaction into something that feels like a personal attack or a judgment aimed at me. And by the end of the day, I’m exhausted—not from what I’ve done, but from what my mind has imagined.

Through my teenage years, I slowly realized I don’t need a crowd to feel okay. I don’t need strangers’ approval to feel like my life matters. Even if I move through the world quietly, even if no one notices or claps, I can still find little moments—moments of joy, stillness, and honesty. And those are enough, because they’re mine. I remember sitting alone during recess, walking home alone on a Thursday while everyone else seemed to have plans with their friends, and telling myself that maybe something was wrong with me. But over time, I started noticing the small things that made me feel alive like a song I loved, a laugh with my cousins, a book that pulled me in. Those tiny experiences taught me that being present for myself mattered more than fitting into anyone else’s expectations.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever fully grow out of this, or if it will always follow me in some way. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s not about erasing the anxiety, but about learning how to live with it without letting it define me. And maybe that’s enough.