WHEN EVERYTHING BLURS: The reality of a short attention span, complex teenager.

My mind is a blessing and a curse. At least it feels that way equally 50% of the time. I believe I have what is called a 'short attention span'. An act that feels like you've lost complete track of your surroundings in just a minute of interaction and makes you feel that you're trapped in your own mind. I like to think of it as a 'complex mind'. One that is restless, wandering and always in quest for more.

How it looks when I 'zone out'.

In this generation of scrolling and dopamine hits, I admit that I have spent a lot of time on social media that I can barely win a five-minute staring contest with a book. Studying, exams and holding conversations wasn't always easy and felt like a constant battlefield. In nothing less than 2 minutes, I had completely zoned out. Rereading sentences and asking people to repeat themselves. I was the type to pass the "hard" questions in math, yet stumble on the "easy" ones not because I didn't know, but because my brain is wired to complicate, to search for what isn't obvious. I simply believed there was more to something that appeared 'simple'.

When everything blurs when I zone out, I retreat into my head. And inside my head is a world of strange, overanalyzed metaphors like how the ceiling fan reminds me of overthinking and the endless speed of life. Or how our generation carries what I call a "teenage pandemic" where silence feels heavy, attention is fleeting, and our thoughts rarely sit still.

But my short attention spans also gave me a gift: the ability to notice what others overlook. To read between the thinnest of lines. To question. To wander. That's why I fell in love with the humanities and arts. Unlike formulas and rigid answers, these subjects let me flow, express, and make sense of the mess inside me. And then i found journaling. For the first time, my thoughts didn't feel like chaos. On paper, they became whole. Honest. Beautiful even. Journaling didn't make me less complex, it made me feel less crazy. It made me feel like the little observations of the world and overanalyzed metaphors truly meant something.

I know I'm not the only one. There are other teenagers out there like me who think in loops, who feel the blur and who carry stories too layered to explain in a sentence. Maybe your mind isn't "complex" in the same way, but your story is uniquely yours. And it deserves space. This is what this platform for. To share. To be heard. To show that our blurs, our chaos don't make us broken. They make us human.

So, if you've ever felt like me, this is your plate too. Write. Speak. Express. Because even when everything blurs, your story matters.