There’s a quiet, nagging thought that sometimes slips into the back of the mind after a long day or a tough conversation. It comes in moments of overthinking, in the spaces between actions and reactions, in the silence that follows something you said or did that didn’t land quite right. Maybe I’m just being crazy.

This phrase is often a placeholder for uncertainty. It doesn’t always mean irrationality. More often, it means doubt. It’s the hesitation to fully trust your perception. It’s the internal check-in when your emotions feel too loud or when your interpretation seems out of sync with others.

It’s a natural human tendency to question our own reactions. Self-awareness is valuable. But the line between self-awareness and self-sabotage is thin. Dismissing your own feelings as “crazy” can become a habit of invalidation. It suggests that your inner world is untrustworthy, that your instincts are unreliable, or that your emotions are excessive by default.

Sometimes, though, you’re not being crazy. You’re being sensitive. You’re being observant. You’re picking up on something others missed or chose to ignore. You’re feeling something deeper than you can easily explain. And sometimes, that’s not a flaw. It’s insight. It’s connection. It’s truth struggling to surface in a noisy world.

However, the opposite is also true. Sometimes the thoughts that loop and spiral aren’t helpful. They exaggerate. They twist facts. They feed anxiety and distort reality. In those cases, the phrase might be a quiet cry for grounding. A call to step back, breathe, and reframe.

The trick is learning to tell the difference. Ask yourself a few honest questions. Did I sleep well last night? Have I eaten? Am I overwhelmed? Do I have all the facts? Am I assuming the worst without checking? These questions don’t dismiss your emotions. They give them context.

You don’t have to trust every thought you think. But you don’t have to doubt yourself just because your perspective isn’t shared. Instead of maybe I’m just being crazy, consider trying maybe I’m feeling something important and I need to explore it further.

Being human means sometimes being unsure. But it also means learning to listen to yourself with patience and curiosity, not just skepticism. You don’t have to be completely right or completely wrong to be worth understanding. Maybe you’re just trying to make sense of things. And that’s not crazy at all.