How Tired Am I?! Overthinking at Night in 3 Different Languages (and Going Totally Delulu)

How tired am I?
Let’s put it this way: last night, I overthought my entire existence —
in French, Spanish, and German —
while making a sandwich, drinking existential water, and whispering at bushes.

Overthinking at night isn’t just a problem.
It’s an international emergency.

You think you know overthinking at night — until you find yourself arguing with yourself in three languages before sunrise.
There’s a special kind of madness that strikes when your body is ready to sleep but your brain is filing legal complaints in French, screaming regrets in Spanish, and giving up entirely in German.

As healthcare professionals, you’d think exhaustion would knock us out cold.
Wrong.
Overthinking at night doesn’t care if you’ve saved lives, resuscitated a code blue, or just finished a 24-hour shift.
It pulls up a chair, cracks its multilingual knuckles, and gets ready for the 2:00 AM Olympics of unnecessary guilt.

Here’s a brutally honest walkthrough of one night inside a healthcare brain —
overthinking at night included, foreign languages free of charge.

The Night Begins: Calm Routines, Savage Thoughts

They said a “calm nighttime routine” would help with overthinking at night.
So naturally, I started with a shower hot enough to peel my sins away.
I lit a candle.
I brewed a sad herbal tea that tasted like regrets.
I told myself I would breathe deeply, meditate, and feel at peace.

Instead, I stared at the bathroom tiles and remembered every stupid thing I said in 2009.

Overthinking at night doesn’t care if you exfoliate first.
It doesn’t wait for the chamomile tea to kick in.
It drags its filthy boots straight into your brain and throws a surprise party for every awkward memory you’ve ever suppressed.

By 9:30 PM, I wasn’t calm.
I was primed — for emotional devastation in three languages.

10:00 PM: French, Spanish, and German Regrets Appear

By ten o’clock, overthinking at night had officially gone international.

First came the French—soft, dramatic, devastating.
“J’ai clampé quoi, là?”
(What did I just clamp?)
And then, naturally: “C’est pas une artère si ça saigne lentement, non?”
(It’s not an artery if it bleeds slowly, right?)
With just those words, my brain turned into a poorly lit arthouse film featuring silence, blood, and one useless attending.

Then came the Spanish, flushed and panting, full of guilt and caffeine:
“¿Por qué ese monitor suena como una sirena?”
(Why does the monitor sound like a siren?)
“¿Es normal que el paciente esté tan… azul?”
(Is it normal for the patient to be this… blue?)
Thanks, subconscious. Nothing like a Code Blue flashback to pair with your 3 A.M. electrolyte panel.

Finally, German stomped in, cold, clinical, and profoundly done with life:
“Ich habe die Dosis zehnfach berechnet. Vielleicht.”
(I calculated the dose ten times over. Maybe.)
“Ist das ein Bronchus oder die Speiseröhre? Egal.”
(Is that a bronchus or the esophagus? Whatever.)
Efficient. Brutal. No room for hope.

By then, I was lying in bed, covered in sweat and self-diagnosis, whispering in perfect Latin:
“Doctores non dormiunt.”
Doctors don’t sleep.

At this point, my mind had formed a United Nations committee for Self-Criticism and Anxiety.
No sleep.
No peace.
Just multilingual self-sabotage, like a European film festival directed by my worst insecurities.

Midnight: Kitchen Trips and Existential Water Sips

At midnight, the overthinking at night marathon needed hydration.
Because apparently replaying every ICU mistake burns calories.

I wandered into the kitchen, still wearing half of my scrubs and all of my regrets.
Opened the fridge.
Stared blankly at a jar of pickles and a bottle of sad almond milk,
wondering if I should have handled that difficult family meeting differently.
Wondering if I should have said more.
Wondering if silence had ever been the right answer.

Mid-sip of water, my brain glitched. Again.
French spoke first, already diagnosing me with despair:
“C’est sûrement un début de syndrome de compartiment.”
(This is probably early compartment syndrome.)
Because obviously that tiny calf cramp after standing for 14 hours must mean surgical intervention.

Then came Spanish, soaked in melodrama and caffeine:
“Ese electro no se ve bien… o soy yo?”
(That ECG doesn’t look right… or is it just me?)
Spanish me is bold enough to question cardiology… but also too scared to ask for a second opinion.

And German arrived last—cold, efficient, mildly accusatory:
“Hast du wirklich den zweiten Bolus gegeben?”
(Did you really give that second bolus?)
Yes, German brain. I charted it. Now please stop replaying the IV pump noise like it’s a war crime.

By then the sip was over, the water warm, and the damage done.

I set the glass down, stared at the kitchen ceiling, and seriously considered moving to a remote island where nobody could ask me for another stat potassium.

Overthinking at night doesn’t even let you hydrate in peace.
It turns your kitchen into a haunted interrogation room —
and the only thing answering is the fridge light.

By 12:30 AM, the fridge door was closed.
But my mind was still wide open, processing trauma on a 24-hour loop.

2:00 AM: Multilingual Meltdowns at Peak Overthinking

By 2:00 AM, the walls between languages — and sanity — officially collapsed.

It wasn’t full sentences anymore.
Just flashes.
Fragments.
Random emotional sucker-punches from deep inside my exhausted healthcare brain.

“Est-ce que j’ai clampé la veine cave au lieu de la jugulaire ?” (Did I clamp the vena cava instead of the jugular?) — French, panicked, and passive-aggressive.

“¿Por qué nadie revisó los electrolitos?” (Why did no one check the electrolytes?) — Spanish, disappointed in everyone including myself.

“Warum hat niemand den Katheter gewechselt?” (Why hasn’t anyone changed the catheter?) — German, cold, precise, emotionally unavailable.

All three of them were arguing in my head like consultants during grand rounds, and I was just the med student caught in the middle.

I wasn’t even thinking in full memories anymore.
Just regrets stitched together by sheer sleep deprivation and old trauma from shifts I pretended didn’t affect me.

Somewhere deep inside, the logical part of me whispered,
You’re tired. This isn’t real.
But the louder voice said,
You’re failing everyone, and you always will.

Overthinking at night isn’t always loud.
Sometimes it’s a slow, multilingual bleed —
and you can’t stop the hemorrhage.

4:00 AM: Talking to Bushes in French (Obviously)

By 4:00 AM, overthinking at night wasn’t even thinking anymore —
it was just fragments, bleeding out of my mind in every language I ever half-learned.

“Pourquoi suis-je debout?”
Why am I even standing?
I pulled a hoodie over my head, zombie-walked outside, hoping the cold air would slap some sanity back into me.

The streets were dead.
Shadows slumped against the sidewalk like abandoned corpses.
Even the sky looked exhausted.

I kept walking, shoes scraping the concrete, thoughts glitching.

“Pourquoi es-tu là?”
Why are you here?
I asked a bush.
No answer — which, honestly, made it the healthiest relationship I had all week.

In the middle of the street, some small tired Spanish voice broke through:
“¿Por qué sigo haciendo esto?”
Why do I keep doing this?

I laughed under my breath — a short, cracked sound that scared even me.

Standing under a dying streetlamp, mumbling half-broken French and Spanish to the universe,
I realized maybe this was all there was now:
wandering half-alive, haunted in three languages, talking to things that don’t talk back.

“Que suis-je devenue?”
What have I become?

And the bush, bless it, stayed silent —
like a good ICU nurse who knows there’s nothing left to say.

6:00 AM: Alarms Singing in Italian, I’m Declared Emotionally Dead

At 6:00 AM, the world decided it was time to exist again.

My phone alarm exploded into my brain like a sad little war crime,
blaring some peppy sound that no sane human could possibly have chosen.

Somewhere in the middle of the noise, my brain — still stitched together with three languages and pure resentment — heard Italian.

“Perché vivo ancora?”
(Why am I still alive?)
said the tiny, miserable voice in my head.

I didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
Pretty sure my soul had clocked out sometime around 4:47 AM.

The alarm kept singing.
Mocking me.
Somewhere deep inside, another voice whispered in Spanish:
“Basta.”
Enough.

The part of me that used to care about timeliness, responsibility, showing up for another 12-hour shift?
Officially deceased.

I hit snooze with the grace of a dying walrus,
buried my face in the pillow,
and surrendered to the chaos.

If anyone asked why I was late, I was going to blame it on existential multilingualism.
Or dehydration.
Or maybe the bush I had interrogated earlier.

Overthinking at night doesn’t just steal your sleep.
It steals your morning too —
leaving you tangled in three languages and zero regrets.

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To everyone dragging themselves through another night of overthinking —
pacing kitchens, cursing in three languages, and arguing with alarm clocks that clearly have a personal vendetta —

You’re not some motivational poster.
You’re a real human, patched together with sarcasm, stubbornness, and the kind of strength you can’t teach.

And if nobody reminded you lately:
surviving the night counts.

Somewhere out there, another exhausted soul just high-fived a bush in solidarity.
We’re not perfect —
we’re just ridiculously stubborn about not giving up.