"When I was a young man, I was overly sensitive to things, and I found it difficult to eat when I was nervous"

A young voice is remembered from a distance, and the distance matters. “When I was a young man” marks a vantage point of maturity, a steadier shore from which a once-turbulent sea is observed. What follows is a confession about temperament: being “overly sensitive to things.” The adverb carries the sting of judgment, someone’s, perhaps society’s, perhaps the speaker’s own. Sensitivity here is not merely a trait; it’s an exposure. Every stimulus, every social cue, every noise of expectation arrives without filters. Youth, already a time of rawness and becoming, is compounded by an impressionable nervous system and cultural scripts that often demand toughness, especially from young men. The self feels permeable, and the world, too loud.

The body answers this emotional weather. Finding it “difficult to eat when I was nervous” maps anxiety onto digestion, an ordinary but revealing bridge. Under stress, appetite recedes; the stomach tightens; food loses its welcome. Mealtimes become theaters of performance, where social scrutiny heightens the sense of being seen, and the body shutters its doors. To take in food is to take in the world; when nerves dominate, even that act can feel like too much. The line quietly honors a truth many know: psychological states fold into physical habits, and the body’s refusals often speak a language the mind cannot yet articulate.

Because the sentence is past tense, it intimates change. The speaker has outlived the intensity, or at least learned its contours. Sensitivity, once branded “overly,” might now be recognized as a form of attunement: a capacity for empathy, depth, and careful attention. The struggle with eating hints at the broader project of learning safety, finding routines, boundaries, and inner permission to take in nourishment. What was once a private inconvenience becomes testimony to the mind-body weave, a compact acknowledgment that growing up includes befriending the very sensitivities that once made ordinary life feel impossible.