Rapid Speech

You speak fast. Sometimes so fast that others lose the thread. The words tumble over each other, the sentence isn't finished yet and the next one is already hanging from it. You barely breathe in between. Your thoughts are faster than your tongue, and your tongue is faster than the ear across from you can follow.

Perhaps you've already heard people ask you to slow down. Perhaps you've noticed eyes glazing over while you speak. Perhaps you hear yourself talking and at some point think: "What did I actually want to say?" The sentences are out there, but the core got lost along the way.

Medicine calls this tachylalia or, when combined with a compulsion to talk at length, logorrhea. Causes are found in nervousness, in ADHD, in manic episodes, in sheer habit. All of this may apply. And it still doesn't tell the whole story.