It's impossible to know what anyone else thinks. I think so much, and what I say and write is not only an expression of a tiny fraction of all of it - and maybe not even the most interesting parts - but it's not a direct translation.
When I was learning how to write an essay, I was struck by how, when we write essays, we're constructing something. Our thoughts don't exist in that structured format. I had to really work to push my thinking into that structure.
But I think that's always the case with any kind of text. Our thoughts and feelings are just one of the influences over what we say or write.
Even when we don't censor ourselves as much, what we say and write is still an original creation and not an accurate depiction of what's in our minds.
That's how you know you're not plagiarizing. You may have picked up ideas from various sources but you're putting them together in your own way. You've taken the ideas and made them your own by combining them with all of your other thoughts.
You've processed them and they're as unrecognizable as the ingredients of a cake after the cake is cooked.
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