how to stop spiraling
- written from experience
last week i sent a voice note to my friend and she heart-reacted it instead of replying and i spent the whole bus ride deciding id annoyed her for life. by my stop id rehearsed the apology, decided to give her space, then decided space would make it worse. she was just driving. heres how i get out of it now without telling myself to relax, because that has never once worked on me.
you cant stop a spiral by ordering it to stop, that just hands it more to chew on. you stop it by getting the spiral out of your head and answering one honest question about what actually scared you. and its almost never the thing that set it off. name the real fear and the spiral has nothing left to circle.
why it's never really the thing that set you off
the size of the thing that sets you off and the size of the spiral were never connected. a reply that came back colder than usual, a pause before someone laughed, a plan that got moved with no reason given. it spirals because it isnt about the pause, its about what the pause might be saying about you.
this has a name, your brain replaying something to try and get ahead of being hurt by it. the rereading feels like solving it but its really just your mind circling the same drain. you already know youre doing it. that was never the part that makes it stop.
the heart-react was never the problem. it was what i decided it said about me in the quiet.
follow the spiral down instead of fighting it
i write the spiral down exactly how it sounds in my head, unhinged, no cleaning it up as i go. the second its out of my head it stops bouncing off the walls.
then i ask the one mean little question. what am i scared this says about me. the fear is almost never the short reply, its what the short reply might prove. usually its an old one wearing today as a costume. too much, too needy, too easy to forget about.
then i answer it, and the next question under that one, until the fear has a name instead of a grip on my whole afternoon. a named fear is so much quieter than a nameless one.
what i do now when there's no one awake to text
i still feel the floor tilt when a reply comes back wrong. that part didnt go anywhere. what changed is i dont sit alone with my phone face down rereading the same four words until they mean something worse. the notes app used to just hold the spiral and hand it back to me a little heavier each time.
so now i take the spiral to sotie app instead of building a case against myself at 1am, type out the mess and let it ask me the one question id never ask myself, until the thing it was circling finally has a name. the spiral doesnt get easier. i just dont hand it my whole night anymore. you can spiral over something tiny and still be the one who decides how long it gets to keep you.
questions that come up a lot
why do i keep spiraling over such small things?
because the size of the thing that set you off and the size of the spiral were never connected. a half-second pause, a reply that came back shorter than usual, a face someone made that you cant unsee. it spirals because its not about the small thing, its about what the small thing might be saying about you. thats why people telling you its not a big deal never lands. youre not spiraling about the deal, youre spiraling about the meaning.
how do i stop a spiral once it's already started?
not by telling yourself to stop, thats a quiet room youre straining not to hear a sound in, and it only gets louder. you stop it by giving it somewhere to go. get the spiral out of your head and answer one question about what youre actually scared of underneath it. the spiral is hunting for ground to land on, and naming the real fear is the ground.
is everyone spiraling like this or is it just me?
its not just you. are we all spiraling or is it just me is one of the most relatable things i hear, because almost everyone feels like the only one. the lonely part was never the spiraling, its spiraling with no one to tell. you are so much less alone in this than it feels at 1am.