When your partner can’t cure your stress
To some, the word spiraling brings up images of summer afternoons, spinning in the front yard only to fall down, too dizzy to stand upright. Spiraling in adulthood holds a very different meaning and often presents during times of stress. It’s when a simple thought or observation turns into a strain of worry, leading us to feel incapable of coping, and unable to regain our previous composure.
During these moments, it feels impossible to turn to your partner for support because you’re not even sure what you need for yourself. The world keeps moving and you feel frozen in a state of worry. Your partner knows something is wrong but doesn’t understand either. The person who means the most to you can feel helpless, and you feel alone.
This type of stress in relationships is different from the ‘healthy’ worry we all feel at times that keeps us on our toes. ‘Oops - I might be late for work so I’d better hurry!’, or ‘Did I feed the dog?’ Or ‘I wonder if I’ll get that job I want?’ Spiraling happens when ‘healthy’ worry tornadoes into a doom and gloom perspective that darkens your entire outlook. The focus and the challenge lie more with trying to unhook from the response to the trigger than concern for whatever the trigger was to begin with. This most often happens when our emotional resources are depleted from chronic or intense stress.
As relationship therapists, we appreciate how hard this type of stress can be on a relationship. We’ve witnessed countless couples attempting to work through this on their own, only to end in fights, disconnection, and feeling alone. It’s a painful experience to go through, specifically because the disconnection is often the result of failed attempts to be helpful and ‘fix’ the situation. Helping couples learn how to control spiraling thoughts is always a rewarding experience for us, and for the couples who finally feel resourced during these difficult times.
Stress can turn into spiraling thoughts as a result of any anxiety-producing occurrence. Life is filled with them. Contributing to the confusion for both partners in the relationship, the anxiety associated with the initial trigger thoughts is compounded by an awareness that the spiraling and anxiety is happening at all. We often hear ‘now I’m anxious about the fact I am feeling anxious!’. Over time, a constant state of anxiety often ensues for both partners. People often struggle for years before looking for help with this type of stress and anxiety process.
During the moments when the spiraling is too distracting to allow you to turn to your partner and share, there are ways to mindfully work through the stress in a relationship. If one of these resources is effective, it will help you unhook from it and avoid being entirely knocked down, watching the world spin by while you both fret.
Recognize the thought pattern.
Note your moments of worry and observe the thoughts that follow. If you can look at your thought patterns without judgement but instead with curiosity, you can try to self-correct while being empathetic toward yourself.
Ask yourself some questions to help your brain make sense of its concerns.
Is the negative outcome likely?
Is this the only outcome?
What positive outcomes might be here?
What else is going on that might be contributing to my stress?
Do these thought patterns usually accompany particular events in my life?
Trust yourself to be ok, regardless of the outcome. Think through how you will respond IF the bad outcome does happen.
Remind yourself of your past successes by reflecting on past moments of difficulty, and how you persevered through those. Recall the coping skills you have been successful with in the past.
Journaling is often a helpful way to process stress that presents as spiraling thoughts. Putting them down on paper often brings feelings of organization and control.
The most important part of these mindful cues is the re-centering and organizing process for your brain. Essentially, you’re stopping the train of thought and letting ‘worry’ know it is ok to to get off. If it seems like asking worry to get off isn’t enough, and you need some more concrete ways to stop the spiraling thoughts and manage your stress, that is ok.
Once you begin to have an understanding of what you are worried about, the cause of the stress or the trigger for your spiraling, you will be more able to share with your partner in a way that they can understand. This can help ease their desire to fix/change anything for you and help them just ‘be’ there for you as you continue to gain clarity on your own.
Very often our clients know how they want their thoughts to change but struggle to know how to do it on their own. The exercises we offered above sound easy, yet we know they are challenging. Don’t struggle any longer. Please reach out to our practice and invite one of our therapists into your journey to conquer stress. They’ll help you regain the sense of balance in your thought processes that will help you clearly identify the cause of the stress and spiraling thoughts as well as make the changes you long for.