“Why haven’t they texted back?” You send a message to someone you love, someone you care deeply about. They don’t respond for a while. Your brain immediately goes to a dark place, “What did I do?,” Is there someone better?,” or even “Am I good enough for them?” Why do the people that we care about the most seem to give us the most to overthink? Overthinking the people that we love comes from fear, uncertainty, past experiences, and simply caring deeply about a relationship.
Why? When someone matters to us, actions matter. Every small interaction or hiccup is so much bigger than it actually is. Our brains actively try to fill in gaps we don’t know the answer to. Uncertainty makes our mind uncomfortable making it hard to not make up scenarios for what it could be, most of the time they are negative. A small action from an individual can feel so big when you’re emotionally invested.
The Reassurance Cycle, We see something → Become anxious → Overthink → Seek Reassurance → Feel better temporarily. This could come from so many things such as; checking when someone was last active on SnapChat, checking if they viewed your story but didn’t respond, rereading texts, and even looking at someone’s change in tone. The small soothe you get from that split second of “I’m fine.” or “It’s nothing” can only help with so much, it doesn’t shield you from overthinking more.
Social media makes it worse, seeing someone active on socials but not receiving a message from them can really raise some questions. Likes, follows, locations, and activity status become things that are heavily motorized. Social media is only ever a small part of someone’s life, never the full picture, so it’s taken out of context. We may start to create stories with the information we see.
Anxiety vs. Reality, not every thought is a fact. Ask yourself: What actually happened? What am I assuming happened? Do I have evidence for my worry? Could there be another explanation? When you get in your head about something, you worry without facts to back up what you’re concerned about. You let anxiety drive all that you do.
Learning to stop the spiral, always pause before reacting. Give the benefit of the doubt. It sounds easy but genuinely your life will change if you live by this one thing. Find some hobbies to get you off your phone to prevent you from constantly checking. Always communicate, if you have a feeling it never hurts to let that person know your feelings. You won’t always know what another person is truly thinking, and saying that constantly in a state of anxiety will help to ease you off the ledge of worry. Lastly, build trust in yourself and others, this one is arguably super time consuming and hard but it truly does make a difference in your everyday life.
“Why haven’t you opened my text?” Switching to “They’re busy, I’m ok.” Loving someone doesn’t mean analyzing every text, look, or silence. A healthy relationship requires communication, trust, and the ability to tolerate uncertainty. You can love someone deeply without letting every anxious thought control how you experience that relationship. Sometimes that hardest part of a relationship or friendship isn’t trusting them, but it’s not letting your own fears speak louder than the relationship itself.
Edited and reviewed by Brie Goss
