The text you’re reading too much into, and what to do instead of spiraling

There’s something that comes up pretty consistently in the therapy room that I don't think gets talked about enough and while your guess might be trauma, conflict, or an argument. It’s actually more common than that…

It’s…silence. Specifically, it’s what happens in the liminal space of silence after texting or emailing and not hearing back. 

You send a text, an email, or reach out and leave a voicemail, and then...there’s nothing. No response. Maybe for hours or days or perhaps weeks. It feels like this open space where the expected answer in the implicit expected time you were supposed to receive it was supposed to be. And in that space, for some people, I notice that something interesting starts to happen… 

The mind rushes in to fill in the reasons for that silence.

Did I say or do something wrong? Are they mad at me? Why didn’t they respond within a couple of hours?

And then the anxiety spiral starts. The silence that might have had nothing to do with you starts to feel like it has everything to do with you or the other person having some type of problem with you. Anger and frustration comes up and sometimes feeds whatever anxiety or insecurity might have already been there. And then? Sometimes the tension starts to mount–sometimes there’s self-blame, sometimes there’s second guessing of the relationship or closeness, or even further rumination over what the silence was assumed to mean, but not because of anything that was actually said.

Silence could mean a lot of things

Here’s the thing that people start to realize though as we start to investigate all possible reasons for the silence…silence is almost never just one thing and sometimes the reason for the silence is not the reason you may have thought. 

It’s true. Someone might stop talking to you and it could be linked to unspoken conflict or something you might have done wrong. So that is a legitimate concern. But I’m talking about those instances when a person eventually responds and you realize in hindsight that the silence was because of something going on in their life, not because of something that particularly had to do with you. Maybe they needed a break from texting in general, they were overwhelmed, they were going through a big life event, their day got busy, they didn’t have ready access to their phone, they started typing a response four times and couldn’t find the right words so they just exited the app, or their phone just straight up died. And when you run through the other possibilities for their extended silence, you can start to realize that maybe your first thought may not have to jump to, is it something I did or said? 

The reality is miscommunication can happen so much in non-verbal forms of communication, like texting or DM’ing. And silence over texting in particular leaves space for misunderstandings because things like texting, DM’ing, or even emails can’t always convey tone of voice, body language, or even intentions. So then, the impact can hit hard, and get interpreted however it was received, and sometimes the interpretation is personalized. It makes me think of a Key & Peele skit I saw long ago that wasn’t about silence, but it was about misinterpreting tone over text. The reason why this skit feels so funny and relatable is that it speaks to what happens when our insecurities intersect with when we read the worst into every communication over text. And sometimes, we are in that space. So, what do you actually do when you’re sitting in that silence, waiting, and your mind starts going to these insecure places?

How do we stop the spiral?

Here’s two things I've found helpful:

Name it out loud to yourself (or even in the message). You could walk through with yourself the other reasons why a person is not responding that may not be personalized to something you’ve said or done as described above. Or even, depending on how close you are to this person, you could simply say: "Hey, I don't want to read into this, but I just wanted to check in since I haven’t heard from you. Is everything okay?" That’s it. You’re not jumping to conclusions and blaming yourself. You’re not accusing them of anything. You’re just doing a little check-in and giving them an opening to respond so that you aren’t filling in the blank and interpreting their silence on their behalf. 

Move the conversation off the medium. Sometimes the issue isn’t the silence, it’s the channel. It’s widely known that miscommunications occur more often through text, email, and DMs since our own insecurities, feelings about the relationship, or emotions can sometimes read into or interpret the tone, body language or facial expressions, or message that’s conveyed from the other person. If something starts to get tense or complicated over text, it might be worth suggesting to the other person communicating in person or over a call, Facetime, or video or audio note. A lot can get lost or misunderstood in a text thread that wouldn’t be a big deal in a verbal conversation.

Look, it’s an understandable human response if you freak out when a text goes unanswered. The goal isn’t to avoid getting triggered by silence. Silence will happen and so will triggers. It’s more about how you navigate when the silence comes. The goal is to catch yourself ideally before the spiraling begins so that you can navigate what is catching you off guard and to have a move you can make instead of just waiting and wondering about your relationship.

This can be a tough practice to pause yourself before you start to spiral, but even if it’s during, that’s still a win! Try one of the tips mentioned above the next time a spiral knocks at your door and let me know if it worked for you or if you adapted it in a different way.