They took a while to text back and now you’re spiraling:

Why anxious brains fill in the blanks

Imagine this scenario:

• You’re staring at your phone.

• It’s been hours since you sent that text.

• Your mind is racing with possible explanations.

 You start to think:

“Did I say something wrong?”

“Are they mad at me?”

“Maybe I’m too much.”

Sound familiar?

If you’re an anxious over-thinker or a people pleaser, this scenario probably hits close to home. A delayed text response can feel confusing and uncertain, and your brain may quickly deal with this by rushing to fill that gap with negative assumptions. Obviously, that isn’t helping.  It’s only telling you the story that you fear the most and believe strongly.

Let’s break down why that happens — and what to do about it.

Anxious Brains Crave Certainty

 Your brain’s main job is to keep you safe. And for anxious people, predictability and connection feel like safety.

When someone you care about doesn’t respond within the time you expect, it creates a gap and your brain doesn’t like gaps, so it rushes to fill them with worst-case scenarios. This is especially true if you grew up in environments where love felt inconsistent or where your nervous system learned to equate waiting or silences with rejection or a lack of care.

Why the Story Gets So Negative:

If you’re someone who struggles with self-doubt, or fear of conflict, your default might be to blame yourself and think: “I did something wrong.” This turns into crippling guilt and anxiety and can lead to you wanting to “fix it” because that can give you a sense of control. Although, counterintuitive, we assume the negative because it gives us an answer and certainty, even if it makes us feel worse. On the surface we know that this not good for us, but on the unconscious level it feels safer.

The longer the silence, the more intense the spiral:

         •       You re-read the text you sent.

         •       You ask friends if they think it sounded ‘weird.’

         •       You convince yourself they’re mad, annoyed, or pulling away.

         •       You craft follow-up texts to apologize, even if you didn’t do anything wrong.

It’s not just that the silence hurts, it’s the meaning you give to it,

Therapy can help you dig deeper into WHY you jump so quickly to make negative meaning out of something that is objectively neutral.

Instead of it meaning something bad about YOU, it may actually be so many other things:

They may not have texted back because…

·      They were busy with work

·      They didn’t feel well

·      They are asleep

·      They dropped something on the floor and had to clean it up

·      They are driving

·      They don’t have time to text and are planning to call later

·      They don’t have their phone near them

·      Their phone is dead

·      They are watching a movie

·      They are baking a cake

Okay you get the point… the more specific you can get the more you may giggle as you realize how silly it is that you assumed something so bad! The truth is that most often if we slow down we can shift our brain into finding alternative meanings. This may help you start to believe that there is more to what is happening, than internalizing the silence to mean something bad about your worth.

This work takes time, but it is worth doing in therapy as it can lead to lasting changes in how your nervous system responds. There is a way out, I promise!

If this sounds like something you deal with and would like to work on, send me a message to schedule a free consultation!