My Own Thought Spirals While Writing About Thought Spirals

The cursor blinked mockingly at me for the forty-seventh time that morning. Chapter 4 was due to my editor in three days, and all I had was a title and seventeen different opening sentences that I’d written, rewritten, and deleted in an endless loop of creative paralysis.

Mistaking Pain for Love.

The chapter where Jennifer learns to distinguish between anxiety and attraction. The chapter where she realizes that chest-tightening, palm-sweating, mind-racing feeling she’d been calling “chemistry” was actually her nervous system having a breakdown and calling it romance.

And there I was, having my own breakdown about whether I could write it well enough.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. Here I was, writing a book about interrupting thought spirals, while caught in the most spectacular thought spiral of my writing career. My brain had helpfully provided a greatest hits collection of catastrophic scenarios:

What if this chapter sucks? What if I can’t capture Jennifer’s experience authentically? What if readers think this is just another self-help book that oversimplifies complex trauma? What if I’m a fraud writing about anxiety management while actively spiraling about comma placement?

Welcome to the meta-experience of overthinking your overthinking book.

The Perfectionism Paradox

If you’ve ever tried to write about letting go of control while desperately trying to control every word, you’ll understand the cosmic joke I found myself living. Chapter 6 was literally titled “The Control Illusion,” and I was spending three hours debating whether Jennifer should order coffee or tea in a scene that would ultimately get cut.

Three. Hours. About a beverage choice that didn’t matter.

I’d wake up at 3 AM (because of course my anxiety peak hours aligned perfectly with the ones I was writing about) and immediately start spiraling about the manuscript. Is Jennifer’s voice authentic enough? Am I capturing the real nuance of thought spirals? What if mental health professionals think this is oversimplified? What if people with severe anxiety feel invalidated?

The beautiful irony? I was living every pattern I was writing about.

Jennifer analyzes Kenneth’s texts for hidden meanings? I was analyzing my editor’s emails with the same forensic intensity. She said the chapter was “interesting.” Not “brilliant” or “powerful.” Interesting. That’s basically editor-speak for “this needs major work,” right?

Jennifer catastrophizes about future abandonment? I was pre-writing my Amazon one-star reviews. “Author clearly doesn’t understand real anxiety.” “Oversimplified nonsense.” “Stick to tech writing, buddy.”

Jennifer creates elaborate scenarios of disaster? I had Jennifer’s entire character arc planned through seventeen sequels, including the one where everyone realizes I completely misunderstood her journey.

When the S.P.I.R.A.L. Method Met Its Maker

About four months into writing, I had what can only be described as a cosmic moment of clarity. I was pacing around my office, muttering about whether Chapter 10’s interruption techniques were “actionable enough,” when I literally stopped mid-pace.

I was doing it. I was doing exactly what the book teaches people not to do.

So I decided to eat my own dog food. Time to use the S.P.I.R.A.L. Method™ on the S.P.I.R.A.L. Method™.

S – Stop and Signal: I actually held up my hand to myself. In my empty office. Like a crossing guard stopping my own thoughts. It felt ridiculous and worked perfectly.

P – Present Moment: What was actually happening right now? I was a guy in his office, writing a book about helping people. The book wasn’t due to publishers for six months. My editor liked the concept. I had Jennifer’s real story to ground me. These were facts, not the fiction my anxiety was spinning.

I – Identify the Spiral: Classic perfectionism spiral with a side of imposter syndrome. My brain was convinced that if this book wasn’t absolutely perfect, people would suffer and it would be my fault. The weight of responsibility was crushing me into paralysis.

R – Reality Test: Was it true that the book had to be perfect to help people? Jennifer’s transformation hadn’t been perfect—it was messy, nonlinear, full of setbacks. That’s exactly what made it real and relatable. Was it true that I was a fraud? I’d lived this stuff. I had twenty-five years of overthinking credentials and five years of recovery to draw from.

A – Alternative Perspective: What if the book’s imperfections actually made it better? What if my own spirals while writing it gave me deeper insight into the process? What if “good enough” was not just acceptable but actually more authentic than polished perfection?

L – Let Go and Live: I made a decision. I would write the book I wished had existed when I was drowning in thought spirals. Not the perfect book. Not the book that would impress academics or win literary awards. The book that would help someone at 3 AM when their brain was convinced their life was falling apart.

The 2 AM Rewrite Sessions

The most intense spirals hit during what I started calling my “vampire writing hours”—those late-night sessions when my rational brain went offline and my creative anxiety took over.

I’d be editing a chapter about staying present, while simultaneously time-traveling to imagine every possible criticism the book might receive. I’d write about Jennifer learning to interrupt catastrophic thinking, then spend an hour catastrophizing about whether I was explaining the technique clearly enough.

One particularly memorable night, I rewrote the same paragraph about breathing exercises seventeen times. Seventeen. I know because I saved each version in a document I titled “Breathing Paragraph Death March.” The original version was actually the best one.

That night I finally understood what Jennifer meant when she talked about analysis paralysis. I wasn’t improving the paragraph—I was drowning it in perfectionism. Every revision was making it more clinical, less human, further from the truth I was trying to capture.

At 2:47 AM, I did something radical. I used Jennifer’s voice memo technique on myself.

“Okay, Bill. You’re spiraling about a fucking paragraph about breathing. The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife. You’re overthinking writing about overthinking. You’re anxiety-spiraling about anxiety spirals. This is either the most meta moment of your writing career or you’ve completely lost it. Probably both.”

Hearing my own voice say it out loud broke the spell. I laughed—actually laughed—at the beautiful absurdity of it all. Then I restored the original paragraph and went to bed.

The Vulnerability Hangover

Writing about Jennifer’s most vulnerable moments triggered my own vulnerability hangovers. Every time I wrote about her 3 AM spirals, I remembered my own. Every time I described her analyzing Kenneth’s texts, I felt the familiar shame of my own phone-checking compulsions.

But the hardest part was writing about her transformation. Not because it wasn’t real—it absolutely was—but because sharing it felt like exposing every technique that had saved my own sanity. What if people tried these tools and they didn’t work? What if I was overselling the possibility of change?

I spiraled about this for weeks. What if someone reads Chapter 11 about acting secure and it backfires? What if the breathing techniques don’t work for everyone? What if I’m giving false hope?

My therapist (yes, even anxiety writers need therapists) helped me reframe this spiral: “You’re not promising a cure. You’re sharing what worked for you and Jennifer. That’s all anyone can do.”

She was right. I wasn’t writing the definitive guide to anxiety. I was writing one story of recovery, with tools that had proven effective. The perfect book that would help everyone didn’t exist. But a good enough book that might help someone definitely could.

The Chapter That Broke Me

Chapter 9 almost killed me. “Your Body Knows First”—about somatic awareness and how anxiety lives in our nervous system, not just our thoughts.

I’d been writing about Jennifer’s panic attack in Whole Foods when I had my own panic attack while writing. The meta-ness was overwhelming. I was describing the physical sensations of spiraling while experiencing those exact sensations.

My chest tightened as I wrote about Jennifer’s chest tightening. My breathing got shallow as I described her breathing getting shallow. I was literally embodying the chapter while creating it.

I had to stop writing and use every tool in the book. Box breathing. Progressive muscle relaxation. The 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique. All while sitting at my desk with a half-written chapter about using these exact techniques.

When my partner found me doing wall push-ups in my office at 10 AM (one of the physical circuit breakers from Chapter 10), they asked if I was okay.

“I’m having a panic attack while writing about panic attacks,” I said between push-ups. “I think this qualifies as occupational hazard.”

They just nodded like this was completely normal. When you live with an anxiety writer, apparently nothing surprises you anymore.

The Acceptance Breakthrough

The breakthrough came while writing Chapter 13 about breaking the habit cycle. I was spiraling about whether the book would actually help people break their habit cycles when I realized something profound:

I didn’t need to write a perfect book. I needed to write an honest one.

Jennifer’s story wasn’t perfect. Her recovery wasn’t linear. She still spiraled sometimes, still caught herself analyzing Kenneth’s expressions for signs of waning interest, still had 3 AM moments of catastrophic thinking. That’s exactly what made her story powerful—it was real.

So I made a decision. I would write about my spirals while writing about spirals. I would acknowledge the imperfections, the ongoing nature of recovery, the fact that even “experts” (and I use that term very loosely) still struggle.

This decision liberated my writing. Instead of trying to sound like someone who had it all figured out, I could write as someone who was figuring it out alongside my readers. Instead of pretending to be above the fray, I could admit I was in it, using the same tools I was teaching, failing and succeeding in real time.

The Editor’s Note That Changed Everything

About halfway through the first draft, my editor sent me a note that stopped me cold: “This feels like you’re trying to write the book you think people want rather than the book you want to write. What would happen if you trusted the story more and your anxiety less?”

She was right. I’d been so worried about creating the “right” kind of self-help book that I’d forgotten what drew me to Jennifer’s story in the first place—its messy authenticity.

That note triggered a massive spiral about whether I’d wasted six months writing the wrong book. But this time, I caught it faster. I used my own techniques, talked it through with my accountability partner, and realized my editor had given me a gift: permission to be imperfect.

I rewrote significant portions, letting Jennifer’s voice be more raw, more real. I included more of my own struggles, more acknowledgment of the ongoing nature of recovery. I stopped trying to tie everything up in neat therapeutic bows and let the messiness show.

The book got better. Not perfect—better. More human. More helpful.

The Final Chapter Spiral

Writing the last chapter was its own special kind of torture. How do you end a book about ongoing recovery? How do you provide closure for a story that doesn’t really have an ending?

I wrote fourteen different endings. Fourteen. I saved them all in a folder called “Ending Hell” because apparently I never learn.

One ending was too hopeful—Jennifer riding off into the sunset, completely “cured” of anxiety. Another was too realistic—Jennifer still struggling, progress unclear. I swung between Hallmark movie and Ingmar Bergman film with nothing landing in between.

The final ending came to me while watching my friend’s daughter play at the park. She fell off the monkey bars, cried for thirty seconds, then got back up and tried again. No drama. No analysis of what went wrong. Just resilience in action.

That’s what Jennifer’s story was about. Not perfection, but resilience. Not cure, but continuing. Not an ending, but a new way of beginning each day.

What I Learned About My Own Spirals

Writing this book taught me things about my own anxiety patterns that years of therapy hadn’t revealed. Seeing them reflected in Jennifer’s story gave me new perspective on behaviors I’d normalized.

I realized I was a “professional spiraler”—someone who could make catastrophizing look like careful planning. I was addicted to worst-case scenario preparation, convinced that if I imagined every possible disaster, I could prevent them all.

Writing about Jennifer’s recovery forced me to examine my own. Was I really as recovered as I thought? Or was I just really good at functional anxiety—managing my spirals well enough to get things done but not well enough to actually enjoy life?

The answer was somewhere in between. I’d made huge progress, but I was still treating anxiety like an enemy to defeat rather than a part of myself to integrate. The book taught me—through Jennifer’s example—that the goal wasn’t elimination but relationship.

The Reader’s Early Feedback Loop

When early readers started sending feedback, I entered a whole new level of meta-spiraling. People were using the techniques I’d written about and reporting back on their effectiveness. The responsibility felt enormous.

One reader wrote: “Chapter 4 changed my life. I finally understand the difference between anxiety and attraction. I’ve been choosing the wrong partners for years.”

Instead of feeling proud, I immediately spiraled: What if she’s oversimplifying? What if this creates new problems? What if she needed therapy, not a book? What if I’m in over my head?

Another reader shared: “The S.P.I.R.A.L. Method didn’t work for me at first, but when I stopped trying to do it perfectly and just used it as a general guide, it started helping.”

More spiraling: What if the method is too rigid? What if people think they’re doing it wrong? What if I should have explained it differently?

My partner finally intervened: “You wrote a book about overthinking, and now you’re overthinking people’s responses to your book about overthinking. This is like overthinking inception.”

They were right. I was caught in a feedback loop of anxiety about anxiety about anxiety. Time to practice what I’d preached.

The Permission to Be Imperfect

The most valuable thing I learned while writing this book was something I tried to teach but had to experience: the permission to be imperfect.

Jennifer’s story worked not because she achieved perfect mental health, but because she learned to be imperfectly human with greater awareness and better tools. The book didn’t need to be perfect to be helpful. I didn’t need to be a perfectly recovered anxiety expert to share what I’d learned.

This realization freed me to write with more honesty, more vulnerability, more humor about the absurdity of the human condition. It let me acknowledge that I still sometimes check my partner’s expressions for signs of disapproval, still occasionally spiral about work emails, still have 3 AM moments of existential terror.

The difference is I catch them faster now. I have tools. I have perspective. I have people who understand. And most importantly, I have proof that change is possible—not perfect change, but meaningful change.

The Ongoing Story

Even now, months after finishing the book, I still spiral sometimes about its reception. Will it help people? Did I capture Jennifer’s story faithfully? Are the techniques accessible enough? Will mental health professionals think it’s too simplistic?

But I catch these spirals faster now. I use the S.P.I.R.A.L. Method on my spirals about the S.P.I.R.A.L. Method. I remember that the goal was never perfection—it was connection. One person recognizing themselves in Jennifer’s story. One reader learning they’re not alone in their 3 AM catastrophizing. One individual discovering that change is possible.

If this book helps even one person interrupt one thought spiral, it will have been worth every anxious moment of writing it. And if it doesn’t help everyone—which it won’t—that’s okay too. Perfect books don’t exist. Helpful books, imperfect and honest and real, do.

Writing about thought spirals while having thought spirals taught me the most important lesson of all: you don’t have to wait until you’re “healed” to help others heal. You don’t have to be perfect to be useful. You just have to be honest about the journey and willing to share what you’ve learned along the way.

And sometimes, the best thing you can share is that you’re still figuring it out too.

P.S. – I spiraled about this blog post for three days before publishing it. The irony continues, and I’ve made peace with it.