Spinning through life

Have you ever had a conversation not go as planned, so you run through it in your head a few times over. That’s my life all of the time, except I relive conversations from last year or five years ago on repeat. If you’ve talked to me once, I’ve talked to you 50 times! This is probably the strongest of my anxiety symptoms. It starts the spiraling that leads to the others, if I’m not taking care of myself, or my stress levels aren’t under control. Most people have a triggering moment or a traumatic event that they can point to where everything went awry, and I have one of those, but this conversation spinning has been going on since my earliest memories – maybe even the playground.   Mental health difficulties have troubled my family as long as I can remember. My grandmother used to joke each morning, “I can’t make Paw Paw’s eggs without my Xanax.” I think she was serious but scared to say so. My dad struggled with anxiety, depression and what presented as PTSD, but no one