Managing A Spiral Before It Hits
You ever have those days where everything is fine—until suddenly it’s not?
One minute, you’re a little scattered. Some papers here, some piles there. The next, you’re spiraling through a mess unfinished tasks, missed deadlines, and the crushing weight of everything all at once. You need help, but don’t even know how to describe the problem, let alone ask for it.
Negative thought spirals and that creeping sense of “-whelm” rarely just appear out of nowhere. They build like an unstable weather system jacked up on climate change—and usually come with warning signs—before they hit full force.
For neurodivergent brains, these spirals and emotional dysregulation don’t follow a neat, predictable path you can find in a book. And they’re often intensified by co-occurring conditions. For example:
Depression is thought to occur in people with Autism as high as 58% of the time.
If you have Tourette’s Syndrome, there’s a 54.4% chance you also have ADHD, a 50% one you may have OCD, and a 30% chance to have a mood, anxiety, or disruptive behavioral disorder.
About 50-60% of folks with ADHD also experience Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD).
Add it all up, and emotional dysregulation becomes a tangled storm front that’s hard to predict and even harder to explain.
Lost in the Storm of “Therapy Speak”
Therapy terms have made their way into everyday language. On one hand—yay, awareness and better vocabulary! On the other—boo, misinterpretation, overuse, and self-diagnosis without solid, evidence-based tools.
Sometimes, we try to talk about our thoughts and feelings in a way we think people want to hear, instead of how we actually process them internally. That disconnect can make it nearly impossible to reach out when we need support. So how do you ask for help if you don’t even have the words?
Getting a Little Personal…
As you’ve probably guessed, this one’s close to home. Thanks to my particular brand of neurodivergence, emotions can be... complicated. I recently took the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (aka, the TAS-20) as a part of a certification course. It’s a self-assessment that measures how difficult it is to identify and describe emotions—a core feature of Alexithymia.
While I won’t share my exact score, I was genuinely surprised. Sure, I still experience alexithymia, but not as severely as I thought. Getting here took years of therapy, support systems, and a ton of emotional unmasking.
Finding My Window and Weather
I had to learn how to live inside what’s called a “window of tolerance.” Originally coined by Dr. Dan Siegel, it refers to the emotional zone in which we function best. My less-clinical version? It’s how much shit one can tolerate before said one loses it and can’t do basic life things (“adulting” as we millennials say).
I started visualizing this like a hallway leading to a literal window. Sometimes it’s sunny. Sometimes it’s raining. Sometimes it’s a full-on tornado. I learned to recognize when it was a good day to open that window, sit on the bench, and thrive—or when I needed to close it and draw the blinds. Eventually, weather metaphors became my best way to communicate how I was feeling—especially when I didn’t have the words. I took the window metaphor pretty literally and created my own vocabulary.
Creating A Personal Emotional Vocabulary and System
Trying to go from “I have no way to explain what’s going on” to “I understand how I feel, can describe it, and have tools that help” is like crossing the world’s longest suspension bridge in a thunderstorm. (Looking at you, Charles Kuonen Suspension Bridge).
According to a report by Sorenson, “Neurodivergent individuals…may find verbal communication overwhelming and benefit from visual support or simplified text.” The report continues to detail the fact that cognitive overload can make simple communication feel impossible.
That’s why having your own emotional vocabulary—through words, visuals, emojis, metaphors, flashcards, or whatever makes sense to you—can be a game-changer. Sometimes a metaphor is the only bridge that works.
When creating your own emotions system, I recommend coming up with something like this:
Your Representative WORD – [quick description]
Can Feel Like: [how it feels to you]
Solutions / Relief Actions: [things that work to help you in this state]
Here’s an example of my own system:
🌪️ Tornado Warning – Fast, Chaotic Spiral
Can Feel Like: Sudden overwhelm, racing thoughts, panic, lower frustration tolerance
Relief: Box Breathing; New Environment, Bee Breaths
🌀 Hurricane Watch – Slow-Moving Brain Spiral
Can Feel Like: Slow, twisting intrusive thoughts; mental and physical fatigue; drifting; demotivation
Relief: Pause; check basic needs (food, water, breaks); Reduce inputs.
🌫️ Fog Advisory – Mental Overload & Paralysis
Can Feel Like: Brain fog, indecision, struggling to start or focus. Everything is too much, so I’ll do nothing.
Relief: Brain dump. Write out everything in your head without judgment. Pick one small action and start there.
🔥 Heatwave – Overproductivity & Burnout
Can Feel Like: physically too hot, unbreakable hyperfocus, ignoring exhaustion, pushing past limits.
Relief: Take a timed break. Hydrate with iced drinks.
🌈 After the Storm – Recovery Mode
Can Feel Like: Emotional exhaustion, physical soreness, post-overwhelm crash.
Relief: Self-compassion--permission to recover. Take a shower. Light a candle or spray perfume.
Your Forecast, Your Words
The important thing is you use words, descriptions, and relief actions that are tailored to you. If you’re unsure what it feels like, or what words and what doesn’t, track it! Track what triggers the feeling and what helps and what doesn’t. The more you pay attention, the earlier you can intervene.
I built a Notion template to log all of this—patterns, triggers, what helps and what doesn’t—and carry it around on my phone. If that sounds useful, you can grab my Emotional Regulation Tracker Notion Template here where you can also just use the backend database and customize it to your own vocabulary—I currently have it using my personal Weather System. I also make a set of tag along flash cards that I’ve used with my kiddo effectively before.
Even if you don’t track it formally, just noticing your own warning signs can make a huge difference. Overwhelm happens, but it doesn’t have to take you down with it.
