The Day I Didn’t Spiral (And Didn’t Know What To Do With Myself)
A letter to the ones who only feel safe when they’re moving—and are finally learning how to stop.
Last week, my husband and I went on vacation together, without our children and work. It was the first time in years that we allowed ourselves to step away from parenting responsibilities and daily routines. The experience surprised me most unexpectedly and gently.
For the first time in what felt like forever, I slept. I slept deeply and did not half-sleep or drift in and out of anxious dreams. I averaged eight to ten hours each night, uninterrupted by racing thoughts, existential what-ifs, or the familiar 3 a.m. doom-scroll. I did not lie awake negotiating with intrusive thoughts or counting ceiling fan rotations. I collapsed into a kind of rest my body had not felt in years—the kind that feels like gravity doubled its pull just for you.
Stillness, however, has rarely been a welcome guest in my life. It does not arrive like peace. It comes like a test. For me, silence has always carried consequences: memories I had not asked for, ideas I was not ready to chase, guilt I did not request. When things become quiet, my brain, wired by ADHD and shaped by years of survival mode, treats that quiet as suspicious. Yet somehow, during this trip, something in me surrendered. I smiled without prompting. I laughed without obligation. I picked up rocks like they were sacred relics. I wandered like my nervous system had finally, finally, sat down.
Although we agreed not to work, I broke the rule gently. I allowed myself two hours each day to write and build Dopatonin content. I told myself it was not work, and perhaps it was not. It was creation. It was a regulation. It was the only output that did not ask me to perform. Even so, guilt lingered like a background app I could not close. It whispered reminders about what I should be doing. In response, I repeated: I earned this. This is not indulgence. This is recovery.
We explored, hiked, fished, and I curated a personal rock collection that would make a geologist concerned. My husband did not rush me or redirect me when I got distracted. When I pulled over to photograph sunlight hitting the dirt just right, he did not ask for explanations. He let me be fully, unapologetically myself. One evening, he turned to me and said, “When I married you, they broke the mold.” That sentence—so casually spoken—was everything. It gave my chaos a place to land. It gave my rhythm permission to exist without justification.
He did not marry calm. He married chaos with a beating heart. He married the storm and the stillness it occasionally collapses into. That week, he witnessed what it looks like when lightning does not strike, but glows.
Of course, it could not last forever. On the final night of the trip, my mind spun back up like a machine that had merely been idle. It anticipated reentry. It anticipated noise. It prepared itself for the return of pressure. I could not sleep. My thoughts raced. My nervous system, so recently relaxed, began bracing as though chaos were a gust of wind about to blow the door off its hinges.
And the reentry was brutal. The second we arrived home, I felt my entire being revving up. I tried to hold on to what I had felt just days before, but the speed of my mind outpaced my intentions. My internal tabs reopened, each screaming for attention. The world resumed its pace, and my loyal body tried to match it—even when I knew better.
This is the part no one warns you about: returning to burnout feels like betrayal when you finally taste rest. My body now remembers what it feels like to exist without tension. My soul remembers laughter, which was not a survival mechanism. My mind remembers sleep that did not have to be earned. Returning to noise after knowing silence hurts in a way that is hard to articulate—like your soul got quieter, but the world didn’t notice.
Even so, I am holding tightly to what I found. I did not spiral when I stopped. I did not fall apart without performing. I met a version of myself who belonged in the stillness. This trip did not fix everything, but it reminded me that I am not lazy but tired. I am not fragile, I am overstimulated. I am not too much—I am unfiltered and overdue for softness.
Now that I have experienced real rest, I intend to return to it, not as an escape, but as a conscious act of reclamation. I will continue to pick up rocks and laugh too loudly at nothing. I will sleep like someone who no longer believes exhaustion is a virtue. Well, I am going to attempt. Even if the world demands a faster pace, I will do my best to honor my own. When chaos knocks, I will more than likely open that door fucking aggressively. Then remind myself, “You should open the door a bit slower next time.”
Because for the first time in a long while, my unquiet mind encountered something louder than the noise—stillness, and the memory of who I am when I finally allow myself to breathe.
When you read this, I hope you remember that stillness is not weakness.
I hope you stop apologizing for the days when survival looked like canceling everything just to go pick rocks.
I hope you let yourself rest, without proving why you deserve it.
And I hope you say, without shame:
“This is what healing looks like—messy, quiet, and mine.”
To the ones who wake up exhausted, who think resting is failure, and who are still trying to unlearn hustle as worth:
You are not lazy.
You are not broken.
You are a body remembering how to feel safe again.
And you are not alone.
Written in softness and survival,
— Jada 💛
Founder of Dopatonin™
Daughter. Wife. Mother. Friend. Chaos navigator. Rock collector. Nervous system whisperer. Still learning how to pause.
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Dopatonin™ does not diagnose, treat, or cure any medical or mental health condition. The content, products, and blog posts shared here are for educational and inspirational purposes only. Always consult a licensed medical or mental health professional if you are seeking clinical support.