Ep. 25: Stop Crashing Out

Crashing Out Has Been Normalized and It's Embarrassing

Somewhere along the way, "crashing out" became a personality trait. People announce it like it's cute. Sorry babe, I was crashing out. No. You were being an adult who couldn't regulate her own emotions and you took it out on whoever was closest to you. That's not a vibe. That's entitlement.

Because that's really what crashing out is. It's the belief that your bad day should be everyone else's problem. That whatever is going on with you matters more than what's going on with them. Hear me, see me, feel my wrath. And it's like… where do you get off?

We're not saying don't have emotions. We're saying don't make your emotions someone else's burden.

You Crash Out on Your Family Because They Have to Take It

Be honest. The people you crash out on are the people closest to you. Your mom. Your sister. Your partner. The people who can't quit you.

You wouldn't crash out on your boss. You wouldn't crash out on a stranger in line at Starbucks. You wouldn't crash out on a client. Because you know there'd be consequences. So you save it for the people who love you enough to absorb it.

That's not love. That's just knowing where the safe target is.

The Tear Shed Calendar

Real talk: one of us used to crash out constantly. Not screaming at people, but emotionally. Just crying out of nowhere. Letting stuff build up and then having a full meltdown about something that wasn't even the real issue.

So we started logging it. Literally. A calendar event called "tear shed" every time it happened. The goal was to stretch the time between meltdowns. A week. Two weeks. A month.

It sounds insane but it worked. Because once you start tracking it, you start to see the pattern. You're not actually a "crying person." You're a person who lets stuff build up until it explodes. Once you see that, you can fix it.

Crying Isn't Crashing Out

To be clear: crying because something genuinely sad or stressful happened is normal. Healthy, even. If you have no reaction to anything, that's actually the problem.

Crashing out is different. Crashing out is when you've let a hundred small things slide because you didn't deal with them in the moment, and now they're all coming out at once over something tiny. You're not crying about the dishes. You're crying about everything you didn't process for the last three months.

That's not emotion. That's a backlog.

Therapy Isn't For Crazy People

Going to therapy doesn't mean you're broken. It means you're learning skills nobody taught you. Most of us were not taught how to process emotions. We were taught to suck it up, push it down, or explode. That's it. Those were the options.

Therapy is just learning a third option. It's a tool in your tool belt. The fact that it's been stigmatized for so long is wild because the alternative is… what? Just keep crashing out on your family forever? Develop an addiction? Become someone everyone walks on eggshells around?

If you can afford therapy and you're choosing not to go because of the stigma, you're choosing to stay the way you are. That's a choice. Own it.

How to Stay Level-Headed When Everything Goes Wrong

Some days are just bad. A lawsuit. Five angry customers. Someone quits. Another fire. Another email. You feel the crash out coming.

Two things that actually work:

One: we're all going to die. Sounds dark, but it's the most freeing realization. None of this matters in the way you think it does in the moment. One bad day is one bad day. Zoom out.

Two: will crashing out make this better? Spoiler: no. It never makes the situation better. So you're just adding emotional damage on top of a bad situation for no reason. Don't.

The most useful thing you can do in a moment of chaos is dial in. Get present. Focus on the task right in front of you. Be a duck. Let it roll off your feathers. (Yes, that's the actual analogy a mentor gave us. It's annoying when someone says it to you mid-meltdown but it's right.)

Stop Bringing the Crash Out to Work

If you feel it coming, take five. Step outside. Lock the bathroom door. Compose yourself.

Walking into your boss's office sobbing every morning is not "being human at work." It's making your emotions someone else's management problem. They have to navigate your meltdown on top of doing their actual job.

If you legitimately need a moment, take it. But take it privately. Pull it together and then come back with a productive conversation. Hey, here's what's going on. That's an adult. The other thing is a child.

Have a Person. But Check In First.

Having someone to vent to is huge. Therapy is one option. A friend is another. But you can't just dump on people whenever you want.

There's a friendship dynamic we love where two friends have a literal safe word. Before one of them unloads, she texts the word banana. If the other is in a good headspace, she's like, yeah, banana me. If she's not, she says, no bananas today. No guilt. No taking it personally. Just a real check-in about whether the other person has capacity to hold your stuff right now.

If you're constantly dumping on the same person and never asking if they have the bandwidth, you're not friends. You're using them as a therapist who didn't agree to that job.

Stress Immunity Is Real

Here's the good news: the more shit you handle without crashing out, the easier it gets. It's not numbness. It's tolerance. You raise your tolerance to chaos by surviving chaos and realizing you were fine.

The first time everything goes sideways in one day, you'll cry. The fifth time, you'll be annoyed but functional. The fifteenth time, you'll laugh. That's not because you've stopped caring. That's because you've grown.

The Most Powerful Women Are the Calmest

While everyone around you is crashing out, you're the one in control. You're the one people look to. You're the one who gets the promotion, keeps the relationship, holds the room together.

Staying calm isn't being cold. It's being in control of yourself before you try to control anything else.

Get your shit together. Go to therapy. Stop crashing out on your family. Be a duck.