Menu

Posts by Selim_Hayder

Selim Hayder writes essays on memory, grief, identity, and the unspoken parts of being human — anxiety, silence, time, loss, and what it means to exist in the gap between who we are and who we show the world. No advice. No answers. Just honest writing that explores what it feels like to be alive. Read more at haydervoice.com.

Selim_Hayder's Website

What’s Really Happening When Your Thoughts Spiral at Night

By

“The anxiety is not the enemy. It is the messenger. The mistake is killing the messenger instead of reading the letter.” ~Unknown

It’s 3 a.m. I’m lying in the dark, planning my own funeral.

Not because anything is wrong. My family is safe. There is no emergency. But my brain has decided, with complete confidence, that the headache I had this afternoon is something fatal. I am already thinking about who will come. Who will cry. Who will move on faster than I’d like.

An hour earlier, the same brain decided my career was ending. I have a presentation tomorrow—and …