#255: Problems are the worst when they’re almost over

Baby advice, but for adults

A friend of mine recently texted the group chat that she was stuck on a piece of writing and starting to panic. We all jumped in with various theories and memes and words of reassurance (as women in group chats do). It’s important to note that this friend was, up until this text, on a roll. After a tough stretch of creative stagnation during which she became depressed and unsure of herself, this new project was flowing in a way that felt genuinely healing, until suddenly it didn’t. But resistance is part of the creative process! We said. It’s hell! The hell is good! “I know,” she replied, “I just think I panic and that panic becomes unhealthy and then I just wanna run and be mean to myself for awhile.” It was an old pattern. Maybe, I suggested, she was experiencing an “extinction burst.”

I’d just learned the term the week before. Another friend—a mom of a one-year-old—had mentioned it in the context of sleep training. An extinction burst, she explained, is when a child, after learning and exhibiting a new skill, temporarily returns to their old ways just to see if the behavior still works. For example, a baby who is being sleep trained might take to it fairly well but, after five days, suddenly start wailing at bedtime again. According to the experts, this may read like regression, but it’s actually a sign of progress. The baby is testing things out one more time, making sure they do in fact have to move forward with the change. Perhaps they’re even mourning the old way. Importantly, what can look like a setback is actually a last hurrah.

I can’t confirm or deny the validity of the extinction burst in babies, but I’ve been brazenly diagnosing adults ever since I learned the term. When I suggested to my friend that she might be experiencing one—that perhaps her desire to “run away and be mean to herself” in a moment of creative tension was actually a way of testing her newfound resolve—she was sold. (That said, we’re kind of always sold in the group chat.) Obviously being mean to yourself is not a pleasant experience, but sometimes defeat is easier to temporarily stomach than ongoing ambiguity. Sometimes it’s easier to reason that you simply lack the talent than attempt to muscle your way through the hard part. If she reframed her panic as cope, maybe she could move through it.

There’s something satisfying about the idea that in order to transcend old patterns, we must occasionally retrace them. I’ve been going through my own version of this with “refinding myself after having a baby.” No matter how many times I’ve grappled with and accepted that there’s no going back to my pre-baby self, I still find myself revisiting the desire every so often. The desire isn’t always immediately legible, usually I mistake it for something else—a calling, a renewed energy, a reacquaintance with some former side of myself “now that Sunny is older.” But before long I realize that no, it’s none of those things. I’m simply trying, once again, to be someone I’m incapable of being again: a person who isn’t a parent. To be clear, I also want to be a parent. I want it all.

August 2024

This happened as recently as New Year’s Eve, when I realized I couldn’t make it to my intended plans—dinner and drinks at a friend’s house followed by dancing at a bar. I was too sick with RSV, which had ravaged our family the week prior, although I’d held out hope that I’d be well enough in time. I was going to be the only one there who had a kid and now my cancellation read as inevitable and prophetic. The next day, at my request, my friends texted me pictures of everyone dancing, smoking cigarettes, making friends with a woman in a cartoonishly big hat. Meanwhile, I’d gone to bed at 10pm, only to be awoken at midnight by fireworks, which Avi and I cursed at like old crones. We worried they’d wake and scare Sunny, which obviously they did.

The disappointment of New Year’s Eve (memoir title) was galvanizing for a few days. I became determined to be more socially present, more engaged with these friends—to put in the work so I could feel more “in the mix.” Yes, this was good! My child had turned two and now I was ready to “reenter the world!” This is the shift everyone was always talking about in those TikTok compilations where women described “how long it took to feel like themselves again.” This was my moment. My big return.

Instead, I suspect, it was an extinction burst.

These flashes of internal reckoning feel so clear-eyed in the moment I’m experiencing them, but in truth, I see and talk to my friends all the time. I’m plenty “in the mix”; I’m already “in the world.” I just show up a little differently, and every once in a while, the joy of that change makes way for some grief. And it’s easier, in those moments, to reframe grief (which is unavoidable) as regret for not “showing up correctly” (which is fixable with behavior changes), so I retrace my old steps. I tell myself that I’m “finally” on the brink of becoming more like I was before, just with a baby now, and once again this path delivers me back where I started: You are here now. Take new steps.

While most articles I found on extinction bursts were about babies, I did find one that applied to adults. This one added an additional dimension: Extinction bursts aren’t just about testing old behaviors, they’re about the regressive urgency with which we approach problems that suddenly resist our old solutions. “In other words, when something that used to work no longer works, our first reaction is often to try [even] harder before eventually giving up on the behavior.”

This reminded me of how often I find that, after writing an emotional essay about something that’s been troubling me for a long time, I feel surprisingly released from it. I used to see this as a function of the writing process specifically, but now I wonder if I tend to write about problems when my internal resistance to solving them is reaching maximum capacity¹. The intensity of my emotion suggests I’m in the middle, when in fact, I’m at the end.

I can think of so many scenarios in which this might be the case: pushing hard at a toxic job right before finally resolving to quit; dating and clinging to one last wrong person before finally being ready to date someone emotionally available. In general, the logic of “one last chance” strikes me as a kind of extinction burst. What may feel like holding on—a stubborn inability to commit to growth or change—can actually be a crucial part of letting go.

Last Friday’s 15 things included four articles that blew me away, my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe that’s not online, my new favorite home pants, and more.

The rec of the week was best sports bras. Thank you so much, I bought two of them!

The podcast last week was a two-hour conversation with Harling Ross Anton and Crystal Anderson about what it’s like to have two-year-olds. We’ve been checking in every year (this is our third).

Hope you have a nice Sunday,
Haley

1. One good example is when I wrote about parenthood’s PR problem—a moment that felt like the beginning of a feeling, but was actually the end of one.