The checking spiral
Checking feels like doing something about the doubt. Today you look honestly at what it actually does.
Relief for ten minutes
You check their location, their followers, when they were last online, the bank statement. For a moment there is relief, or a new clue. Then the doubt comes back, often stronger, and you check again.
Checking rarely settles anything. If you find nothing, the doubt says you did not look hard enough. If you find something ambiguous, the doubt has new material. Either way, the loop tightens.
Naming your checking is not about shame. Almost everyone in this situation does it. It is about seeing the loop you are in.
Research on checking in anxiety has repeatedly found that checking increases doubt rather than reducing it. In experiments by Marcel van den Hout, Merel Kindt and later Adam Radomsky, people who checked something repeatedly became less confident in their own memory of it, not more.
Which of these do you do?
Roughly how many times a day do you check something? How do you feel five minutes after a check?
Take this with you
Checking buys ten minutes of relief and sells you tomorrow's doubt.