The Argument You're Having With Someone Who Isn't There

by Sharn Somasiri
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Have you ever caught yourself mid-conversation with someone who isn't in the room? Defending yourself against something they haven't even said yet. Rehearsing your response to a comment that hasn't happened.

This is more common than people admit. You're lying in bed, and suddenly you're back in a meeting from three years ago, finally saying the thing you wish you'd said. Or you're in the shower, arguing with your mother about something that hasn't come up since Christmas.

It feels like thinking. It isn't. It's your nervous system rehearsing for danger that already passed, or danger that hasn't arrived yet. Your body doesn't know the difference between an imagined confrontation and a real one. It reacts to both the same way.

The exhausting part isn't the conflict itself. It's that your body treats the imagined version exactly like the real one. Heart rate up. Jaw tight. Stomach in knots. All for a conversation that exists only in your head, sometimes about a person who has no idea any of this is happening.

This is why you can spend an entire evening feeling drained without having done anything. The argument that never happened still cost you the energy of a real one.

You can't think your way out of this, because thinking is what's causing it. Trying to reason with yourself, telling yourself it isn't worth the energy, rarely works in the moment, because the part of you running the rehearsal isn't interested in logic. It's interested in safety.

The fix isn't a better argument or a clearer comeback. It's teaching your body that the threat has passed, so it stops bracing for round two.

Next time you notice yourself mid imaginary argument, don't try to win it or talk yourself out of it.

Instead, name what's happening out loud, even just to yourself. Say, my body thinks this is happening again, but it isn't. That single sentence interrupts the rehearsal because it brings your thinking brain back online, which is the part that can recognise you're safe right now.

It won't stop the pattern overnight, but it starts teaching your nervous system that it's allowed to stand down.