To be transfixed on a relatively insignificant thought or event and unhealthily or unnecessarily dwelling on it attaching a more elaborate meaning and emotion to it.
The
trigger often seems trivial to others but to the
person who is "spinning" it becomes connected to their personal prevailing emotions, past experiences, and/or unresolved trauma/pathology.
May include but not exclusive to:
1. imagining/playing out elaborate future scenarios, radical actions, and/or conversations;
2. questioning any past or present experiences, activities, and/or relationships;
Possible origins:
Like how a textile worker can get a seemingly small
piece or bundle of fiber and "spin" it into a
long thread by combining it with others.
Or how a
spider can "spin" an elaborate web by connecting many threads together.
1. After hearing that someone you know insulted your character, you make an elaborate plan to confront them and you think of all the things you've done that contests what they
said. In addition you question your own
relationship and past experiences with that
person and build them up to be an antagonist. Only to have them immediately apologize and quickly explain that it was a misunderstanding.
2. Like in the movie "He's Just Not That Into You", questioning the fairly straightforward actions of others and excusing or making them out to
mean something else by constructing elaborate scenarios
3. Girl: "We hang out almost everyday but he hasn't asked me to be his girlfriend."
Friend: "Didn't he say he wasn't interested and just wanted to be friends?"
Girl: "Yeah, but I think it was just because he had a bad experience with his last girlfriend and that he didn't get to know me yet."
Friend: "He's not interested though."
Girl: "But we spend so much
time together, what if he does want to have a
relationship but he just doesn't know how to ask?"
Friend: "You're spinning. If he says he isn't interested then he isn't interested."
