The Let Them Theory to Limit Crash Outs
Welcome to Twenty Something. This column- written by Caitlyn Garrity– explores the uncharted territory called your 20s. It’s funny, it’s witty, it’s honest.
What better time than the holiday season to discuss crash-outs? I’ve always been very emotional and intense, and graduating college has not helped diminish the number of “crash-outs” I have per week.
I love the term “crash out” because it perfectly encapsulates the feeling of no control over your emotions, situation, or outcome. And luck for us because being in your twenties is the perfect storm of all of that!
In this life period, you don’t have control over many aspects of your life, the biggest being your schedule or work, or maybe it's your emotions or how you deal with them. For me, I’m incredibly anxious, and I tend to spiral when I feel like I’m out of control over what’s happening. I’d say my biggest freakouts are on days where everything is going wrong; work seems to be a continuous pile-up of problems and fires, and on top of it, I’m feeling uncomfortable in my sweater, and my makeup looks like shit. I’ve been there and can almost guarantee that plenty of you have.
Therapy does help when it comes to dealing with a sense of loss of control, particularly in your twenties and transformative years, but therapy, as we all know and love, is expensive and not in some of our budgets. Thankfully, if you’re reading this, you have access to some form of the internet, and if you’ve spent this much time reading, you should definitely spend some time on the “Let Them Theory.”
In case you’re unfamiliar, the Let Them Theory originates from Mel Robbins, an incredible motivational speaker and social media personality who overcame really difficult challenges and has many great videos about everyday life struggles and mindset battles and how to let them go.
In its simplest form, the theory consists of letting something be and taking ownership of your reaction rather than controlling the action. For example, if a friend is treating you poorly, not inviting you to events, etc, Mel says to let them. They are showing their true colors and spending emotional real estate trying to manipulate the situation, worrying about what they are doing, and crashing out over the circumstance does not change what they are doing. So let them.
In this example, the Let Them Theory would mean that maybe you stop engaging with this friend and take action to find new friends that treat you the way you want without having to worry about it. Simply Let them.
This theory is all over the internet, so this might not be new information, but I wanted to talk about how transformative this theory is for a twenty-something-year-old. I don’t know about everyone, but in the past few years since graduating college, I have felt everything BUT in control. Many days, it feels like life passes me in ways I never expected–and sometimes never wanted. All I want to do is feel like I have some hand in how my life pans out and control something. When I can’t, it leads me to feel out of control, then spiral, and then crash out entirely, where all I can do is cry and watch reality TV to take my mind off my reality. It is not a healthy coping mechanism, but it is brutally honest.
So this theory is great… in theory, but the real magic is in its application, which is the hard work part. But when I can get a grip on myself and “let them,” it’s truly life-changing.
Just the other day, I lost my Kindle while traveling to Minnesota for the holidays (first-world problem coming in hot). I love my Kindle; it goes where I go, and my comfort hobby sends me to bed peacefully. So when I figured out that it had gone missing at midnight, right before bed, and right after I was diagnosed with pneumonia.… crash out is a mild word for how I reacted. I was so upset that I had managed to lose something that meant so much, and all I wanted to do was find it. I searched the house up and down, tried to call every place I went during the period I thought I had it, and got very upset. I quickly realized that I was spending so much time on the emotional distress of losing the Kindle and trying to worry myself to manipulate the situation to change, so I tried to shift my perspective. At that point, I had tried everything I could to find it. I was sick and tired and had other things to occupy my time with. So rather than spend the next few days moping, taking out my anger, and thinking about it, I decided that I could take the actions that I could, and if the Kindle was still gone, then let it. I’ve since ordered a new one, and while, yes, it sucked to spend more money on a Kindle I wasn’t planning on buying, it was what I could do, and that is life sometimes, but in a few months, I’m going to have completely forgotten about that Kindle and it will be a funny memory.
My example is light and silly, but this theory can be very useful for us twenty-year-olds. Her theory is in book form if you’re interested, and her podcast is pretty great, too. I haven’t read her book yet, but it’s at the top of my TBR list. So, if this is a topic that you want to dive into for 2025, I’d strongly recommend starting with the “Let Them Theory” because even though it can’t solve all of your problems, it is a great mindset frame that can help overcome sending yourself into a crash out which can lead to bigger issues like poor decision making and extreme stress.
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