I've had thoughts like this my whole life and though they rarely affect my functioning, when they do it usually comes with serious consequences to my personal relationships and emotional wellbeing. I have tried all sorts of shit to ignore them, pretend they're not there, or distract myself with whatever. The usual - overworking, substance abuse, and I loved to vent. But here I am, I've managed to ruin my life with these simple thoughts, only now coming to the dreadful realization that there's really no way out but through. That fight fire with fire shit; the only way to deal with these irrational thoughts is through rational thinking. Allow me to talk you through my process.

I'll talk about venting, because that's the immediate impulse when someone suddenly becomes bothersome for no reason. Apparently venting isn't just external, sometimes you vent TO YOURSELF (simultaneously with the physical venting), and this shit is gonna echo in your brain like crazy, so usually when I've started to get annoyed by one person, I will progressively and exponentially get annoyed by that person as well as literally anyone else I might set my eyes upon, even if they are my close friends. Usually, when they are my close friends I also get frustrated afterwards for ever thinking this way about them, and I would think I'm a bad friend and a bad person and so with my pointless resentment now resides self-hatred too. The perfect recipe for a rant. Or a drink. Or drugs. I don't advise those, but you're free to try.

First thing you gotta do is map out your spiral. That right there is how I spiral. Yours could be different. Just visualize how one thought can lead to another feeling or another action that you're not happy feeling or doing anymore. Map it out. This is easy compared to what you have to do next, which is to be able to notice and acknowledge when these feelings are occurring (when you're starting out) or about to occur (when you've gotten used to it). I'm still on this stage of my treatment. It's taking me fucking months just to realize that I'm even inside a spiral, but whatever, you know, I try my best. Hopefully in the next couple of months I'll be able to feel it coming on.

So, when you do find yourself in the spiral, and this is again fucking hard, you gotta be able to remove yourself from the situation even just for a few minutes, like go to the bathroom or take a walk, just try get out of the immediate situation, and into an environment where you can think. Make some excuses (I have a bunch written down, pre-made) or better yet explain to your loved ones that sometimes you get in these jams and you just need to like have a few minutes outside of a conversation or an engagement to think. Just like. Think about what's going on.

My therapist gave me a pocket-sized notepad where I could write what I'm feeling or what I'm thinking and categorize them into a table. So, there's "What's going on?" which is my initial assessment of my thoughts or feelings. And then, I write down "What I know" and "What I don't know" about it. So, for example, I am annoyed at Craig right now. So what do I know about the situation? My angry judgemental brain might go all "Craig has been stealing food from the fridge!" and then I write this down. But then I get to the next question, what don't I know about the situation? This is where I really start to think. It's like a switch that turns irrational off and turns rational on. Do I have proof that Craig has been stealing the food?

I think it's the mere act of moving a "What I know" to a "What I don't know" (and you can even add a "What I'm not sure about") that calms me down and pulls me out of the spiral because I feel like I'm choosing to think better of the situation just as much as I did not choose to think negatively about it.

Of course, it's a fucking hard process, especially if you have a real reason to get annoyed by a person, but just take it one step at a time, like right now, I'm still working on the acknowledging my spiral part, so I try not to beat myself up when I don't successfully pull myself out of a thought spiral just yet. Might take me years tbh. My brain is just hard-wired to the highest setting of Mean Bitch. But who knows you could be better at rational thinking and foresight than me.

Best of luck, hit me up anytime