Last night I was flicking through a book about everyday life and literature. Much of it was about Virginia Woolf and Joyce. What struck me were a few lines on Kafka, on his novella Metamorphosis. Now that was on the syllabus on one of the courses I taught so I thought I knew it quite well. But I didn't. What she mentioned was that the turning, the turning into a bug or giant insect is linked, not necessarily causally, but linked to the social. I did not remember that,  I imagined it as a much more psychically internal fantasy. But no it is not and further it could stand, I think, as a swirl story. So the image or symbol of being turned into vermin is both a function of stifling family life and the hideousness of life outside. 
So, one could argue that the whole piece, nightmare that it is, illustrates the swirl experience in a very graphic way. Here is a description from a New Yorker article on it:

The story’s protagonist, Gregor Samsa, is the quintessential Kafka anti-hero. He has worked himself to the point of utter exhaustion to pay off his parents’ debts, and his grotesque metamorphosis is the physical manifestation of his abasement.

Wikipedia is good too:

He reflects on how dreary life as a traveling salesman is. As he looks at the wall clock, he notices that he has overslept and missed his train for work. He ponders the consequences of this delay. Gregor becomes annoyed at how his boss never accepts excuses or explanations from any of his employees no matter how hard-working they are, displaying an apparent lack of trusting abilities.

So there it is. A sort of internal familial claustrophobia meeting an external anomie and producing or leading to a vermin state.

It is worth thinking about this further and thinking of other literary works that might illustrate our theme.

I came across some stuff about the philosopher Derrida. He was Jewish and yet that identity was problematic for him. And there is a way of thinking of his modality, deconstruction , as a response to that. A response that was not just philosophical but political. So, for example, he was against the nation state, pro immigration etc And one way of thinking about deconstruction, and I am a bit vague here, is to think that its modus operandi is to deconstruct boundaries. It does this by showing up the discrepant, ambiguous, illogical aspect of boundaries/borders and so on.
Our problem: the swirl can be present and fester in a boundaried world and in one where there are none. It reminds me a little of studying Sociology of Ed in London with someone called Basil Bernstein. At that time he wrote about the advantages and disadvantages of a discrete subject based curriculum versus integrated studies. No boundaries, or very weak boundaries versus strong ones.
So swirls arising out of being outside dominant group or competing badly in a neo-liberal environment on the one hand versus swirls arising from an environment where identity markers are weak or almost non existent. Does the last point make sense? Is it possible?
Put another way. Derrida wants a pluralistic democracy, but I suspect he might also think that his issues with Judaism might dissolve in such a state. How about the link to knowledge classification?
If there are weak boundaries between (school) subjects or no boundaries how might that be for learning? All of this bears on swirls because amongst other things, the swirl experience involves disorientation. A loss of bearings.

Swirls are not just about (acute) anxiety, though that is invariably present, but also about a complex of feelings that include shame, fear, depression, and a sense of being small and utterly alone.

Swirls. Where are we now?
Swirls involves anxiety and/or panic and more. The more is important as it separated swirls from acute or chronic anxiety etc
The more most probably involves shame. In addition, feelings of depression, melancholia etc
What goes with shame is worthlessness and humiliation. Smallness-regression.

This is a container for thought, opinions and ideas regarding what is an ongoing conversation. The topic as ever: swirls.