Andrea Petersen, WSJ Contributor, Author of "On Edge: A Journey Through Anxiety"
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[0:38]I'm here today with Andrea Peterson.
[0:40]Andrea's a contributing writer at the Wall Street Journal and the author of the book On Edge,
[0:44]a journey through anxiety.
[0:45]She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and her nine-year-old daughter.
[0:48]So welcome to Andrea.
[0:49]Thanks for having me.
[0:51]So you share in your book that you've spent your life since sophomore year in college,
[0:56]coping with serious and serious anxiety disorder involving panic attacks and some other
[1:00]debilitating symptoms, which I really want to talk about.
[1:02]But I also really want to talk about your recent Wall Street Journal article,
[1:06]The Overprotected American Child, which outlined how to prevent anxiety from forming
[1:10]and children, assuming genetics don't doom them from the outside, but I'm in the
[1:14]outside with their parents.
[1:15]But so let's start with the article.
[1:17]That's okay.
[1:18]Sure.
[1:19]You began by sharing your experience when you left your daughter at home for a few minutes
[1:23]for the first time and how you both felt a bit rattled by the whole thing afterwards.
[1:27]Can you tell me more about that situation and how your feelings afterwards made you
[1:31]think about parenting in order to prevent anxiety?
[1:35]Well, because I've done so much research on anxiety and particularly how anxiety develops
[1:40]and kids, you know, I've done a lot of looked into sort of how much parenting can
[1:44]can or cannot contribute to anxiety.
[1:47]And the good news is that, you know, most researchers don't believe that parenting
[1:51]necessarily makes kids anxious.
[1:54]But if you...
[1:55]You can go ahead.
[1:57]But if you have an anxious kid or kid who's kind of predisposed to anxiety, what you
[2:03]do does really matter.
[2:06]And one of the...
[2:07]And actually the parenting...
[2:08]And this is actually true for all kids.
[2:09]So the one sort of parenting dimension that seems to actually carry the most weight
[2:15]and maybe do the most harm when it comes to actually, you know, making kids anxious
[2:19]is not giving them enough autonomy.
[2:22]And you know, we've also kind of read so much...
[2:24]We've all read sort of a lot of hand-ringing stories and essays about, you know, lamenting
[2:30]the fact that kids today don't have nearly as much independence, physical independence
[2:35]and autonomy as, you know, I'm a gen XR, you know, as I did, you know, as certainly generations
[2:40]before us did.
[2:41]You know, I don't know about you, but I remember long, especially summer days kind of playing
[2:47]tag, writing my bike with like a gang of other kids, no parents in sight.
[2:52]And that is certainly not the way my daughter is growing up.
[2:55]And, you know, I've been thinking for months, you know, I really need to start giving
[3:00]her a little bit more independence and autonomy because I know that that is one of the things
[3:05]that I can do to sort of not only just, you know, try to prevent anxiety, but also,
[3:12]you know, you don't want...
[3:13]I've talked to psychologists who say, you know, they've got kids that are off at college
[3:17]whose parents still call them every morning to wake them up because they've never learned
[3:21]to wake up on their own.
[3:22]You know, kids who don't know how to do their laundry, who, you know, we just as parents
[3:27]because I think we're so focused on the homework and the extracurricular activity is,
[3:32]and, you know, they're so sort of scheduled and busy that I think we forget to teach them
[3:37]a lot of the sort of basic life skills that they're going to need when they're on their
[3:41]own.
[3:42]So this is something that I've been thinking about for a while.
[3:43]And of course, you know, I didn't actually do it until I sort of had to, right.
[3:48]What happened is my daughter was really sick and my husband was out of town.
[3:52]I needed to go actually get her PDLA because she just couldn't keep anything down.
[3:57]And so I decided, you know, I kind of calculated the time.
[4:00]The drugstore was about a five minute walk away and I'm like, okay, I'll take me about
[4:04]10 minutes so I can kind of, I can probably do the whole thing in 20 minutes.
[4:07]And I, I basically just, I showed her where the landline was, which is, I don't even think
[4:12]she knew where it was because we don't ever use it.
[4:15]You know, so she could call me, you know, quiz her made sure that she, she knew myself
[4:19]her phone number, but I, you know, kind of quizzed her on it to make sure that it was
[4:21]top of mind, told her not to open the door for anyone.
[4:25]And then I left and, and you put her in front of the TV or you didn't know.
[4:28]No, I didn't.
[4:29]I, I, you know, she, I was like, she's a big reader so she's super into Harry Potter now.
[4:34]So I think, you know, she, she was enrapped in one of those books.
[4:37]But it's funny.
[4:38]I got in line at the store and my phone rang and it was FaceTime.
[4:44]And she said, Mama, the landline didn't work.
[4:47]So I guess I didn't, I don't know if something was wrong with it.
[4:50]It didn't work.
[4:51]But she was intrepid enough to figure out how to call me on my iPad and FaceTime me that
[4:59]way.
[5:00]So, so we did face, she was a little nervous and so she FaceTime me and we chatted
[5:03]for a bit.
[5:04]And, you know, so I got home and we both emerged unscathed from the, from the whole, or
[5:10]deal.
[5:11]And tell I told my husband actually that night what I had done and he was not so thrilled
[5:16]about it.
[5:17]He was like, she could have choked on something or hurt her, you know, bumped her head.
[5:22]And to be fair to him, those things have actually happened.
[5:25]Of course, when we were actually home with her.
[5:28]So, you know, sometimes even if you want to encourage, you know, independence and not
[5:33]telling me your kids, it can be hard to, if your spouse is an onboard with it, that can
[5:38]be tough.
[5:39]Or especially if your neighborhood isn't.
[5:40]I mean, I've talked to several parents who wanted to, you know, had their kids walk
[5:45]to school at nine or eight or nine and, you know, came, really came under fire from other
[5:52]parents who thought that was just a nutty idea.
[5:54]I mean, everybody does it a little differently.
[5:57]Right.
[5:58]I mean, I don't know.
[6:00]You mentioned also in your article that overzealous parenting can do real harm, which is sort
[6:04]of, you know, what you're talking about now with sort of anti-autonomy.
[6:08]And that doctors say this as a contributing factor and the increase of the prevalence
[6:12]of anxiety disorders among kids.
[6:14]So can the parenting cause it or is it just what you were saying more on the fringes?
[6:20]It can lead to it sort of a flare-up of it.
[6:22]I mean, I think I don't think anyone's totally part it out.
[6:26]I think what I've heard from everyone from college, counseling center directors who are
[6:32]seeing huge explosions, I mean, the statistics are actually such among young adults, college
[6:37]students are alarming.
[6:39]The latest research shows about 22% of college students in 2017 said that they had been
[6:45]treated for or diagnosed with anxiety problems within the last year.
[6:50]And that's up from 10% in 2008, so there's clearly something going on.
[6:53]I mean, definitely it's being fueled by partly by the fact that there's more awareness
[6:57]and around having mental health issues and there's less stigma, which is a good thing.
[7:02]You know, there's clearly something going on and psychologists and educators do point
[7:07]to sort of overzealous parenting as one contributing factor.
[7:13]And if you think about it, it makes sense because, you know, when you are overprotective
[7:18]or don't give kids sort of age-appropriate autonomy, I mean, the message that you're
[7:21]sending to them is that the world's a dangerous place and that they can't cope with situations
[7:28]on their own.
[7:30]And you're also not giving them the chance to develop the skills that they're going to
[7:36]need.
[7:37]I mean, ideally, we all want our kids to be independent and be able to live on their own.
[7:42]When they graduate from high school and go to college or go to the workforce, you know,
[7:48]we want them to be able to have those skills that they're going to need to sort of live
[7:53]independently.
[7:54]So what are the tips you had said in your article, you know, getting people to do
[8:00]household people, getting kids to do household chores is really helpful, things like
[8:04]the laundry and the dishes.
[8:06]What else should you be having your kids do?
[8:08]Well, that's actually really eye-opening for me because when I initially approached the story,
[8:12]I was thinking, okay, you know, I know that I want to give my daughter more independence.
[8:18]But I feel like for our parents' generation, it was just sort of, I mean, that's what
[8:23]everyone did.
[8:24]So it was just, you know, they kind of just kind of went with their gut or they just
[8:29]went with whatever the prevailing, you know, the cultural tide was.
[8:32]But things are so different now and people are so much more, I think, anxious about, you
[8:36]know, giving their kids more, whether it's because, you know, we all hear about the child
[8:42]abduction that may have happened, you know, across the country.
[8:45]And, you know, statistically, kids are much safer than they were when, you know, people,
[8:50]gen xers were kids.
[8:51]But even so, I think we hear more about the scary things that can happen.
[8:57]So it's, I wanted to find out, what is the research say?
[9:02]Like, you know, when, if I do want to give my daughter independence not autonomy, you
[9:05]know, what age is the right age to let her walk to school by herself or stay home alone
[9:11]or whatever.
[9:12]And, you know, I didn't really find a lot of sort of hard, fast rules.
[9:17]But what I, what was really interesting to me is talking to psychologists, they were,
[9:20]they were actually saying, you know, you really need to think about independence on
[9:23]autonomy, not so much in the context of these sort of big kind of riskier sort of independence
[9:29]moves.
[9:30]But more as a continuum, starting when they're really small and, you know, things that
[9:35]we would think of as sort of chores or duties, like, you know, yeah, having your two-year-old
[9:41]put their dirty clothes in the hamper or pick up their toys or having your six-year-old
[9:45]make a sandwich.
[9:46]That was a sharp knife with a dull knife and I'm ready for, you know, or your eight-year-old
[9:49]make some scrambled eggs on a stove.
[9:51]Like, those may sound just like chores, but in fact, those are moves toward independence
[10:00]Um, you know, they are skills that they're going to need to have, you know, in skills
[10:05]that they're going to need to have to sort of live self-sufficiently and they give them
[10:08]a feeling of self-efficacy that they can do it.
[10:11]And that is a really important skill to have.
[10:14]And also another tip that was really interesting was actually to involve the kids in decision
[10:22]making around around their moves toward independence on autonomy.
[10:26]So if you are talking about like, you know, do you think you're just asking your child,
[10:31]do you think you're ready to stay home alone and what are the pros and cons of that?
[10:35]And actually having that discussion with them, you know, you're helping to really encourage
[10:41]their decision making skills.
[10:43]And that is something, and to help them feel sort of confident that they can kind of work
[10:46]through these kind of things.
[10:48]And that actually is a really important skill to have and to help them sort of, and you're
[10:53]also conveying that you trust them to help problem solve.
[10:58]So they're learning problem solving skills, they're learning to trust their own sort of
[11:04]their own thinking.
[11:06]And so if you think about that, that's going to be really important when they start
[11:09]facing such a way that during the teen years, when they're facing bigger decisions about,
[11:14]you know, sex and alcohol and scary things like that.
[11:18]So you know, it's those are things that you can help really help sort of develop that
[11:25]good decision making from these smaller sort of independence moves.
[11:30]I love these tips, especially because you can do them at home.
[11:33]It's not like I have to go let my kids start wandering around this space.
[11:36]Exactly.
[11:37]Because every day things, I mean, many of which the kids do, but just to make it to be
[11:42]so mindful of it and make sure that they know why they're doing it too, that it's beneficial
[11:47]for them.
[11:48]Right.
[11:49]Like you're going to need to know how to do this, maybe because at one point, at some point,
[11:53]you're going to live on your own and, you know, I'm not going to be here to do your laundry.
[11:57]So yeah, or things like that.
[12:00]I just visited a girlfriend of mine recently who lives outside of us and she's four kids
[12:03]and she was showing us the laundry room and she was like, oh yeah, the kids do all their
[12:06]own laundry.
[12:07]She was some little kid.
[12:08]I was like, really?
[12:09]She's like, oh yeah.
[12:10]She's like, I mean, maybe the big load, if there's something I have to do, I'll do it.
[12:13]But when the kids are like, my dad's a dirtyer, I need this clean for soccer.
[12:17]She's like, that's where it is.
[12:19]That's great.
[12:20]See, I'm, I definitely, I do not do that, I have not done that yet.
[12:23]And actually there's things, you know, I've been still, but I, until recently it was
[12:27]making my daughter her breakfast and I'm like, because I have one child too.
[12:31]So it's one of those, so it's not, I think the more kids you have probably, the more likely
[12:35]you are to have, you know, you just don't have as much time, but I think, I was like,
[12:41]sure, can the friend have paid for it?
[12:44]I'm like, I've got three lunch boxes open for camp and making eggs, like, I can't
[12:48]keep the sandwich, I'm like, yeah, yeah.
[12:51]So and then that was an end, but also an other, talking to another psychologist was really
[12:57]eye-opening too, things I hadn't really thought of as independence moves, but of course
[13:03]they are.
[13:04]And I wouldn't have thought of too, because basically she was saying, you can't have to
[13:07]keep remembering that, you know, the goal is to have sort of a self-sufficient person by
[13:12]the time they leave your roof and, you know, things like advocating for themselves
[13:16]with teachers, you know, that's a really important skill, you know, so the in college
[13:21]I'll be able to develop relationships with mentors and they'll be able to negotiate, you
[13:27]know, if they bomb a test that they know that they can go into a professor and, you
[13:32]know, figure out what they need to do to get better, you know, to get a better grade
[13:36]on the next one so that, you know, you're not, you know, they're not failing out before
[13:41]they address it or going to the doctor by themselves and, you know, being able to talk
[13:48]about their own symptoms.
[13:49]I mean, I, once I called just was telling me she said kids, you know, end up with pneumonia
[13:52]because they didn't really, they'd never had the experience of, there were just, I
[13:58]guess, two sort of overwhelmed to go and make their own doctor's appointment.
[14:01]Wow.
[14:02]I can't imagine my kids picking up the phone and making other inductors at this age
[14:06]at least, but it's nice to know they'll come, you know, take a little bit off of my
[14:10]plate, I guess.
[14:11]Let's switch gears a little bit to the book, which is so good.
[14:16]Thank you.
[14:17]So you talk in your book about how you've approached the treatment to your own anxiety.
[14:22]And I love your description of when you had acupuncture and all the alternative treatments
[14:29]like I personally never felt as anxious as being left alone in a dark room with needles
[14:34]all over me and your description was just hilarious.
[14:36]I love that.
[14:37]It's actually something called relaxation induced anxiety.
[14:40]So totally.
[14:41]I had the hardest time relaxing, it's like yoga, like all the things you're supposed
[14:46]to do.
[14:47]Oh, I've had panic attacks in the middle of massages.
[14:48]So when my anxiety is up to, it was like really, really amped up the actual that act
[14:53]of trying to relax and actually focusing on my body can actually cause a resurgence in
[14:58]symptoms.
[14:59]Interesting.
[15:00]But I mean, that, you know, I do find all those things, there is actually evidence
[15:04]that acupuncture can be very helpful and it can be for some people.
[15:07]Yeah.
[15:08]Yoga is actually one of the ways that I really, that I think helps keep my anxiety in
[15:11]check when it's at sort of its lower kind of typical kind of low hum, okay.
[15:18]But when it's super amped up, there's other things I've got to do.
[15:22]Interesting.
[15:23]Yeah.
[15:24]So what are some of the things that you do when you're really amped up?
[15:26]I mean, when my anxiety is disabling when it's really preventing me from, and can you
[15:32]just describe to listeners?
[15:33]You did such a good job in your book of describing some of the symptoms and just sort
[15:36]of what a bad anxiety day might look like for you.
[15:39]Yeah.
[15:40]I mean, for me and the past too.
[15:42]For me, you know, I've had anxiety for me has taken many, many forums, but when it was
[15:46]really at its worst, I mean, I was having panic attacks, which are these incredibly intense
[15:52]episodes of, you know, really serious sort of physical symptoms.
[15:57]Like I actually felt like I was dying, you know, my heart was racing, short of breath,
[16:03]range visual changes, and this feeling of overwhelming doom that I was about to die
[16:09]or go crazy.
[16:10]You know, when a panic attack is supposed to sort of peak in a bait within about 10 minutes,
[16:13]but you know, I, this college sort of break down where it felt like about a month-long
[16:18]panic attack.
[16:19]I mean, yes, my fear had sort of peaks and valleys, but it basically left me totally
[16:24]incapacitated sort of a lump on my parents sofa.
[16:28]I had to drop my class, I couldn't take my finals.
[16:31]I had to sort of withdraw from school for a little bit.
[16:34]It was, it was, it was kind of a whole body illness.
[16:38]And unfortunately, I wasn't accurately diagnosed for about a year.
[16:41]I ended up having some sort of medical odyssey because I'd like to think that wouldn't
[16:47]happen now that doctors are a little bit more aware of the symptoms of anxiety.
[16:51]But from the research that I've seen that, you know, still people with anxiety often
[16:56]take, it's 10 years or more before they, from the, they're on set of symptoms to when
[17:01]they actually get professional help.
[17:03]So there's still a lot of long way to, way to go.
[17:08]Do you have any advice for listeners out there who struggle with anxiety themselves?
[17:16]You had this beautiful essay that you wrote in the Oprah magazine when you kept confusing
[17:19]the name you're playing with your daughter like pretend sisters and you couldn't remember
[17:23]the name of the pretend character you were supposed to be because your mind was on
[17:26]a hundred other things which, I know I can relate to, I'm sure other people too.
[17:31]So how can you, how can you just stay more in the moment without having to run to a
[17:37]yoga class?
[17:38]You know, how do you write in your in it?
[17:39]How do you try to keep the anxiety at bay enough to be focused by the end of the article?
[17:46]You kind of had momma or you figured out what to do.
[17:51]If anxiety, you know, anxiety rises to a disorder when it's really impairing your life,
[17:55]when it's preventing you from working, being present in your relationships, when it's
[18:02]really, that that's when you need to go get help and when, and, and the two most evidence
[18:07]based treatments for anxiety disorders are cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a kind
[18:11]of talk therapy where you learn to sort of, you know, these catastrophic thoughts that
[18:17]we have when we're anxious, you learn to sort of modify them and also the main component
[18:22]for, of the treatment is actually exposure where you kind of repeatedly expose yourself
[18:28]to the very things that you're afraid of.
[18:31]And it's fairly effective, also antidepressant medications like Lexapro and Zolaft and things
[18:35]like that have also been shown to be helpful though the evidence for them is a little
[18:40]bit, not as strong as people would like to me.
[18:44]I also talk a lot about in the book about some of the really exciting new science that's
[18:47]sort of unraveling some of the mysteries of the anxious brain and some of the new treatments
[18:51]on the horizon that actually aimed to sort of, to directly address some of the underlying
[19:00]cognitions that, that underlying anxiety, but also some of the, what's kind of wrong,
[19:06]what's kind of wonky in the brain too.
[19:09]So, so there's a lot of exciting stuff around that.
[19:11]But then just when anxiety, if it doesn't rise to disorder, if it's sort of, you know,
[19:15]or you're trying to prevent a relapse, if you do struggle with an anxiety disorder, you
[19:21]know, a lot of the really boring adult things that we're all supposed to do, that we
[19:25]all know we're supposed to do, like get enough sleep, exercise, I mean those are really
[19:29]critical for people with anxiety, there's a whole robust body of research that shows
[19:34]that insufficient sleep in particular is a really great way to, you know, put your anxiety
[19:40]and overdrive, and also, you know, that exercise, particularly things like yoga, anything
[19:47]that can ground yourself in the present moment, and if you think about it, you know,
[19:51]so mindfulness meditation, there's a lot of, a lot of great research around that, but
[19:57]it really, what I found, anything that can ground myself.
[20:00]the present moment is really helpful because if you think about it, anxiety is sort of the
[20:04]antithesis of that. It's all about the future. It's all about the catastrophe around the corner.
[20:09]So if you can stay in the moment, that's really sort of the antidote to anxiety. And it can be
[20:15]different for, if you don't, if you're not in a meditation, I'm actually not that great at it. I do
[20:21]try. But, but I talk to one, you know, several people listening to music or taking a walk,
[20:28]or, you know, I actually find baking to be as one of my favorites, sort of, Susan. I'm not taking
[20:34]it. I do. There's something about sort of following a recipe and sort of the tactile nature of it.
[20:41]And then I just kind of get lost in that process. And I really sort of settles my mind.
[20:49]You know, there's research showing that actually, you know, taking a walk in nature can be really,
[20:52]really helpful. So I'm probably writing. No, not for me. No, not for me. No, I find writing can be very
[21:01]anxiety-inducing. Really? Yes. Especially when I'm on deadline. Okay. I'm always, always, yeah,
[21:06]because it's a sort of battle between, you know, the deadline and this sort of anxiety about putting
[21:12]sort of, you know, not being able to express myself, you know, always that feeling of inadequacy that
[21:20]I think a lot of us writers have is, you know, what we, what we hope to create maybe doesn't,
[21:26]doesn't always jive with what we actually end up creating. So you know,
[21:30]writing for yourself, like as a tool to start through feeling, doing anything, it's, is it?
[21:34]No. No. It's always, I mean, I love it. And then I find it a lot of ways anxiety is
[21:39]fueled my work. This is like this worry about, well, first of all, you know, when I was a news reporter
[21:45]or, you know, getting beaten on a story, you know, that, but also just the fear of messing up.
[21:49]I mean, this, you know, this fear that I would make a mistake. It was very motivating to,
[21:56]to double check, triple check my work, do one more interview. I mean, in ways sort of paranoia
[22:02]can be very useful quality in a, in a journalist. I thought I didn't. See, I think at least
[22:11]with writing, not that I do what you do, but you're so in control of it, right? Like you're in
[22:16]control of what you produce and every word. And if you want to fix it later, you go back, you
[22:21]fix, I mean, not after you send it to the lawsuit journal, but before that stage, you know,
[22:25]it's different than if you're, I would imagine like, I was just chatting with two girlfriends who
[22:29]you know, have been on air, right? Like, you know, you can't take anything back, right? That's like
[22:34]live TV, you know, right? I mean, not that the, anyway. Yeah. Yeah. And what you said, by the way,
[22:40]about sleep being a leading, like not getting enough sleep, really amping at things,
[22:45]Eddie, that's so not fair, especially for parents of young kids who like, you know,
[22:49]I don't know about you. I have kids in my room basically. I mean, it's getting better, but there's
[22:53]somebody coming in usually most nights, at least once. And for, especially with new kids, like, when
[22:58]you had a new baby, like, sleep isn't possible. It's just not even in the cards. Oh, new
[23:03]parenthood, I think it's just sort of a, I mean, it's, it's not only is the sleep deprivation
[23:10]a reality, but in some ways, you know, society is telling you to be anxious. I mean, you know,
[23:15]we're a wash and parenting advice and the parenting advice can change all the time. And I think
[23:21]it's just in some ways I, you know, when I talk about having my daughter and when she was a new baby,
[23:27]you know, that I finally felt like my, like my circumstances, you know, kind of caught up with my brain.
[23:33]You know, I always had this anxious brain and now finally it was actually sort of socially acceptable.
[23:37]It's not socially mandated that I'd be anxious all the time.
[23:42]Somebody who was it, I can't remember somebody who was on the show recently and saying,
[23:46]they never were anxious until they had a child. And then for the first time they're like,
[23:50]oh my gosh, I can't, can't cross the street. And, you know, that, that feeling of anxiety was so
[23:55]brand new that it was like shocking both to her and her husband that I was that she was that way.
[23:59]Right. Yeah. And I think we spent so many years, you know, protecting, protecting, protecting. And
[24:04]that's why I think, you know, this idea going back to autonomy and independence again, very difficult
[24:08]to then be like, oh, well, actually the right thing to do for my child now is to actually sort of,
[24:13]you know, trying to get them to be to be more independent. And that's sort of sort of the
[24:20]parenting kind of mission, maybe. I'm not doing anything for you anymore. That's it.
[24:28]Pack my bags for me. And what was the process of writing the book like for you?
[24:34]It was really intense. And it was also, because, you know, as being a news reporter for so many
[24:40]years, you know, I really hadn't, I'd written maybe a couple of first-person pieces. So writing
[24:45]something so personal was a real shift for me. And something that was tough. I mean, I had to,
[24:52]and I basically, how I kind of went about it is I told myself that no one else was going to read it.
[24:58]I basically decided that I tried to turn off that self editor. And also that my family wasn't
[25:04]going to read it either. Because I figured I also, which of course, you know, ultimately, yes,
[25:08]obviously people were fit. But in order to write as authentically and honestly, as I wanted to,
[25:14]I had to sort of try to trick myself into thinking that I was only writing it for myself.
[25:19]Let's take a take. And then I could, because I could then I could tell myself, well, I could
[25:22]always, you know, tone it down or ratchet it back or delete some things if I, if I felt like I
[25:29]needed to. And actually, I didn't end up having to do that much. Because I, especially with
[25:33]something like a memoir, I think you really have to put yourself out there in order for it to resonate
[25:38]with with anyone else. And I wanted to, you know, for this book in particular, I wanted to provide,
[25:44]you know, insight and empathy to all the other anxious people out there too. And I'm hoping that
[25:52]some people might see similarities or or and differences. But, but that my story would resonate
[25:58]with with people. Certainly resonated with me. And I also loved you. You included so much research,
[26:05]but you weaved it throughout the text in such a nice way. Well, we did that you almost didn't
[26:10]notice that you were like reading a textbook about anxiety while you're reading somebody's
[26:14]story. I hope it I certainly hope it didn't really know. No, it's textbook. No, I meant that you
[26:19]conveyed as much information as you might have found in a textbook. However, right. Yeah, it was a
[26:24]story. And you like wanted to keep reading because I wanted to see what happened to you next. And
[26:29]what about the next boyfriend? And then what did heaven tear a job. Anyway, I was like, it's so funny
[26:34]how we just like, I'm in bed reading about you and your entire life and everything. And then we
[26:37]meet in person. And I'm like, well, I know. I always when I went after a sister, you know,
[26:43]people who know me for a long time, but maybe don't know about this kind of part of my life so
[26:48]much. Like, yeah, now you know more about me than you ever wanted to know. But that's like,
[26:53]that's the connections of that. Right. Yeah. And that's actually been one of the most exciting
[26:57]things about going around speaking about the book and traveling all over is having people come
[27:02]up and tell me there are some of their own stories too. So I feel like we've got this
[27:07]sort of, you know, kind of group of anxiety warriors all out there kind of supporting each other.
[27:14]Can I start a new hashtag? Is that anywhere? Hashtag is anywhere. And what's coming out next
[27:20]for you? What are you going to do next? Give another book. I'm working on a bunch more pieces. So
[27:26]it's been fun to actually get back sort of into, I mean, I'm a feature writer. Right.
[27:30]Right. Daily journalism. But, you know, having, having being being out there with pieces more
[27:36]frequently. Also, I'm retaking a little bit of a soldier and my husband's a professor. So we're
[27:41]going to be in Ireland this summer. So that'll be, that'll be fun. And so I'll be doing writing
[27:47]from there while he's doing research. And I do have another, another book idea that I'm sort of
[27:52]noodling around on. So for people who love anxious people, like someone like my husband,
[27:58]let's say, has to do with me. What advice do you have for them? Like how can they help people
[28:03]who they love, who have anxiety? That's a great question. And it's actually one that I get almost
[28:08]every time I speak about, about the book. And, you know, it actually depends, I guess the biggest
[28:15]thing you can do. First of all, the most important thing is to really believe and convey the belief
[28:24]that you understand that anxiety is not a weakness. It's not a moral failing. I think, unfortunately,
[28:30]even with how far we've come in eroding stigma, that that sort of view is still out there. And that,
[28:37]you know, if only you were worked a little harder or took a yoga class or took some deep breaths
[28:43]that you would have just relaxed that you wouldn't deal with it. So I think, you know, conveying
[28:47]this sort of love and acceptance is sort of the most, the biggest gift you can give someone with
[28:51]anxiety. And then beyond that, I mean, everyone's different in terms of how they want someone to
[28:56]support them in the moment when they're really feelings, like if they're having a panic attack or
[29:00]if they're just, you know, feeling really, really anxious. You know, for me, when I'm having a
[29:06]panic attack, I want my husband to hold my hand, but I don't want him to talk to me. So I think the
[29:10]most important thing is to ask the person that you love, you know, what can I do for you in that
[29:16]moment that will be helpful, you know, is it rub your back? Is it, you know, got to put on some
[29:21]music, you know, what, what does the zap person need in that moment? Okay, that helps. Thank you.
[29:31]Well, thank you so much. Thanks for sharing your story with the world and other warriors. So
[29:37]thanks for coming on the show. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of
[29:42]Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books. This episode was sponsored by Bob O'Pitanicals.