Speaker 1: This is the Anxiety Bites podcast and I am your host,
Speaker 1: Jen Kirkman. Welcome to another episode of Anxiety Bites. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Jen Kirkman. Today's guest is author Amanda Stern.
Speaker 1: She wrote a memoir that came out called Little Panic
Speaker 1: Dispatches from an Anxious Life, And yeah, today we talk
Speaker 1: a lot about being kids with anxiety and panic disorders
Speaker 1: that were not diagnosed when we were little. And you know,
Speaker 1: I was thinking, oh, should the December episodes have like
Speaker 1: a Christmas or a holiday theme or something, And I
Speaker 1: just didn't really work out that way. You know, I
Speaker 1: did a lot of these interviews in advance. But the
Speaker 1: one thing I will say to um any kind of
Speaker 1: holiday theme here is that obviously, when we're traveling for
Speaker 1: the holidays, we may go back to our eildhood homes,
Speaker 1: we may reconnect with the child inside of us and
Speaker 1: all that kind of thing. And so I guess this
Speaker 1: episode is dedicated to the little kid in me that
Speaker 1: had no idea what she was going through. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying it was like traumatic all the time. It really,
Speaker 1: to be honest, I don't know if for the most part,
Speaker 1: I remember too many feelings of going, oh, hey, my childhood,
Speaker 1: I'm always panicking. It wasn't like that, you know. But
Speaker 1: when I did a panic attacks, I certainly, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure I thought I was the only one having this stuff,
Speaker 1: or definitely the only kid. And oddly Amanda and I,
Speaker 1: as we learned, had sort of just missed, uh being
Speaker 1: in the same kind of world in New York City. Um,
Speaker 1: she was sort of in the comedy world for a
Speaker 1: little while. She grew up in New York City. I
Speaker 1: came to New York in the late nineties and she
Speaker 1: was there, but I just missed kind of. She used
Speaker 1: to run a storytelling show that perhaps I would have done,
Speaker 1: but she started it after I had already moved away.
Speaker 1: And but it's just funny to think that there's this
Speaker 1: little kid panicking in Boston, and then there's another little
Speaker 1: kid panicking in New York City, and how many kids
Speaker 1: all over America were panicking, and nobody knew what the
Speaker 1: hell it was. You know, and you grow up and
Speaker 1: you figure it out. And I don't know, there's something
Speaker 1: I don't know what I mean. It sounds too hokey,
Speaker 1: But but where I'm saying to the little kid and mey, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, you were totally normal all along. There
Speaker 1: was a thing, there was a name for what you had.
Speaker 1: And there is a New York Times article about Amanda's
Speaker 1: book and they talk about how because one of the
Speaker 1: themes in her book is that as a kid, she
Speaker 1: totally wished she had something on the outside wrong with
Speaker 1: her so that people could see it and diagnose it.
Speaker 1: And in the book she writes this is after she
Speaker 1: got her panic and anxiety diagnosis when she was a
Speaker 1: little older. I've spent my entire life battling some impossible,
Speaker 1: invisible plague no one ever seemed to see. And this
Speaker 1: guy did it with such ease, as though panic disorder
Speaker 1: is easy to establish, obvious to anyone who would take
Speaker 1: the time to ask what my symptoms were. So we
Speaker 1: talk all about panic disorder sort of from a little
Speaker 1: kid's point of view, you know, where it's like, are
Speaker 1: the adults thinking about all of the terrible things that
Speaker 1: could happen to me? You know, and and why aren't
Speaker 1: they solving this? And in a weird way, when you
Speaker 1: have anxiety, it's like you're not wrong in a way
Speaker 1: to go, you know, what if this thing falls, what
Speaker 1: if that? What if this but you're training yourself to
Speaker 1: think in this disordered way. And reading her book, I
Speaker 1: had this epiphany that when you have panic disorder as
Speaker 1: a kid, and you you do all of these coping
Speaker 1: mechanisms that aren't ruling what you should be doing, but
Speaker 1: it's the best you know how to do. So you
Speaker 1: might avoid certain things. You might really obsess over things
Speaker 1: and worry about them because you think that's somehow going
Speaker 1: to give you some control. It can make you a
Speaker 1: little bit of a self focused person, and I think
Speaker 1: that can come off sort of self centered in the
Speaker 1: bad way if you're still using those coping mechanisms as
Speaker 1: you get older, or you're not really sure. I know,
Speaker 1: for me, I was always so focused on feeling better
Speaker 1: after panic attacks. It just it didn't dawn on me
Speaker 1: like I think fully why people had romantic relationships. I
Speaker 1: think there was a big part of my early life
Speaker 1: where I thought, you have them to feel safe in
Speaker 1: the world, you know, and I know, to an extent,
Speaker 1: like in a lovely way. Of course, any relationship we have,
Speaker 1: whether it's a deep friendship or whatever, of course we feel,
Speaker 1: you know, tethered to our existence by these people that
Speaker 1: know us and see us. And reflect back with us
Speaker 1: and tell us we're okay and all that. But in
Speaker 1: the literal sense, you don't just grab someone to have
Speaker 1: a relationship with and think you'll make everything okay. That's
Speaker 1: just nobody else's responsibility. And you know, there's there's all
Speaker 1: these things I've I've looked up and and and in
Speaker 1: the work I did over the years to stop looking
Speaker 1: at relationships that way, and I don't look at them
Speaker 1: that way anymore, of course, But not once in all
Speaker 1: of the work I did that was specific to romantic relationships,
Speaker 1: did I did ever done? I mean, well, a lot
Speaker 1: of this is just kind of like disordered behavior from
Speaker 1: having undiagnosed panic for a long time. You know, It's
Speaker 1: just like sometimes the littlest thing hits you. You read
Speaker 1: something and you think, oh, I have a new perspective
Speaker 1: on something I went through. And again, as someone who's
Speaker 1: been working on anxiety and all of this for so long,
Speaker 1: I do every once in a while think that I
Speaker 1: have nothing left to learn. And it's fun to read
Speaker 1: someone's book and think, wow, this just spoke to me.
Speaker 1: I've never looked at my own life this way before.
Speaker 1: And so Amanda and I talked about that as well,
Speaker 1: but I'm always excited when I find out, oh, this
Speaker 1: is a way that having panic and anxiety affected me.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe for some people that's depressing. They would think, God,
Speaker 1: I don't want to keep being reminded of things I
Speaker 1: screwed up later in life, you know, like, oh, that
Speaker 1: was because I had panic disorder when I was told.
Speaker 1: But for me, I just I don't know. I like
Speaker 1: to connect dots and create new narratives and just figure
Speaker 1: things out. You know. It's sort of like the a
Speaker 1: continuation of of what I liked doing as a kid,
Speaker 1: just trying to figure things out. But now I feel
Speaker 1: like it's in a healthier way. There's more of a curiosity.
Speaker 1: I don't need to figure it out. It's all good.
Speaker 1: But back then it was like, you know, let's just
Speaker 1: let's just figure this out. This meaning I don't know
Speaker 1: what life safety, how do we stay safe? And the
Speaker 1: obviously the key is the more we let go, which
Speaker 1: was not an option for me back when I was little.
Speaker 1: So it was such a joy to talk to Amanda,
Speaker 1: And this episode is dedicated to all the little kids
Speaker 1: out there who maybe panicking and have no idea what
Speaker 1: it is and if you're a parent, Um, really listen
Speaker 1: hard to this episode and try to try to notice,
Speaker 1: try to notice your kids. And I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you do. If I were a parent,
Speaker 1: I'd be constantly like, if you have panic disorder, let
Speaker 1: me know. And my kids would be like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what that is. I I will, but I don't
Speaker 1: know what you're saying. Are you pay? Do you feel
Speaker 1: like you can't breathe? Do you feel like you know?
Speaker 1: I don't. I would give them panic disorder because they'd
Speaker 1: be like, my mom keeps asking about this panic disorder
Speaker 1: and it's actually making me feel short of breath. That's
Speaker 1: the other interesting things. Amanda and I don't have kids,
Speaker 1: but we feel like really compassionate towards kids about anxiety.
Speaker 1: And she we talked in the interview she wrote a
Speaker 1: great newsletter about what to do if your child has
Speaker 1: panic disorder. So we'll talk about it in there, and
Speaker 1: of course I'll link to everything in the show notes.
Speaker 1: But um, yes, obviously. Amanda is the author of Little Panic.
Speaker 1: It's her most recent book, a memoir about growing up
Speaker 1: with an undiagnosed panic disorder. She's now a mental health advocate,
Speaker 1: speaker and advisory board member for Bring Change to Mind.
Speaker 1: As a writer, she lives in Brooklyn, as she's required to.
Speaker 1: That's a joke on her website. She's the author of
Speaker 1: The Long Haul and eleven books for children, written under
Speaker 1: the pseudonyms A. J. Stern and Fiona Rosenbloom. In two
Speaker 1: thousand three, she founded the legendary Happy Ending Music and
Speaker 1: reading series, which required creative artists to take risks on stage.
Speaker 1: The multidisciplinary series became the gold standard for literary events.
Speaker 1: Many of today's series are knowingly and unknowingly based Unhappy
Speaker 1: Endings model. The series ended in It was produced at
Speaker 1: Joe's Pub and later at Symphony Space and again. Her
Speaker 1: most recent book is Little Panic, that we will be
Speaker 1: talking about now and all information about Amanda will be
Speaker 1: linked to in the show notes. But enjoy our chat.
Speaker 1: I am here with Amanda. Start Amandaster and thank you
Speaker 1: for being on Anxiety Bites. Thanks for having me. We
Speaker 1: have very similar childhood brains, I'll say, even if our
Speaker 1: childhoods were different. Um and Amanda Stern is the author
Speaker 1: of the wonderful uh memoir called Little Panic. Dispatches from
Speaker 1: an Anxious Life, but Um, your book Little Panic Dispatches
Speaker 1: from an Anxious Life is I hope this is a compliment.
Speaker 1: I mean it as one. It's the Uncut Gems of Books.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Do you know that movie? I don't. Okay.
Speaker 1: It's an Adam Sandler movie that came out last year,
Speaker 1: and the directors of this film are known for making
Speaker 1: movies that make you feel like so in it when
Speaker 1: you're watching them that you're like stressed out in your
Speaker 1: heart rates up. But that's part of it. Good, um.
Speaker 1: And what I love about your writing is that you're
Speaker 1: not writing it from Hello, I'm Amanda the adult and
Speaker 1: this is what it was like as a child, Like
Speaker 1: you're talking to us as your childhood self. Do you
Speaker 1: like how I'm explaining your book to you? Like you could?
Speaker 1: I do? I? Actually I would like this for my
Speaker 1: entire life. I would like someone to walk with me,
Speaker 1: side by side and explain the entire world to me
Speaker 1: step by step. This is actually like very soothing. Well
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm being a man splainer, but I
Speaker 1: really am just saying this through the listen. Um. But
Speaker 1: what I like about it is that it just it
Speaker 1: just gets you in the heart, you know, and then
Speaker 1: at certain points you go, oh my god, there's so
Speaker 1: many anxious thoughts. But what I love about it is
Speaker 1: when you read someone's memoir, I'm always like, how do
Speaker 1: they remember this? You know, it'll be like I was
Speaker 1: twelve years old and the girl who sat next to
Speaker 1: me had a pink shirt on, and it's not a
Speaker 1: very traumatic story. It's just a detail that they remember.
Speaker 1: And I think, I don't remember anything from my life
Speaker 1: at all, but I remember every single anxious thought I've had.
Speaker 1: And I believe, not that I did. Don't believe people's memoirs,
Speaker 1: but I know I didn't ask myself while reading your book,
Speaker 1: how did she remember this? I know how you can't.
Speaker 1: It's it's in your body, right, So so I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stop talking and let you be interviewed here.
Speaker 1: But I guess that's probably want to start is childhood,
Speaker 1: undiagnosed panic and anxiety. Um, that was your life, And
Speaker 1: I guess what I want to say is take me through.
Speaker 1: I think something that was so interesting in the book
Speaker 1: is you talk a lot about your relationship with your
Speaker 1: mother and how you would say, well, what's going to happen?
Speaker 1: You know, are you going to die or are we
Speaker 1: ever going to lose the house, And she would just
Speaker 1: say no, these things aren't going to happen, which I
Speaker 1: think is really sweet instinct to try to soothe you.
Speaker 1: But I think what us anxious people realize is that's
Speaker 1: not true. Like we know bad things are happening and
Speaker 1: we are disordered, and how much we want to plan
Speaker 1: for it. But it makes it worse when you tell
Speaker 1: us that's never going to happen, and then it does.
Speaker 1: It's like you have just now set the foundation for
Speaker 1: our world to shatter. Right, So can you talk to
Speaker 1: me about your relationship with your mother and what what
Speaker 1: you think she should have done differently and and what
Speaker 1: it was like as a kid who had so many questions? Yeah, um, well,
Speaker 1: you know, first, I want to say that I think
Speaker 1: that what I would like people to understand about anxiety,
Speaker 1: for the people who don't really understand it, especially childhood anxiety,
Speaker 1: is that it's the uncertainty that is so distressing. And
Speaker 1: when a child is constantly asking what if, what if?
Speaker 1: What if? What they're actually asking for is can you
Speaker 1: give me some certainty either way, either it's yes, this
Speaker 1: bad thing happens, or you know, yes, uh, this good
Speaker 1: thing happens, you know, or no, none of this happens.
Speaker 1: But they're asking for a sense of certainty. And that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it needs to be positive, it just needs
Speaker 1: to be honest. So I think that for me as
Speaker 1: a kid, I was um sort of gripped with fear
Speaker 1: about the unknown. And when you know you're in that grip,
Speaker 1: you really the unknown becomes a type of extinction, a
Speaker 1: type of death. Not knowing equal death. And so if
Speaker 1: I could have someone explained to me what happens, if
Speaker 1: this happens, then I would feel less like I was
Speaker 1: going towards death. Then I would have the sort of
Speaker 1: tools and the skills too, and the steps to you know,
Speaker 1: address my kidnapper I got kidnapped or you know. So
Speaker 1: I really wanted clarity about these scary things. It wasn't
Speaker 1: that I needed someone to say, don't worry, these things
Speaker 1: won't happen. I needed someone to say, Okay, here are there,
Speaker 1: here's here the steps should something happen. It's interesting because
Speaker 1: you grew up in New York City. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: strange to me that your mom didn't have you know,
Speaker 1: and in the eighties, it's like at least where I
Speaker 1: grew up in the suburbs, it was very much we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about strangers with vans, and you're going
Speaker 1: to need a password. And my mom's thing was growing
Speaker 1: up in the eighties was don't get in a car
Speaker 1: with anyone unless they have the password that you and
Speaker 1: your family have the verbal password, you know, like potatoes
Speaker 1: and my mom because we don't need a password because
Speaker 1: no one is ever picking uump except me a your father.
Speaker 1: So when I's doing passwords, so my mom always went
Speaker 1: like an extra step that was I don't know if
Speaker 1: that was good or bad, but it just cracked me
Speaker 1: up because, uh, you know, people would ask me what's
Speaker 1: your password and they think my parents were bad parents,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, there's because I'm never getting in
Speaker 1: a car with anyone period. You know, even if if
Speaker 1: my leg is brokelyn, I probably wouldn't have gotten in
Speaker 1: an ambulance one came by. But but so it's interesting
Speaker 1: to me that that your mom didn't say like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: when you walk down the street, I mean nothing, There
Speaker 1: was never any content like was she what was her problem? Was?
Speaker 1: There was some stuff where she would say, you know,
Speaker 1: there were some tips like, well, if someone is following you,
Speaker 1: go into the first store that you see, like that
Speaker 1: was helpful. Um, you know, but I think it took
Speaker 1: a lot of badgering for me to get there. And
Speaker 1: I think it's because what I have figured out is
Speaker 1: that my mother didn't want me to have to suffer
Speaker 1: with discomfort because she can't deal with discomfort. Discomfort in
Speaker 1: her own body is so awful that she wanted to
Speaker 1: spare me from that. And and in doing so, what
Speaker 1: she did was she made it so that I also
Speaker 1: became afraid of discomfort in my body. Um. And so
Speaker 1: she did not how to do for herself what would
Speaker 1: have helped me. Right, So it's not like she has
Speaker 1: the answer and just not telling you to protect exactly,
Speaker 1: you're probably freaking her out with all your questions, right,
Speaker 1: And it's yeah, she doesn't know, she doesn't know, she
Speaker 1: didn't know, And you know, my mom is very smart,
Speaker 1: but she's incredibly um naive and she you know, she's
Speaker 1: always had other people do things for her because she hasn't.
Speaker 1: I think she's very overwhelmed by having to figure things
Speaker 1: out on her own, so she doesn't really try. She
Speaker 1: asks other people to do it. So she's not really
Speaker 1: learning how to do things for herself, and I am
Speaker 1: the opposite, Um, because I need information. I need information.
Speaker 1: I need to learn how to overcome, you know, being
Speaker 1: held back in the ways that I'm held back because
Speaker 1: I don't want to be helpless. UM. So it's just
Speaker 1: an it's an interesting dynamic. UM. But as a child
Speaker 1: it was similar because I wanted to learn. I wanted
Speaker 1: to know. I wanted to know everything, and she didn't know. So,
Speaker 1: you know, it was just it was difficult. And my dad,
Speaker 1: you know, he mocked everything. So when I would ask him,
Speaker 1: you know, I adopted or am I this, he would
Speaker 1: make jokes and so I never got an answer from him. UM.
Speaker 1: So in some ways, that like it made me into
Speaker 1: a person who is constantly reading, constantly studying, constantly learning,
Speaker 1: constantly seeking, constantly you know, trying to grow and um.
Speaker 1: And I appreciate that about myself. You know, Um, I
Speaker 1: can maybe go off the deep end of it, um,
Speaker 1: but I still appreciate that that's a part of my life.
Speaker 1: I just don't like the way I got there. I
Speaker 1: don't like the way I got here either in terms
Speaker 1: of like how many years I suffered unnecessarily and I
Speaker 1: love information. I mean don't I'm always like, don't bullshit me.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the problem with anxiety. Those sometimes
Speaker 1: we think we're right and it's like, don't bullshit me here,
Speaker 1: and no one's I'm trying to think of a solid
Speaker 1: example from my life where it's like I'm over predicting
Speaker 1: everything that could possibly happen because I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be taken by surprise. And it's like,
Speaker 1: sometimes you're gonna be taken by surprise, you know, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's you know, that's sort of overthinking is like
Speaker 1: a strategy to deal with uncertainty, but it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work because you're not gonna be able to
Speaker 1: stop the surprise. But you can, as you know, deal
Speaker 1: with what happens when you feel surprised and understand what
Speaker 1: happens in your body, that flooded emotional feeling you get
Speaker 1: when you get that phone called like oh my god,
Speaker 1: did someone die or you know. But I know a
Speaker 1: lot of friends now who are having kids, and I
Speaker 1: watched them and I'm just sort of going, you, guys,
Speaker 1: this is a huge waste of time. They are doing
Speaker 1: everything they can to prevent their children from having anxiety.
Speaker 1: It's horrible anxious. They're doing it all wrong. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back. So let's say this, whether it's you're just
Speaker 1: any kid, the kids asking their mom, okay, well we
Speaker 1: will we always live in this house. Are you gonna
Speaker 1: die someday? Blah blah blah, and we all say like, gee,
Speaker 1: it would have been great if they were just honest
Speaker 1: with us. But you, you weren't the average kid, like
Speaker 1: you had anxiety. So do you think though that your
Speaker 1: anxious brain? It is almost like saying, oh, it would
Speaker 1: have been better at this, but are you right about that?
Speaker 1: Like would your anxious brain have been able to handle
Speaker 1: if she told you the truth about something? Or would
Speaker 1: you would the goal post keep moving you like? And
Speaker 1: then one't? You know? I think it would keep moving.
Speaker 1: But I think that it would have taught me a
Speaker 1: little bit more about how to um that everything has steps,
Speaker 1: you know, and and it would have taught me how
Speaker 1: to sort of figure some stuff out for myself or
Speaker 1: ask myself, well, what will happen then? And then what?
Speaker 1: And then what and then what. I didn't even have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to say and then what because there was
Speaker 1: no answer to anything, so everything was possible, and that
Speaker 1: was just too much. So I think that, yes, I
Speaker 1: think I would have been soothed by her answer for
Speaker 1: a day or two, and then there would have been
Speaker 1: new questions, and then there would have been new questions.
Speaker 1: But I do think that ultimately it would have taught
Speaker 1: me how to do for myself what I needed someone
Speaker 1: else to do for me, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and you know, one of my I mean, it's favorite,
Speaker 1: it's upsetting, but it's still really well done. Part of
Speaker 1: the book is the little boy that went missing between
Speaker 1: a m and ten what was his name again, Aton
Speaker 1: pats At Pats and he, you know, he goes missing
Speaker 1: and you're just like, wait a minute, I mean, you're
Speaker 1: you know, obsessed with that, and people keep saying, oh, hell,
Speaker 1: he's not missing, he'll come home. But what was really
Speaker 1: shocking to me was, you know, you're you're right, you know,
Speaker 1: he nobody at school noticed he wasn't there. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like at eight eleven they realized he was missing. The
Speaker 1: rest of the day they it took them to realize
Speaker 1: he was missing. Where was the bus driver, where's the
Speaker 1: you know, the teachers? And then when you said the
Speaker 1: cops came to your house too, I don't know, look
Speaker 1: around or look on the room, and you're going, well,
Speaker 1: why aren't they looking in there? They're not being good lookers.
Speaker 1: It's it's so cute as a kid, but you're like, no,
Speaker 1: but this is this is something I would always just
Speaker 1: kind of insist on when I was younger and when
Speaker 1: I was anxious, and I still do it. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: not a great quality I have, but I'm like, I'm right,
Speaker 1: I know, I'm right. You guys aren't doing a good
Speaker 1: enough job at keeping the world a safe place. Like
Speaker 1: let me run this. Yeah, it's really difficult. It's really challenging,
Speaker 1: and when you're a kid, it's overwhelming in a very
Speaker 1: different way because you're realizing with the sinking feeling, oh
Speaker 1: my god, you're people I'm trusting, Like you're you're the
Speaker 1: ones because your cumps, you're you're actually supposed to save
Speaker 1: my life. And you are not even looking under the
Speaker 1: beds or in the closet like you're you're on a roof.
Speaker 1: For what is a six year old going to be
Speaker 1: doing on a roof? You know, how's he gonna get there? How?
Speaker 1: That's not where you look, dudes. So yeah, I just
Speaker 1: felt like no one knew what they were doing, and
Speaker 1: I didn't even really know what I was doing, but
Speaker 1: I knew when people were, you know, doing shit wrong,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know what to do about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. I did. I did say that a lot
Speaker 1: of times we think we're right, and I think it's
Speaker 1: it's more like I may not know what to do either,
Speaker 1: but I know you guys don't and not making me
Speaker 1: out here because you know, growing up in the eighties,
Speaker 1: it was it was always on TV. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: mutually short destruction, nuclear war, blah blah and that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember that made for TV
Speaker 1: movie the day after. Um, yes, I do, you have
Speaker 1: very much. It sounds like you have a big connection
Speaker 1: to it. Oh, yes I do. Um. Well, I actually
Speaker 1: never watched it because, um, because I knew what it
Speaker 1: was about and I was already terrified because my teacher
Speaker 1: would have us run these drills where she would like
Speaker 1: start yelling and say like the bombs are coming, the
Speaker 1: bombs are coming, and we would have to hide under
Speaker 1: our desk and um, and she was like, you know,
Speaker 1: nuclear war is going to happen in World War Three,
Speaker 1: And then everybody was talking about this movie and I
Speaker 1: was like, I can't even breathe. Yeah, you know, just
Speaker 1: thinking about annihilation and everyone is going to sit and
Speaker 1: watch it and then bring it back to school and
Speaker 1: talk about it. I can't. I can't bear it. Like
Speaker 1: I couldn't even tolerate the thought of absolute annihilation, um
Speaker 1: much less watch it. So to this day, I've never
Speaker 1: seen it. Well, it's funny. It's like the one example
Speaker 1: of just lie to your kids about that, because trust me,
Speaker 1: when the bomb comes, it'll be over in twenty five minutes, right,
Speaker 1: like your grandmother's gonna die, your mom's going to sell
Speaker 1: the house. Uh, you know, don't lie to your kids
Speaker 1: about that because when that stuff happens, it will be shocking.
Speaker 1: But a lot of them about nuclear or tell them,
Speaker 1: is that ever gonna happen? Exactly? There are certain things
Speaker 1: where like when it actually you know, when there's something
Speaker 1: that can be done about it. You know, there's nothing
Speaker 1: you can do about death, but there's something you can
Speaker 1: do about explaining to your kids what will happen after
Speaker 1: you die? Or you know, how where if you know,
Speaker 1: if if you if I die and you're still a child.
Speaker 1: Here's what will happen, you know, here's where you'll go,
Speaker 1: here's where you'll live, all those things, Like it's terrifying,
Speaker 1: but it's less terrifying than not knowing. But the big things,
Speaker 1: the global things. Yeah, no, keep that fucking ship to yourself, exactly.
Speaker 1: It's funny. We had the opposite experience. So I had
Speaker 1: a teacher who her whole life was denial. She was
Speaker 1: she was not a good teacher in many ways. Um,
Speaker 1: not good with kids, not good with little girls. Um.
Speaker 1: And she sent a note home saying, don't watch this movie.
Speaker 1: It could traumatize your kids. Now, that's seems good. But
Speaker 1: I brought it home and my mother was like, no,
Speaker 1: we are living in reality. Made them watch this movie,
Speaker 1: you know, and my mom had panic and anxiety. My grandmother,
Speaker 1: did you know it's genetic? Of course, she didn't know
Speaker 1: what was called that at the time. She's just now
Speaker 1: at eighty two accepting the word anxiety. She used to say, hormones, hormones, hormones,
Speaker 1: Oh my god. So I'm sure it was to you know,
Speaker 1: certain phases of life. But I think the shame of
Speaker 1: the word has been lifted. But anyway, so my parents
Speaker 1: and I sat down and watched it, and you know,
Speaker 1: I wanted to I I wanted the in amation and
Speaker 1: and my parents would not run drills in a scary
Speaker 1: way like the bombs were coming. But we had the
Speaker 1: worst jinkiest hinkiest contingency plan for nuclear war, which was
Speaker 1: put on these plastic like helmets that weren't even real helmets.
Speaker 1: They were like from you know, like a plastic softball game,
Speaker 1: and go in the basement. And we lived in an
Speaker 1: old house from the eighteen hundreds in Massachusetts, and that
Speaker 1: that was our plan. And I remember my parents arguing
Speaker 1: amongst themselves about it, and my mother going, run, the
Speaker 1: radiation can seep right through this wood, and then my
Speaker 1: dad going, Joe, and they're not gonna bomb Massachusetts. They're
Speaker 1: gonna bomb the White House and that's very far away.
Speaker 1: We'll we'll at the very least just get some mild
Speaker 1: radiation in the air and we'll just have to stay
Speaker 1: inside for a while. And it was just so funny
Speaker 1: watching them, Oh my god, argue about this, Like I
Speaker 1: remember going, so you guys don't not only do you
Speaker 1: guys don't know what you're doing. You're held yeah, you're
Speaker 1: you're so who's soothing me? And we're all just a
Speaker 1: bunch of anxious people, you know. But what was so interesting,
Speaker 1: and this goes back to childcare, is because of watching
Speaker 1: that movie, I was intolerant of anyone pretending it wasn't real.
Speaker 1: And so the next day we went on a field
Speaker 1: trip to this place called Plymouth Plantation where the you know,
Speaker 1: Plymouth Rock they all landed there. And it's a bunch
Speaker 1: of people, probably people just out of acting school, who
Speaker 1: are dressed up pretending they are pilgrims and they and
Speaker 1: the fun game of it for everyone is you say
Speaker 1: to them, do you know what the VCR is? And
Speaker 1: they say, no, I'm milking a cow, you know. And
Speaker 1: so we're there and I had a panic attack on
Speaker 1: the bus on the way there because we were stuck
Speaker 1: in traffic. And in the movie the day after, there's
Speaker 1: a scene where everybody's trying to leave and they're stuck
Speaker 1: in traffic and the bomb hits and everybody just turns
Speaker 1: into a skeleton in their car. Sorry, So I had
Speaker 1: just watched that. Now I'm on a bus and extent
Speaker 1: I'm having one of my first panic attacks. The breathing
Speaker 1: I can't breathe. I feel like I'm going crazy, and
Speaker 1: I'm I don't know what to do, and I keep
Speaker 1: getting under the seat because it just that makes me
Speaker 1: feel safe, like tight spaces. And I kept getting in
Speaker 1: trouble with the bus driver and I couldn't say, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm dying. And then and we get to the plantation
Speaker 1: and everyone's like, do you know what to uh TV is?
Speaker 1: And they're like, no, I'm milking a cow. And I
Speaker 1: see a fallout shelter sign and you know, they were
Speaker 1: everywhere back then, but it was really just you know,
Speaker 1: and then a plane flute kind of too low over heads.
Speaker 1: It was near an airport, and I just started panicking
Speaker 1: and I was like, can you please stop pretending, like
Speaker 1: screaming at them, like please stop pretending. It's the sixteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: like there's a nuclear war while gonna we're all gonna die.
Speaker 1: And I got in trouble from that teacher. I just
Speaker 1: sit on the bus the rest of the field trip
Speaker 1: by myself, and she called my parents and it's like,
Speaker 1: can you imagine that happening today? Like that person would
Speaker 1: be destroyed on Twitter in half an hour and fired,
Speaker 1: and it was like there was no world where someone
Speaker 1: went maybe seving a panic attack, like just none, and
Speaker 1: we were so utterly alone. And and how that, like
Speaker 1: I'm just now learning to accept like that did change
Speaker 1: my brain. I hate that it did. But there's ways
Speaker 1: I don't There's ways I had to learn to function.
Speaker 1: That took way too long, you know. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I'm still learning how to function. It's it makes
Speaker 1: it makes me really sad though about um kids and
Speaker 1: so you in your newsletter you wrote, and I want
Speaker 1: to get back to fun things in your book, like
Speaker 1: punk rock and relationships, but you wrote, um, you have
Speaker 1: a great newsletter called how to Live and it's a
Speaker 1: free mental health newsletter. Everyone can sign up at Amanda
Speaker 1: sterned up bulletin dot com. And it's a post you wrote,
Speaker 1: how to help a child during a panic attack. Can
Speaker 1: you just tell me, just tell us all how to
Speaker 1: do it? Because I think this is the most important
Speaker 1: thing in the world. And I'm sure people out there,
Speaker 1: I'm sure your kids are having panic attacks and you
Speaker 1: don't even know it because it doesn't look like people
Speaker 1: think it does. Sometimes it just looks like you're sitting
Speaker 1: there quietly. Yeah, I mean, the main the main thing
Speaker 1: is I mean, it's funny because the piece is really
Speaker 1: it's it's titled how to help your kid, but a
Speaker 1: lot of it is like, don't do this, don't do that.
Speaker 1: So I think I've become very focused on what not
Speaker 1: to do UM before I get focused on what to do,
Speaker 1: because I think that what not to do that I
Speaker 1: think what people end up doing is more harmful. You know,
Speaker 1: then they obviously intended to be. UM. So when your
Speaker 1: kid is having a panic attack and you know that
Speaker 1: that's what's happening, UM, don't deny that experience. You know,
Speaker 1: don't tell your child who is you know, freaking out
Speaker 1: and unable to breathe or you know, is inconsolable, that
Speaker 1: they're fine. Don't tell them not to worry. Don't tell
Speaker 1: them you know that it's okay, that everything's okay, because
Speaker 1: it's not. Nothing feels okay. Things will become okay and
Speaker 1: they will become fine. But in that moment, they're not.
Speaker 1: They don't feel fine, they don't think they're fine. And
Speaker 1: your job as a parent is to say, I know
Speaker 1: you don't feel fine right now, and that's okay because
Speaker 1: we'll get through we'll get through this and then you'll
Speaker 1: feel fine when this ends. And this will end. It
Speaker 1: always ends, you know. I think that some of the
Speaker 1: things that parents can do for their kids in a
Speaker 1: panic attack is is, if they're hyperventilating, to breathe with them, UM,
Speaker 1: to do the four seven eight, which is four inhales
Speaker 1: and if inhale to on four counts and then hold
Speaker 1: for seven counts and then exhale for eight counts and
Speaker 1: um that um sort of kicks in your parasympathetic nervous
Speaker 1: system to calm down, to calm your body down. UM.
Speaker 1: So breathing is, obviously, you know, a great thing to do.
Speaker 1: Another thing to do is to have visualizations and to say,
Speaker 1: you know, imagine you're breathing in like blue, cool, healthy,
Speaker 1: calm air and you're exhaling red, mad, you know, bad
Speaker 1: feeling air, and give them a job because they need
Speaker 1: to get out of their head and they also need
Speaker 1: to feel more control of their body. So if you
Speaker 1: give them a job to do that you do with them,
Speaker 1: then they have something else to focus on. Would that
Speaker 1: job be like the breathing you mean or do you yes,
Speaker 1: that's what I mean? No, I mean like the breathing
Speaker 1: You said something about um, tell them that it's a
Speaker 1: false alarm, you know, right, yes you could, um, you know,
Speaker 1: explain to them, um that when you have panic and anxiety,
Speaker 1: you're overreacting to something. It feels like it's dangerous, but
Speaker 1: it's not dangerous. And that that you know, just because
Speaker 1: you feel something this strongly doesn't mean it's a fact.
Speaker 1: Just because you feel like, um, you're going crazy, it's
Speaker 1: not actually a fact that you're going crazy. Just like
Speaker 1: you because you feel like you're dying and your body
Speaker 1: is closing down, it's not a fact. And you can
Speaker 1: point out, I know you feel like you're you know,
Speaker 1: you can't breathe. But I'm sitting here and I'm watching
Speaker 1: your your chest rise and fall, I'm watching the breath
Speaker 1: come out of you. I'm I am your witness, and
Speaker 1: I am not having a panic attack, and I can
Speaker 1: see that you are. You know, your body is doing
Speaker 1: exactly what it's supposed to be doing, and it's your
Speaker 1: brain that is making a thinking mistake. And we can
Speaker 1: get out of that. We can move through this. So
Speaker 1: you know, things like that, I think are are often
Speaker 1: pretty helpful. Just don't deny the experience, you know, just
Speaker 1: sort of point things out to alleviate the terror. The
Speaker 1: co breathing is so important, you know. I remember when
Speaker 1: I was in uh, I don't know, my late teens,
Speaker 1: I developed a really terrible fear of flying. I only
Speaker 1: flew once a year with my parents to go on
Speaker 1: like to Disney World or whatever, and I had stopped
Speaker 1: going so of the panic attacks. And I think my
Speaker 1: mom probably realized so this might affect her life in
Speaker 1: some way, and she found this class for me to
Speaker 1: take UM at the airport top by a psychiatrist. You know,
Speaker 1: all these things that we were going to do, very
Speaker 1: much exposure therapy, but learning to breathe and all that.
Speaker 1: But anyway, he give us these take home tapes and yes,
Speaker 1: cassette tapes, and I played in my little boom box
Speaker 1: and you had to um lay on the floor and
Speaker 1: do body scan UM progressive muscle relaxation breathing and it
Speaker 1: was fun, you know. It was actually we had to
Speaker 1: do it pre not preemptively is not the word, but
Speaker 1: you know, every night for up an hour, whether you're
Speaker 1: anxious or not. And I would just lay on the
Speaker 1: floor and do it. My parents would join me because
Speaker 1: it was just like fun. It was like something funded
Speaker 1: is great. I don't think they thought were coregulating. You know,
Speaker 1: they weren't doing that, but it just it made me
Speaker 1: feel like this wasn't just my problem, but a thing
Speaker 1: that could benefit everybody. I will I'm gonna say this.
Speaker 1: I don't know what your relationship is with your mom,
Speaker 1: but um, to me, from what you you said something
Speaker 1: earlier that struck me, and to me, she sounds like
Speaker 1: she was an excellent mother when it came to this
Speaker 1: particular topic. Because what you said something you've referenced her
Speaker 1: about the nuclear war where you said that she's she said, no,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna face reality. We're gonna deal with reality.
Speaker 1: And that is the number one thing that a child
Speaker 1: with anxiety needs help with, because a child with anxiety
Speaker 1: is terrified of reality and it's you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: so caught in the what IF's and the what IF's
Speaker 1: and the spiraling you know, into terror and imagination, and
Speaker 1: they need you know, terrible pun a pilot has. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna help them steer through reality. And what your mom
Speaker 1: did was she actually took your hand and said, here,
Speaker 1: here's how we're gonna face reality. We're gonna you know,
Speaker 1: watch this movie We're gonna I'm gonna give you. She
Speaker 1: provided you with information, yeah you needed, And I think
Speaker 1: that's amazing. It is, and I think at times, you know,
Speaker 1: my parents did it. God bless them. I mean we're
Speaker 1: still we're all really close, but they did it in
Speaker 1: like a disordered way, you know, like it's like when
Speaker 1: I thought I was having a heart attack, she validated that,
Speaker 1: but it's like, you know, she took me to the
Speaker 1: hospitality to twelve and I did an e KG and
Speaker 1: they said, you just have stress, and she was like, oh,
Speaker 1: stress runs in our family. I mean, it was it
Speaker 1: was all like nothing was like you're crazy or this
Speaker 1: isn't happening. But I feel like, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: happy medium where it's like, let's not act like the
Speaker 1: child really is having a heart attack. But she didn't
Speaker 1: know either, you know, It's like she didn't know. But
Speaker 1: once the panic attacks out of the blue started happening,
Speaker 1: I did not share that with anybody, and I start
Speaker 1: lying and not even lying. I just don't tell anyone
Speaker 1: what I'm going through, not even friends, And so I
Speaker 1: have the secret and I have to do all these
Speaker 1: weird little things to not panic, which obviously don't work,
Speaker 1: and that is where I think the brain starts changing.
Speaker 1: We'll continue the interview on the flip side of a
Speaker 1: quick message from our sponsors. There's something so sophisticated about
Speaker 1: the way your book talks about your romantic relationships, where
Speaker 1: it's like, the ones that didn't work out, it wasn't
Speaker 1: because you were acting like a crazy sitco or being
Speaker 1: anxious or you know whatever. But for me, I've had
Speaker 1: wonderful relationships. I've had ones, though, where I clung to
Speaker 1: people that didn't like me, you know, But I've had
Speaker 1: the bottom line in any relationship that didn't work out
Speaker 1: beyond just oh we fell out of love and I
Speaker 1: moved to l A, you know, beyond the those the
Speaker 1: ones that were really problematic, was like, I'm doing behaviors
Speaker 1: that I learned growing up that don't have anything to
Speaker 1: do with being in a romantic relationship, but they have
Speaker 1: to do with healing and soothing my anxiety. And I've
Speaker 1: got anxiety about nothing to do with our relationship, but
Speaker 1: I'm just acting strange, and people like, what is wrong
Speaker 1: with you? And I'm like, I don't know, And can
Speaker 1: you just talk about your romantic relationships and how you
Speaker 1: think UM kind of living with undiagnosed panic affected them. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think it's a complicated answer because I think that
Speaker 1: a couple of things are at play. It's not just
Speaker 1: the anxiety, it's the anxious attachment. So I think attachment
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with UM. Like attachment styles
Speaker 1: that you have just started reading about this a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, and you know there's anxious, avoidant attachment,
Speaker 1: and secure attachment, and I know they're fluid and we
Speaker 1: can kind of go through different periods. I definitely think
Speaker 1: I had anxious attachment sometimes and sometimes avoidant, you know, right,
Speaker 1: so that you know when they talk about attachment styles,
Speaker 1: they're talking about when it comes to your caregiver, the
Speaker 1: person who raised you. But attachment styles follow you into
Speaker 1: adult relationships. So the way that you attach with your
Speaker 1: mother is the way that you're going to attach to everyone.
Speaker 1: So it's the way that you're going to attach your partners,
Speaker 1: it's a way you're going to attach your friends. So
Speaker 1: it's you know, a lot of that. When you have
Speaker 1: an anxious attachment style and you have anxiety, it's like
Speaker 1: a double whammy. So I think you know, the relationships
Speaker 1: that I've been in UM, I've chosen people who are withholding,
Speaker 1: and I've chosen people who sort of trigger my um
Speaker 1: my core anxieties, and you know, they retreat when I
Speaker 1: actually need them to come towards me, or they you know, um,
Speaker 1: they think out loud, and instead of creating some sort
Speaker 1: of certainty for me, what they do is they perpetuate
Speaker 1: a chronic uncertainty. And so I'm living in a state
Speaker 1: of like paralysis because I can't I don't feel safe.
Speaker 1: There's no stability, there's no you know, like secure ground
Speaker 1: for me to walk, and I don't know where I stand.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, what's going to happen tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And I already feel like that. So when you're in
Speaker 1: a relationship and that person is actively um, you know,
Speaker 1: replicating for for you, um, you know how you already
Speaker 1: feel internally and he's applying it to the external war Old,
Speaker 1: it's terrifying. So UM, So it's you know, it's it's tough.
Speaker 1: It's because I've I've picked the people I've been drawn
Speaker 1: to have been not good for my anxiety, you know,
Speaker 1: and so it's, um, it's tricky. And so the people
Speaker 1: that were more stable it's like they're less kind of
Speaker 1: it's interesting. Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that my um,
Speaker 1: the very first serious boyfriend I had in high school, uh,
Speaker 1: was the most stable and the most um healthy. It was,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the best relationships I've ever had.
Speaker 1: It's been all down hill since then. But but so,
Speaker 1: you know, he didn't activate my anxiety at all. He
Speaker 1: really soothed me UM And I think it's because he
Speaker 1: probably was securely attached and you know, he didn't he
Speaker 1: didn't remove himself or withhold or withdraw when I would
Speaker 1: need him to come closer. And it's ironic because we're
Speaker 1: less needy when we're with those people. It's like exactly right,
Speaker 1: because you know where you stand. When you know where
Speaker 1: you stand, you you're not as needy. Um. But when
Speaker 1: you don't, it activates everything. So yeah, so it's it's tricky.
Speaker 1: It's a really hard it's it's really difficult to have
Speaker 1: anxiety and have relationships. It's hard for both people. UM.
Speaker 1: But it's doable. It's just it takes it takes a
Speaker 1: special person. It's definitely doable. And I think for me,
Speaker 1: the unfortunate thing was I had a lot of things
Speaker 1: undiagnosed during some of my significant relationships, and so it
Speaker 1: was like I didn't have a template for them to
Speaker 1: go or not even for them to do anything, but
Speaker 1: for me to go. Don't take this to your partner.
Speaker 1: This is anxiety about nothing. They don't need to, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's like for me, I think I just thought
Speaker 1: that's what relationships are there, the person that fixes you,
Speaker 1: like literally, just like a childlike thought in my twenties, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't know you know um, And so I thought
Speaker 1: that's what everyone was doing. You find someone that takes
Speaker 1: away the anxiety. Okay, if the world's gonna end, if
Speaker 1: there's nuclear war, if my mom's gonna die some day,
Speaker 1: Well I have a partner, and so that makes anxiety go.
Speaker 1: I literally thought that, but it comes out in why
Speaker 1: aren't you going for your career more? Oh, let me
Speaker 1: pick on you about this, but deep down I'm going,
Speaker 1: why can't you make it safe to be human? You know,
Speaker 1: it's like right now that I know I would never
Speaker 1: do that again, but you know, I'm exhausted by trying
Speaker 1: again because it's been so many years of having that
Speaker 1: be the underlying reason I'm in a relationship that now
Speaker 1: that I don't need that, I go to wire people
Speaker 1: in them right now it's just someone in my home, Like,
Speaker 1: but no, I don't want that. Yeah, no, I actually
Speaker 1: I actively think about it, like what you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't have any template for what a relationship, like what
Speaker 1: a healthy relationship is supposed to look like, and what
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to expect from a man like I just
Speaker 1: I have. I still don't know, And you know, I
Speaker 1: think that it's you know, it's confusing. It's like, what
Speaker 1: what is it there for? What are you supposed to
Speaker 1: be doing with this other person? What? What is the goal?
Speaker 1: What's what are you supposed to achieve? What? You know?
Speaker 1: And I think that when you have anxiety's it becomes
Speaker 1: very difficult because what because there's a level of not
Speaker 1: being in control. Right, So with this person who has
Speaker 1: these flaws and these faults and you and you start
Speaker 1: getting um sort of bent out of shape because it
Speaker 1: creates so much anxiety that they're not you really when
Speaker 1: you realize, oh god, they don't, They're not this way
Speaker 1: and I need them to be this way. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try. I'm gonna like hone in on this and
Speaker 1: try and get them to be this way so that
Speaker 1: I can be comfortable, so that I can feel certain,
Speaker 1: so that I can keep moving forward. And it's it's
Speaker 1: such a misguided UM way to live, but it's you know,
Speaker 1: what happens a lot. You know, it's just the way
Speaker 1: the way anxiety steers you. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of things get so misdiagnosed that are really just anxiety,
Speaker 1: like oh your code dependent, Oh you're this. And I
Speaker 1: never really related to all the little things that like
Speaker 1: people said I might have. I was like, no, it's
Speaker 1: something else. It's it's a way more existential and tied
Speaker 1: to my panic attacks. I feel there are certain expressions
Speaker 1: that culture says that us anxious people, we were not
Speaker 1: allowed to have those because we don't know how to
Speaker 1: use them. So things like you mentioned this a lot
Speaker 1: in your book, um falling in love you when you
Speaker 1: know you know, And that's great for quote normal people,
Speaker 1: but anxious people we know a lot of things that
Speaker 1: aren't true. We feel a lot of things that aren't true.
Speaker 1: Do you know how many times I've gone well when
Speaker 1: you know you know? And it's like, I'm not allowed
Speaker 1: to actually use that UM expression because I have anxiety.
Speaker 1: And in my thinking is too disordered you to to
Speaker 1: be able to engage in these silly romantic tropes, like
Speaker 1: they're very dangerous for me. And uh, and I think
Speaker 1: it's like I actually think those tropes are dangerous for everybody.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but yeah, I just think there's stuff that
Speaker 1: I've learned, like, Nope, don't worry about what the rest
Speaker 1: of the world says love is. You do not have
Speaker 1: the same wiring right, And I think that really truly
Speaker 1: comes down to values. You know, what do you value?
Speaker 1: What's your value system? What is it that's important to you?
Speaker 1: And does this other person you know have that? And
Speaker 1: if they don't, do you need them to? And if
Speaker 1: you do and they don't have it, then do you
Speaker 1: have a problem. Um, but you know, I think that
Speaker 1: there's a there. It's not a helpful way to talk
Speaker 1: about love. To say when you know you know, that
Speaker 1: just feels very hollywoody and unrealistic because quite honestly, um,
Speaker 1: I did know. When I was thirty five, I knew
Speaker 1: I found my guy. He was my guy and he
Speaker 1: was fucking sociopath. He was so not my guy, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like, what is knowing? Knowing what
Speaker 1: you know? Yes, I know exactly how I felt I
Speaker 1: was possessed by love, but that wasn't love. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't know really what love is. We we get confused.
Speaker 1: We think this feeling that we have it's like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, you know that's not love, that's in its excitement. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: anxiety bites will be right back after this message. In
Speaker 1: your book, you talk about like kind of becoming like
Speaker 1: more of like a punk rock kind of person, and
Speaker 1: you know, you went through a phase where you're using
Speaker 1: cocaine and and it's it's so not funny, ha ha,
Speaker 1: but it's just so interesting, right that like the drug
Speaker 1: that like think when work for someone with an anxiety disorder.
Speaker 1: I guess it's very akin to in the exactly in
Speaker 1: the more medical world. Like you know, I have a
Speaker 1: d H d UM. I take Vivans as needed. It
Speaker 1: calms me down whatever, and when i'm not, I'm like
Speaker 1: and so I've never done cocaine. That was always too afraid,
Speaker 1: and I don't think I'll start now, maybe when I'm
Speaker 1: like eight. But but it is funny though, because okay,
Speaker 1: so here you are throughout the book, I can't do
Speaker 1: this because this might happen. Oh my god. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: you're so regulated and trying to control the world because
Speaker 1: you're anxious, and there's always a period. And I think
Speaker 1: I never talked about this with anyone. So I'm so
Speaker 1: excited that this episode is a unique bend in the
Speaker 1: anxious person's life. If you're this kind of person where
Speaker 1: you go punk rock and you go wild. And for me,
Speaker 1: it was starting smoking at age fourteen. Now, I've always
Speaker 1: had um asthma. If I get a cold, it turns
Speaker 1: into pneumonia, and I'm anxious and terrified of dying. But
Speaker 1: I start smoking and I do that. I think this
Speaker 1: is my self diagnosis is because it was the only way, like,
Speaker 1: deep down, the answer to our anxiety is being acceptance. Right.
Speaker 1: You kept saying in your book when you were a kid,
Speaker 1: I wish what was wrong with me was physical on
Speaker 1: the outside so somebody could fix it. And so I
Speaker 1: don't know, do you think that there's a there's a
Speaker 1: tie in between like kind of being like a punk
Speaker 1: and an anxious person. I mean, yes, I do. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure it's that it's um punk is necessarily the
Speaker 1: I know I keep saying that as like the catch
Speaker 1: all word, right, But I think that it's persona and
Speaker 1: I think that, Um, I think that, you know, I
Speaker 1: have sort of a different read on the cigarette smoking.
Speaker 1: Like I started smoking at thirteen fourteen, And yes, I
Speaker 1: think that part of it was to fit in, But
Speaker 1: I think another part of the unconscious part was that
Speaker 1: it was giving us something to do to self sue.
Speaker 1: And even if it wasn't, you know, good for you.
Speaker 1: It was like we we were in the stage where
Speaker 1: we were growing out of it was embarrassing to need
Speaker 1: your mommy, you know, and so we had no like,
Speaker 1: I can't suck my thumb, so I'll just smoke right exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean I I sucked my finger cell I was eleven.
Speaker 1: I had to like force myself to stop because it
Speaker 1: was so embarrassing. But so I sort of went from
Speaker 1: fingers to cigarettes to food. Um, but so that's your
Speaker 1: next children's book, by the way, finger cigarettes done. I'll
Speaker 1: rob write it when I get off the phone. So
Speaker 1: I think that that, you know, at least for me,
Speaker 1: it calmed me down whenever I would get anxiety once
Speaker 1: I started smoking. Whenever I got anxiety, I would think, oh,
Speaker 1: I can have a cigarette, and that just that thought
Speaker 1: alone would calm me down because I felt like, oh,
Speaker 1: I have like a security blanket, I have something that
Speaker 1: soothed me. I think with the per Sona, it's more
Speaker 1: a little bit about control, control, right, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and and being able to sort of control the message
Speaker 1: and being able to protect yourself from this mortifying feeling
Speaker 1: thing inside you, from escaping and from being exposed for
Speaker 1: being so sensitive and vulnerable and scared, you know, like
Speaker 1: like a baby. And so I think that it's really
Speaker 1: too it's like a type of ventriloquism. You're throwing your
Speaker 1: voice off, you know. Some people look somewhere else and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh good, they're they're so caught up in
Speaker 1: what they see they can't actually see what's inside um.
Speaker 1: And so I think for me that that was it
Speaker 1: was what it was. It was. I was controlling the
Speaker 1: message and and saying I'm I'm not I'm not broken,
Speaker 1: I'm not scared, I'm not anxious, I'm not a baby,
Speaker 1: I'm not any other things. I actually am what I am.
Speaker 1: I'm cool, I'm tough, don't funk with me, back off,
Speaker 1: I'll cut you. Like. It's just like nothing like I
Speaker 1: would not not even remotely true, you know, the projection
Speaker 1: I had this persona was just it was such fucking bullshit.
Speaker 1: I was terrified. I was I was like, cry for
Speaker 1: my mommy at night, and meanwhile, I'm like, your bit,
Speaker 1: I'll cut you. Like it was not it was crazy funny,
Speaker 1: like I had a thing where I was less like
Speaker 1: i'll cut you, but I was more like uh again.
Speaker 1: For me, it was like a disordered acceptance, like you
Speaker 1: know what this anxiety uh and panic that I have
Speaker 1: it's because I'm like next level smart and anyone news
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about death all the time is really dumb,
Speaker 1: you know, a very Morsey like I got really into
Speaker 1: Morrisey and it's just like if you're not like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, my friend has a boyfriend, like they're just
Speaker 1: gonna die, why bother right? And for me it became
Speaker 1: this protection like I'm better than you because I have
Speaker 1: anxist you're like a little goth nihilist. Um that's what
Speaker 1: I was. But but it's so funny because my mommy,
Speaker 1: my mommy. I knew my mom e to be mad
Speaker 1: at me, and she was like, please don't die you hey, black,
Speaker 1: it looks like shoe polish, And so I didn't. I
Speaker 1: wasn't allowed to dye my hair. I just had light
Speaker 1: brown hair, and I wasn't allowed to wear all black,
Speaker 1: and so I would do what I could get away with.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're a black sweatshirt with jeans, bring black pants
Speaker 1: and change at school, UM, and then change back. And
Speaker 1: so it's like, oh, the rebel who goes home, so rebel,
Speaker 1: I can't rebel. I mean, it's so it's charming. Now
Speaker 1: when I think about it, it's charming. It's too much more. UM.
Speaker 1: I did want to ask you this in sort of
Speaker 1: like an artsy FARTZI question. So it's called Little Panic
Speaker 1: Dispatches from Anxious Life. This is your first nonfiction. You
Speaker 1: are a novelist normally, right, I mean, I don't even
Speaker 1: know anymore. Honestly, I wrote, I wrote one novel for adults, UM,
Speaker 1: and then I wrote a whole bunch of books fiction
Speaker 1: books for its. UM. I've written a lot of novels
Speaker 1: that have not been published UM, and I've been Yes,
Speaker 1: it's my first nonfiction, but I'm working on another nonfiction book, UM,
Speaker 1: and I have been grappling with UM with a novel. UM.
Speaker 1: I think I identify it's funny. I identify as a
Speaker 1: novelist and I'm I'm actually maybe not really one. Well,
Speaker 1: it's funny. I never want to offend the novelist when
Speaker 1: speaking to them, because I know a lot of novelists,
Speaker 1: you know, like Elizabeth Gilbert's a great example. UM tend
Speaker 1: to get really well known if they branch out and
Speaker 1: write a memoir. And then it's like, I know, but
Speaker 1: actually I've been doing this the whole time, Yesssholes, and
Speaker 1: so I don't want to act like you don't have
Speaker 1: this whole other talent in life. Thank you. That's very,
Speaker 1: very generous and thoughtful. But what what made you want
Speaker 1: to write this book? In the sense of did you
Speaker 1: always in the back of your head, even when you
Speaker 1: were younger, go I want to write about this some day.
Speaker 1: I never wanted to write about it. It was never
Speaker 1: anything in my head that I thought, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna write about this one day, I'm gonna never ever ever.
Speaker 1: But what happened was I started writing a novel. And
Speaker 1: remember I just I mentioned the four novels that were unpublished.
Speaker 1: I ended up writing a novel UM that was about UM.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are four different versions. I can't even
Speaker 1: remember all of them, but that was essentially about i
Speaker 1: Q testing and the group of psychologists who come together
Speaker 1: and they're trying to create the most comprehensive intelligence test
Speaker 1: known to man, and they test on all these little
Speaker 1: kids and they inavertently sucked them up. And it was
Speaker 1: a very ambitious book that I was ill equipped to write.
Speaker 1: But so I wrote that, and I was like, this
Speaker 1: is not working, is not working, and so I sort
Speaker 1: of started again and that that wasn't working. And I
Speaker 1: ended up doing four iterations of this novel, and it
Speaker 1: occurred to me that what I was doing was I
Speaker 1: was trying to write a book that I could incorporate
Speaker 1: all these old i Q tests into, and that um
Speaker 1: that I was writing something in service of that. And
Speaker 1: then I was like, okay, well I'll just go off
Speaker 1: to the side and just try to get that out
Speaker 1: of my system. And then as I was writing that,
Speaker 1: I started to think, you know, maybe it's not all
Speaker 1: I'm trying to write about. Maybe I'm also like wanting
Speaker 1: to write about the anxiety that this created in me,
Speaker 1: and that, you know, the anxiety that I had that
Speaker 1: no one could see until I started to get that out,
Speaker 1: and I was just the purpose was just to get
Speaker 1: it out so I could get it out of my
Speaker 1: system and go back to the novel and work on
Speaker 1: the novel as I felt it was supposed to be written.
Speaker 1: And the more I wrote on this little side project, UM,
Speaker 1: I realized, I don't I don't think I've ever read
Speaker 1: a book about childhood panic and anxiety from the point
Speaker 1: of view of the child. And and then I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I would really like to I wish someone had written that.
Speaker 1: I would like to read that because that would have
Speaker 1: helped me. And then I thought, well, oh god, am
Speaker 1: I about to write a memoir? And so I had
Speaker 1: like a hundred pages of this mess and I, um,
Speaker 1: you know, called my agent and I said, okay, I
Speaker 1: have these two things. I have this you know book, uh,
Speaker 1: this book about these psychologists. And then I have the
Speaker 1: hundred messy pages that's I don't even know what it is.
Speaker 1: And so I gave them both to him and he
Speaker 1: called me back and he was like, it is this
Speaker 1: is a memoir and this is it. And I was like,
Speaker 1: how are you kidding me? Man? And so he was
Speaker 1: like now, so I So that's what I did, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I was really passionate about it. I was
Speaker 1: really driven to write it once I decided to do it,
Speaker 1: but I did go through phases where I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, why am I doing this? And I went
Speaker 1: through this thing where I thought everyone knows this, this
Speaker 1: is so basic, this is so dumb. I don't know
Speaker 1: all think that it's not Yeah, it's not true at all.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I was mortified. I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, this is gonna come out and people are
Speaker 1: gonna be like, who is this dumb idiot? Who was
Speaker 1: telling us everything we've known are years? That's why I
Speaker 1: feel on this podcast and like everyone already knows. And
Speaker 1: it's like even if some people already know, maybe they
Speaker 1: need to hear it from this point. I mean, whatever,
Speaker 1: who cares? And here's what I think. Here's what I think.
Speaker 1: I think even if people know, this is a kind
Speaker 1: of topic you can't really get enough of, right, you know,
Speaker 1: people want to know more. They want to know it
Speaker 1: from a different angle. They want to know it from underneath,
Speaker 1: they want to know it from above. Like I think that, yeah,
Speaker 1: one day it could be too much, um but I
Speaker 1: think right now, you know, people are starting to realize,
Speaker 1: oh wait, I didn't recognize that word as the thing
Speaker 1: that I'm actually suffering from. But now that I hear
Speaker 1: you talk about it, I realized I think I have
Speaker 1: this or you know, now that I'm reading this book,
Speaker 1: I realized that maybe I had this as a kid.
Speaker 1: Like I've gotten letters from people are letters that's not
Speaker 1: true at all, email mail. I'm mail mail written on
Speaker 1: someone wrote me a scroll once. Um, so I, um,
Speaker 1: you have got an emails when people are like I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that this was what was wrong with me,
Speaker 1: and you know, or I didn't realize that this is
Speaker 1: what's going on with my kid and I've been doing
Speaker 1: it all wrong or and that's why I wrote it,
Speaker 1: you know, for for the people who to just don't know. Um.
Speaker 1: And if you were to ask the people who do know,
Speaker 1: if you were to say, what is anxiety, they'd be
Speaker 1: hard pressed to answer it. Yeah, and and it's different
Speaker 1: for everyone. And you know, I will tell you this
Speaker 1: is my letter to you. I mean, as we talked
Speaker 1: about earlier in the interview for fun, I read about
Speaker 1: psychology anxiety listen to podcast, but I mean it's like
Speaker 1: the same person. Yeah, oh no, we totally are. It's
Speaker 1: insane and you know I've been doing that I'm forty
Speaker 1: seven now, so I don't know a long time, and
Speaker 1: I thought, I'm not in an arrogant way, but I
Speaker 1: thought I knew pretty much everything to know about myself
Speaker 1: and your book with that's what I want to talk
Speaker 1: about relationships. I and I knew about attached themselves all that.
Speaker 1: But there was something that just tweaked in my brain
Speaker 1: where I went the way I had to. It's specific
Speaker 1: not to having panic attacks. It is the specificity of
Speaker 1: undiagnosed for decades childhood panic that created behaviors in me
Speaker 1: and longings and needs that are disordered that come out
Speaker 1: in romantic relationships, or did in the past. I did
Speaker 1: not have that sentence. No therapist has said it. Maybe
Speaker 1: we've danced around it. Maybe everyone assumed I knew, but
Speaker 1: you I would not say the sentence I just said,
Speaker 1: unless I've read your book. Really Yeah, It's like I
Speaker 1: had an epiphany reading it this week and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a cool way to think of it. You know,
Speaker 1: just more information for me, different ways to frame it,
Speaker 1: and so um. You know, even people who think they
Speaker 1: know at all, you can know it differently, you know,
Speaker 1: or and we all choose change too, Like our stories
Speaker 1: change that we tell ourselves about ourselves. And and you
Speaker 1: were you were my shirt but for this week and
Speaker 1: this in this journey, and and yeah, I really feel
Speaker 1: like the little kid in me is like, oh, she
Speaker 1: made a friend, you know, like that that little kid
Speaker 1: that didn't know anyone else that panicked, Like now she's
Speaker 1: she's got you from the eighties in in there with her.
Speaker 1: So thank you again so much as to meet you YouTube.
Speaker 1: This was awesome. I hope you enjoyed my chat with
Speaker 1: Amanda Stern again. Go to the show notes to find
Speaker 1: out more about Amanda and get her book and sign
Speaker 1: up for her newsletter. Before you do all that, before
Speaker 1: I give you the takeaways from this week's episode. All
Speaker 1: I Want for Christmas is a five star review on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast. So please, please, please please, If you have
Speaker 1: three to five minutes, I'm gonna I'm gonna knock it
Speaker 1: down to one to three minutes. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: gonna take you that long give a five star review.
Speaker 1: You can just write two sentences about how much you
Speaker 1: love the podcast. If you are on social media, you
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at Jen Kirkman and use
Speaker 1: the hashtag anxiety Bites podcast. Let me know how you
Speaker 1: like the show. You can find me on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Jen Kirkman and that is h j E n K
Speaker 1: I r K m A and and tag me in
Speaker 1: your Instagram stories. Just tell anyone and everyone how much
Speaker 1: you like the show. That way I can retweet you
Speaker 1: or repost you and it will make my followers say, oh,
Speaker 1: I haven't tried that podcast. Maybe I should. Everyone seems
Speaker 1: to be talking about it. So thanks again, I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. So here are some of the takeaways. And
Speaker 1: I loved chatting with Amanda about, you know, helping kids,
Speaker 1: because again, we don't have kids. You know, don't come
Speaker 1: to me with needing advice on diaper rash. I can't
Speaker 1: help you. But just because you're a mom or a
Speaker 1: dad doesn't mean that you know what to do with
Speaker 1: a kid who has panic disorder. Right, maybe you didn't
Speaker 1: have it, and you you don't really understand what they're
Speaker 1: going through. So that's why you need auntie's like us
Speaker 1: who've had panic to tell you what helps and what
Speaker 1: doesn't because we've been kids with panic disorder. So a
Speaker 1: lot of these takeaways will be kind of focused on that.
Speaker 1: So let's take it away So, for example, there's nothing
Speaker 1: obviously that you as a parent can do about something
Speaker 1: like death, but you can do something about explaining to
Speaker 1: your kids, for example, what happens after you die. You
Speaker 1: can say things to them like, if I die and
Speaker 1: you were still a child, here's what will happen, Here's
Speaker 1: where you go, here's where you live, talking to them
Speaker 1: in a realistic way. It's terrifying, but it's less terrifying
Speaker 1: than not knowing. When a man wants people to understand
Speaker 1: about anxiety, for people who don't really understand it, especially
Speaker 1: child and anxiety, is that it's the uncertainty that is
Speaker 1: so distressing. If a child is constantly asking what if?
Speaker 1: What if? What if? They're actually asking is can you
Speaker 1: give me some certainty either way, either it's a yes,
Speaker 1: this bad thing happens, or yes, this good thing happens,
Speaker 1: or no, none of this happens. When people with anxiety
Speaker 1: are asking for a sense of certainty, it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that they want you to be positive. It just needs
Speaker 1: to be honest. The deep psychological thing is that when
Speaker 1: you're someone with anxiety, the unknown becomes a kind of extinction,
Speaker 1: a type of death. So, in this very philosophical way,
Speaker 1: being terrified of not knowing something equals death, which can
Speaker 1: be pretty intense for a kid. If your kid or
Speaker 1: a child you know is having a panic attack and
Speaker 1: you know that that's what's happening, don't deny their experience.
Speaker 1: Don't tell them that they're fine, don't tell them not
Speaker 1: to worry, don't tell them it's okay, because it's not.
Speaker 1: For them. Nothing feels okay. Things will become okay, and
Speaker 1: they will become fine, but in that moment, they don't
Speaker 1: feel like they are. So your job is to say,
Speaker 1: I know you don't feel fine right now, and that's okay,
Speaker 1: but you will feel fine when this ends, and this
Speaker 1: always ends. Another thing you can do for yourself, or
Speaker 1: if you know a kid who's hyperventilating, is to breathe
Speaker 1: with said kid, or breathe with yourself and your inner kid.
Speaker 1: You can do the four seven eight, which is you
Speaker 1: inhale on four accounts and then you hold your breath
Speaker 1: for seven counts and you exhale for eight counts. If
Speaker 1: you want to help a kid with a panic attack,
Speaker 1: you can have them do a visualization and tell them
Speaker 1: imagine you're breathing in blue, cool, healthy calm, air, and
Speaker 1: you're exhaling red, mad, bad feeling air. If you have
Speaker 1: a child that's old enough to understand this, you can
Speaker 1: explain to them that when you have panic and anxiety,
Speaker 1: basically they're just overreacting to something. It feels dangerous, but
Speaker 1: it's not dangerous. Just because you feel something strongly doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it's a fact. Just because you feel like you're
Speaker 1: going crazy, it does not mean that you are actually
Speaker 1: going crazy. Just because you feel like you're dying, it
Speaker 1: does not mean that your body is closing down. It
Speaker 1: is not a fact. You can point things out to
Speaker 1: someone who's having a panic attack, whether it's a child
Speaker 1: or another adult. You can say things like, I know
Speaker 1: you feel like you can't breathe, but I'm sitting here
Speaker 1: and I'm watching your chest rise and fall. I'm watching
Speaker 1: the breath come out of you. I am your witness,
Speaker 1: and I am not having a panic attack, so I
Speaker 1: can see that your body is doing what it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be doing, but your brain is making a thinking mistake.
Speaker 1: Children with anxiety are terrified reality, and they're so caught
Speaker 1: up in what if would if would if that they
Speaker 1: start to spiral into terror and imagination and what they
Speaker 1: need is someone to help them steer through reality. Thanks
Speaker 1: again for listening and uh new episodes all through the
Speaker 1: month of December right through the holidays, So if that
Speaker 1: appeals to you, there you go, and just remember anxiety bites,
Speaker 1: but you're in control. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.