Giving Anxiety A Bad Review

Earlier this week, I ranked the pep talk I gave to a dear friend’s jittery son among my best. Lighthearted but reassuring in tone, it had offered what, in my not-so-humble opinion, was some judicious advice. Of course, this effort was helped by my nearly two decades of practice as an honorary “Auntie–who–happened–to–be–a–psychologist.” Since Matthew was six years old, I had coached him on how to correct course when his anxieties threatened to spin. Nevertheless, I was somewhat surprised when he phoned me this time around, in a panic, to report that he was “freaking out” about his upcoming and first performance review at the small firm where he worked as an engineer. Matt had moved out of state after college graduation, and since that time, our contact had become more of a howdy-and-a-hug affair whenever he visited home.
 
“Jeez, Matt,” I’d chuckled after he’d insisted—and without any good evidence—that he was about to be fired, or that he’d made a terrible mistake in having believed he could do the job. I’d had to short-stop before he could repeat that this was obviously his lot in life and that he’d still be a loser when he was forty. “I haven’t heard you sound this wired in ages,” I observed, though with compassion. “You must be mentally exhausted, my friend. But remember how, when you were a kid and your brain would take one of these road trips, we used to refer to this as ‘Matthew’s Adventure in Catastrophizing?’”
 
Through the phone, I heard a long sigh. Then, in a very quiet tone, I reminded him that this kind of behavior was a common “go-to” among serial worriers when confronted with uncertainty. “Kind of nutty how some of us always seem to anticipate the worst. Convinced that it’s the only way to feel more in control.”
 
This time around, I’d underscored once again how far he had come in learning to manage his fears—performance-related and otherwise—and how he’d demonstrated, over and over, a growing ability to use a toolbox of resources to rein in his “worry-beast.” We talked, for example, about relaxation and grounding techniques; about finding healthy distractions; about creating positive mental reframes, and about staying “in the present,” as well.  Twenty minutes later, sounding less stressed, Matthew wryly observed: “Sometimes you talk just like my Mom. But for some reason, you come across as less annoying.”
 
I laughed, hearing his “Mom-not-Mom” statement as a ‘thank you’ channeled by his twelve-year-old self. “Well," I told him as we signed off, "as your mama would say, ‘You’ve got this, Matthew.’  If you approach this review as a conversation, and another way to trade information and ideas, as well as an opportunity to connect, you’ll have pulled off a home run. And know that however things go down, you’ll be fine.” Then, cheerfully, I added, “Who knows? If you’re lucky, you’ll even learn something interesting. Something important. Maybe even something new.”

So, what, you may wonder, did I do after we’d ended the call and I’d given myself a congratulatory slap on the back? No lie: I reverted to what I had been engaged in for the better part of that morning before chatting with Matt—my own escapade into freak-out frontier. A benign email from my book publisher’s project manager to me, the “newbie-author,” was all it took to send a jolt of anxiety skyrocketing in my chest She’d written simply to confirm the number of advanced reader copies being readied for the printer, and here I was, a wreck over such a simple, straightforward question. Suddenly, it felt as if In Pursuit of Radio Mom had become a living, maybe even dangerous, entity. Oh, and the emotional tool chest I might have used to quell my angst—the one worn at the hinges from so much use over so many years?  

MIA.
   
Gone.
 
But it didn’t matter: what were the chances that I would have rifled through a metaphorical work box looking for ways to settle myself when my internal critic had so convincingly predicted that my soon-to-be-launched memoir would sink before it even hit the market?
 
Or when my sole focus was on that voice’s demand that I explain how I could ever have thought that following the writer’s path was anything other than folly? Jeesh and double jeesh. How easily and quickly I had whipped my thoughts into a hyperbolic and self-defeating froth.

Hours passed before I, at last, had a “Duh, Terry” moment: one which fortunately allowed me to acknowledge—humbly, this time—how I lost my emotional footing by worrying about how Radio Mom would be received. Subconsciously, I’d allowed myself to be swept away by my own anticipatory anxiety—a state that psychologists Sally Winston, Psy.D., and Martin Seif, Ph.D. perfectly describe in an essay on the subject as “bleeding before you are cut.” 

Not until later that afternoon, however, as I prepared to hit the send button on my email response to the project’s manager, was I able to confront my fear that the book into which I’d put my whole heart would be slammed. But I’d asked myself then: Did I really want to wrap myself in fear? Imagine all the ways that things might go badly? Hoping that if I did, I might shield myself from all the unpleasant emotions I associated with rejection? Especially those of humiliation and shame, which as a young girl I’d worn like a school uniform? As you might have already guessed, the answer was an unequivocal “no.” 

It was then I decided—for what seemed like the umpteenth time since I began my late-bloomer writing career—that like others who have learned to push back against their fears about being candid with regard to themselves and their lives, and thus know the dread that such transparency can evoke, I, too, could choose not to surrender to worry. 

And after all, I reminded myself as I thought again about the October release of Radio Mom, hadn’t I already succeeded in the most difficult aspect of the entire project? Engaging repeatedly in what my virtuoso editor, Linda Gray Sexton, had described as the “required strip tease of memoir”—a process predicated on one’s willingness to risk the judgment and possible disdain of readers in order to share your story fully. I had indeed found that willingness within myself, and it was an accomplishment beyond the always difficult—and sometimes seemingly impossible—requirements of creation.

This morning, I’m choosing to lean—hard this time—into uncertainty. Because really, what’s the alternative? Anticipating the worst, and trying to feel in control, has helped me not a whit. Moreover, as other serial worriers can attest, clinging to fear robs us of hope. So, today, just as I did when I first began this journey into “writing my life,” I will continue to hope that Radio Mom resonates with those who are reflecting on their relationships with their own mothers and daughters.

And all the while that I am hoping this way, I’m going to capitalize on that darn good pep talk I had with my young pal, Matthew. I will be reminding myself that there’s an upside to reviews, however they go down: Feedback represents a way to connect. To learn something interesting. Something important. And—about this, I’m absolutely certain—something new.