Hello dear ones,

Today's piece is quite long, but it's important.

When sharing this with your Little Panicker, I suggest printing it all out and reading it to them, or with them, in pieces over the course of a few nights. Or, if they are too young, read it, save it, and have it available in the future for when they need it.

It's hard to limit a topic that's profoundly dear to my childhood and adult heart. Apologies in advance for the length. But, I promise you, I only included the most essential information.

Dear Little Panicker,

I am you, all grown up and there are a few things I want you to know about anxiety.

When I was young—younger than you—until I was 25 years old, fear was a constant sensation inside my body.

I was afraid my mother would die or disappear if I wasn’t watching her. I was terrified my father would decide not to return me and my siblings back home to her at the end of our weekend visits with him.

The fear was so powerful, pins and needles raced across my face, a scribble of vibrating dread grew heavy inside my stomach.

I felt a type of terror, like I was about to die. I felt this often, and I secretly worried, and then began to believe that something was terribly wrong with me, that I was broken, defective.

The dread I felt was so palpable both inside my body and surrounding my body. It was a different type of gravity, one with hands that threatened to draw me away by my ankles into a tarry black lake of quicksand to disappear me forever.

GETTY IMAGES | Henrik Sorensen

No one knew what to do about these fears of mine. They just kept on telling me not to worry, that everything was going to be fine. This made things worse because it didn’t feel true.

My body was telling me things were not going to get better. My body was telling me that things were going to get very, very bad. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that things were going to be okay. I needed someone to help me figure out why I was so afraid.

I was too afraid to sleep over at a friend’s house, and because I worried it would distract me from making sure my mother didn’t disappear, I was too afraid to have friends sleep at my house, so I missed out on socializing, bonding with friends, and building memories.

I was afraid to go on class trips, afraid to go out of town with my father. Anything that meant leaving my mom was something that felt too hard for me to do.

Sometimes I was so afraid that my mother let me stay home, or told me I didn’t have to do things that felt too hard for me, and the relief was so large I felt I could fly from the power of my own happiness.

While the short-term relief was big, it wasn’t helpful for the long term, because getting me out of things didn’t help me grow stronger. In fact, it simply made me feel that I was right to be afraid.

Getty Images | martin-dm

Letting me avoid the scary thing told me I couldn’t handle it. Although that wasn’t true. I COULD handle it (and so can you). What I needed was for someone to take my massively huge fear and break it down into smaller pieces.

I really needed an adult to help me figure out why I was so afraid all the time, so that maybe my fear would lessen. The world terrified me. I needed an adult to walk me through things before I did them, to show me that nothing bad was going to happen.

I needed someone to teach me that just because something felt scary did not mean it was dangerous.

I needed someone to explain the difference between facts and feelings and that I often confused a feeling of fear for a fact that there was something to fear.

I needed someone to explain that the anxiety I felt was actually quite natural, that mine just happened to have a large personality and was constantly overreacting to every little thing, instead of being more discriminating and responding only to the essentials.

I needed someone to explain what was happening to me, why it was happening, and how I could teach it to behave in ways that would serve me and not cause me mental anguish.

That is what I want to do for you right now.

Getty Images | MStudioImages

But first, I want you to know that if you, like me, are filled with fear and dread and even sometimes terror, that there is nothing wrong with you. You are not broken. You are not damaged. You are not defective. You are simply doing far more work than is necessary.

When I was your age, we didn’t use words like anxiety and panic. We said “homesickness,” which never felt like a big enough match for what I felt. When I was your age, we didn’t look for the answers to our problems in our emotions. We didn’t look inside our bodies, we looked outside to the world around us. Parents and caretakers didn’t communicate with their children about the issues that their child was having.

Things are different now, thankfully, and parents and caretakers include their children a lot more, especially when the concern is about the child.

In this case, you.

Most adults grow up and forget their childhood struggles. These are the same people who dismiss their children’s problems.

Because I grew up with out-of-control emotions, ones I had no words for until I was 25 years old, my childhood self never actually disappeared.

Where did all this anxiety we feel come from??

Back when we used stone tools and painted stories on cave walls using charcoal mixed with animal fat, back when we were hunters and gatherers, the part of our brain that controls emotions was on high-alert all the time.

We had to be ready to protect our families from predators, and we had to save ourselves. The anxiety we felt then saved our lives—we were responding to physical threats. We had no choice but to remain constantly alert to the smallest rustle of a leaf, or the sudden cool sweep of a shadow.

Getty Images | Cherdchanok Treevanchai

There were visible threats all around us, and to survive, we developed many traits that helped us remain alert to run and escape as quickly as possible when we thought we were in danger.

Our brains have built-in alarm systems designed to keep us safe from threats. When something stirred in a tree nearby, we would freeze, hide, run, or fight. This is called the fight or flight response.

The world changed so much faster than our brains. We still have those caveman brains, if you can believe it. But now we live in a world where we are not running away from Komodo Dragons, sabertooth cats, leopards, or wooly mammoths—we don’t have the same visible threats. The fight or flight response very well saved many lives.

Just like some people have overdeveloped senses of humor, we have overdeveloped fear detection. Nature’s alarm system, in me—and in you— works SO WELL that it sets off as many false alarms as it does real ones, making it very hard to distinguish between a real fear and a false one.

Put another way: Imagine a caveman walking around the world today. If our caveman heard, say, the phone ring, or fire-engine sirens, or saw the neon lights of a store sign—they’d be afraid, and they’d mistake their fear for being in danger, but we know that none of these things cause harm. This is what anxiety does—it treats big and small things equally.

Getty Images | Malte Mueller

And so too does anxiety. Any time you feel a sense of fear, your brain assumes there is a threat and wants to protect you. You are constantly reacting to the world like you’re in danger, when in fact you’re not.

Our job, as anxious people, is to learn to tell the difference.

So, how do we do that? We can’t exactly control what our brains do! We can’t exactly control our emotions! We can’t exactly control our reactions and responses, right?

Not right.

We can control our emotions by managing our responses. This is called "emotional regulation."

Let me explain.

Whenever you feel yourself feeling a little scared, it’s quite easy to grow that fear. And if that’s true, then so is the opposite: You can also shrink your fear.

Our caveman's brains are set to be on high alert, and our response to any possible threat is an automatic response. That automatic response is our FIRST RESPONSE, a fear response. Anxiety is an automatic response.

Getty Images | Klaus Vedfelt

When we feel a fear response to something that feels threatening, we need to quickly move onto the secondary response and answer this question:

A caveman hearing a phone ring would be afraid, but is the caveman in danger? Will that ringing phone hurt them? This is the question you need to ask yourself when you are afraid.

There is a big difference between feeling fear and being in danger. Anxious people are amazing at confusing feelings for facts.

When in doubt, ask yourself: Is this a fact or a feeling?

Anxious people are amazing at turning a no big deal thing into a very big deal.

When our fears are triggered in an instant, we are responding reflexively, which means our bodies have responded first and now, we need to ask our brains whether our body’s fear is valid.

One way to do that is to look for evidence that you are not in danger. This is extremely hard to do when you are anxious, but you can practice with a caretaker (or alone) and you will get better at it over time, I promise.

Often, and this is going to sound ridiculous, but often (okay, almost always) when we feel anxious, or a sense of dread, it’s the terrible sensations that dread and anxiety make inside our bodies that we hate feeling. It’s not the THING itself that we fear, it’s the sensation of fear in our body we can’t stand.

Imagine being afraid to take the elevator. What is the feeling that accompanies your fear of the elevator? You don’t want to feel it, right? Because it feels TERRIBLE. We avoid taking the elevator because we don’t ever want to feel that terrible feeling.

The thing is, we’ve simply linked the elevator with the terrible feeling, but it’s not the act of riding the elevator we fear, it’s the fear of having to suffer through those terrible feelings we want to avoid, and avoiding makes our fear grow.

Original art for "How to Live" by Edwina White

UNCERTAINTY

Part of what makes anxiety so scary is that it feels so terrible that we mistake the awful feeling for danger. But it’s not dangerous to feel afraid. It’s just very uncomfortable.

Anxiety happens when we don’t know what’s going to happen next. People with lots of anxiety feel frozen in place. They are afraid to move forward into the next chapter or phase of life because they don’t know what will happen. This not knowing what’s going to happen is called uncertainty. And we are not fans!

RESPONSES

The good news is that with practice, we can learn to calm ourselves down. This is the power of a secondary response.

The automatic response keeps us stuck in place. The secondary response gets us unstuck.

The secondary response tries to make sense of the automatic response; it’s more rational.

We want to try and take our very big fear and take it apart

Anxiety leads to unhelpful thoughts, and our job is to turn our unhelpful thoughts into helpful ones. Often we think we can’t do this because we mistakenly think that we are our anxiety.

Think of anxiety as a separate thing from you. Anxiety is your firefighter. Anxiety is your caveman. It’s not who you are, it’s your brain doing what it was designed to do in a time period that no longer exists.

We need to train our brain to catch up to modern times.

LOGIC & INFORMATION

Getty Images | Andriy Onufriyenko

Here’s something you already know, but perhaps don’t have the vocabulary to express: The more information an anxious kid has, the safer they feel.

Anxious kids feel like they lack the vital information they need. They feel like everyone EXCEPT them has the information they need, and they believe this because no one else is as afraid of routine things as much as they are, so clearly, there is something that other people know that they don’t.

Information is certainty.

Uncertainty is uncomfortable, but it’s not dangerous.

The more we can ask ourselves whether our fears are feelings or facts, the more we can work to lessen our fears.

Gathering evidence about our fears is what will help lessen them.

EVIDENCE GATHERING

You are starting a new school and you are afraid no one will like you. This is a feeling. Because the facts are: You already have a lot of friends, which proves that you are quite likable, thank you very much.

Sure you are afraid because you’re starting a new school. But the other facts are that every single person in that class was also new, and now it’s your turn. They got through it and so can you.

When someone is late to pick you up, your automatic first response is that something terrible happened. You then believe this fear (mistaking it for a fact) and get yourself in a state of absolute panic and just when you feel you’re about to truly melt down, here comes your mom.

You learn that she ran into an old friend on the way to get you.

Start paying attention to all the reasons someone was late to get you, or didn’t call when they said they would. There are always reasons, and they are never the ones we imagine.

Paying attention to the various reasons is one way to build a library of evidence, so that the next time a parent is late to get you, instead of getting yourself into an immediate panic, you can remind yourself that the last few times they were late, it was because of traffic, or running into an old friend, or receiving an important work call, etc.

One way to stay feeling safe is to learn about the thing that scares you and how to cope with it.

Things get easier when you approach them rather than avoid them. Facing your fears will make the difference between having a life and standing on the sidelines watching everyone else.

Getty Images | Laurence Monneret

Learning how to cope is how we face our fears, and facing our fears is the ultimate revenge against anxiety and panic.

Here’s another magical thing I want you to know: Feelings won’t kill you. We only know we’re afraid of something because we’ve felt it before; if we’ve felt it before, it means we survived.

ACTIONABLE STEPS

No matter how big your anxiety is, you can break it down into actionable steps. When you have to read a book, you aren't expected to read the entire book in one sitting.

You read it sentence by sentence, page by page. This is an effective approach to any problem or situation that feels overwhelming.

WHAT THEN?

Write down what would happen if your fear comes true. What would you do? Once you know, ask yourself again, what would you do?

When you don't have a plan, you stay stuck in uncertainty.

GROUNDING

Getty Images | The Good Brigade

When you are REALLY worried and feel maybe a bit panicky. Do this exercise.

It's called 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

5 - LOOK: Look around for 5 things that you can see, and say them out loud. For example, you could say: I see the computer, I see the cup, I see the picture frame, I see a pencil, I see the sun outside my window.

4 - FEEL: Pay attention to your body and think of 4 things that you can feel, and say them out loud. For example, you could say, I feel my feet warm in my socks, I feel the hair on the back of my neck, I feel the fan blowing on my face, or I feel the pillow I am sitting on.

3 - LISTEN: Listen for 3 sounds. It could be the sound of traffic outside, the sound of typing, or the sound of your tummy rumbling. Say the three things out loud.

2 - SMELL: Say two things you can smell. If you’re allowed to, it’s okay to move to another spot and sniff something. If you can’t smell anything at the moment or you can’t move, then name your two favorite smells.

1 - TASTE: Say one thing you can taste. It may be the toothpaste from brushing your teeth, or a mint from after lunch. If you can’t taste anything, then say your favorite thing to taste.

Take another deep belly breath to end.

PRETEND YOU'RE A JOURNALIST

Getty Images | Joshua Ets-Hokin

Research your fear. Look up data and stats for the thing you're afraid of. How often do planes crash? What are the statistics?

Why and when do dogs bite? Will they race across the street to attack you? Investigate your worry and come up with facts.

MAKE LISTS

Risk is scary but for people with anxiety, risk is all or nothing. Your worry brain is turning a maybe into a definite. Make a list of other situations where you take risks without a problem.

The reason there are some risks you can take without problems is that your brain is working properly in those situations, keeping risk in proportion to the likelihood.

You play sports even though you might get hurt, you lend people things even though they might lose them.

Ask yourself this question: What would you want to be doing if you weren't anxious?

Write down your answers.

BE A FRIEND TO YOURSELF

Don't take your automatic worry at face value. Instead, question it. Pretend your friend is coming to you with this same worry. How would you counsel them?

Go toward your fears, they won’t hurt you. They’ll make you stronger and you’ll be making your life easier.

Here’s something not everyone will tell you: Parents and caretakers don’t always get it right.

This is okay! We are all learning, all the time, for our entire life.

Mistakes are how we learn and grow.

Parents do their very best for their children. And sometimes it’s up to us kids to teach them how to help us.

SENTENCES

People like us, with anxiety, forget what to do or say in moments we wish we knew what to do.

So, I want to give you some sentences to print out and hang on your wall or carry with you like a good luck charm.

You can even just show your parent the print out sentence if you feel too overwhelmed to speak.

1. When you ask a parent what you should do if you are kidnapped, if they don’t show up, if someone you love dies, and they dismiss you by saying “Don’t worry,” or “That won’t happen …”

… Consider saying: “Knowing what to do would make me feel safer, can you walk through the steps with me?”

Parents don’t always understand that anxious kids need concrete answers. We need to know the steps to take SHOULD something happen.

Knowing the steps makes us feel safer. Parents often worry that answering our fearful question will create more fear, when in fact, it’s the exact opposite.

2. When you are afraid to do something like sleep at a friend’s house, or sleep alone in your room and your parent or caretaker lets you avoid doing the thing that scares you …

… Consider saying, “I know I am really scared about this, but I want to be able to do this one day. Can you help me come up with ways to be less afraid?”

3. Ask your parent or caretaker to get some books on anxiety for grownups and for kids. You can go on a worry journey together. They can learn about their anxiety (we all have some!) and we can learn about ours, and then we can discuss what we’ve learned.

When we go toward what scares us, we become less afraid. When we avoid what scares us, our fear grows bigger.

Above all, I want you to remember that you will not feel this way forever. Feelings come in all sizes.

Ours are extra large, but we can work to shrink them down and make them more manageable so that we can live a big life.

Getty Images | MoMo Productions

I know this is true because I did it.

And if I can do it, then anyone can.

And you? Do you think this will be helpful to your anxious child? Did I leave anything out?

Let me know in the comments! Until next week I am…

Amanda

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