
I used to think that whenever my boyfriend was running late, he’d been hit by a car.
Well, not just him. All my loved ones, actually. If my parents’ flight had been delayed after a trip, I assumed it had crashed. If my sister wasn’t answering her phone, I thought she’d been abducted.
Paranoid thoughts plagued my mind every day. How long will it be before the police contact me? I’d think to myself. I knew my intense anxiety was ridiculous, but I didn’t know how to stop it.
It happened so often, planning funerals in my mind became routine. I rehearsed eulogies as habitually as I’d plan an outfit for the next day. (Post continues after gallery.)
Mental health services in Australia
Like a lot of people, I didn’t do anything about it. Maybe it was silly, maybe it was just another part of the problem. Either way, I gradually accepted this was what my life would be like, and as best I could, learned to deal with my anxiety.
Watch Mia Freedman, Kate de Brito and Monique Bowley discuss the simple phrase to turn your anxiety on its head. (Post continues after video.)
Until one day, when the thoughts just…stopped.