living in fear [video]

But weirdly, I've never really been that afraid of bad things happening to me. Now, don't get me wrong, there have been situations where I've been scared for my own well-being, but it's always been very situational. Like there's a clear threat, and that's why I'm frightened. It's never been like me laying in bed at night, afraid of something bad happening to me.

I've always laid in bed at night and worried about bad things happening to people I care about. And that's been sort of the source of a lot of my anxiety for my whole life. The only sort of anxiety that was prevalent growing up for me was anxiety around whether or not people like me. Which, in retrospect, is not worth my energy, right? Because it's like, who gives a fuck? okay, who fucking cares?

But that was sort of my only anxiety around myself. It was about whether or not people liked me, whether or not people were mad at me, whether or not I did something wrong and hurt someone's feelings, etc. But I would say the majority of my fear and terror growing up was about bad things happening to my loved ones. But recently that's changed and I have been living in this state of constant fear and terror about bad things happening to me.

Now I still have very bad anxiety around bad things happening to my loved ones, but now compounded onto that, I'm scared of bad things happening to me. And this is brand new.

Because as a teenager, I did not give a fuck about myself, and I didn't even realize that I didn't, but I didn't like. In retrospect, I look at the things that I used to do that were sort of careless and it's hard for me to even comprehend.

Now, because I'm so newly protective of myself and paranoid about my well-being, I would say my level of fear and terror about bad things happening to me is not rational or balanced. It's a little bit too much, you know, it's a little bit too extreme.

It's not like this healthy level of protectiveness, it's like I don't even want to go outside, you know? Whereas when I was a teenager, I just did not give a fuck. I would walk around scary areas of Los Angeles or New York late at night by myself, like areas that are known for not being safe. I would walk around by myself, not giving a fuck.

I felt like I could defend myself against anything if I wanted to, I felt like nothing bad would happen to me. You know, I don't know if I was blissfully ignorant about the world around me. I don't know if I was under the immature impression that I was immortal for some reason.

I don't know if I just was not that big of a fan of myself, therefore I didn't care. I don't know, I don't know why I was so fearless as a teen. But regardless, those days are over and I have completely gone the opposite direction. Where now I'm terrified of the world around me and how it might hurt me. And this is bizarre. okay, this is bizarre for me because it's just not like me.

And here's the reason why I think this is a problem.

Something that needs to be fixed.

I've over-corrected subconsciously, right? I've gone my whole life being relatively fearless. Unless there was, like, a obvious threat, where almost anyone would feel threatened or nervous, or scared, or anxious.

And living like that wasn't necessarily good, you know? Walking around dangerous areas at two in the morning by yourself as a teenager, not a great idea, you know, should be avoided, if possible.

Not worrying about myself was a sign that I didn't value myself enough, and was a sign that I had some sort of ignorance about how brutal reality can be. And that's not good. But then, for some reason that I can't necessarily pinpoint, I completely pivoted and went in the opposite direction and am now hyper-fixated on the world around me. In a way, that's a little bit too anxious, a little bit too paranoid, a little bit too scared, and that's not healthy either. Because when you're living in that state of mind, you sort of stop living your life in a way.

There's risk in everything, and when you're hyper-aware of risks.

You start to see the risks in everything driving somewhere, getting on a plane, traveling to a new place, even taking a Nyquil when you're sick.

You know, you start to see the risk in everything and it makes you not want to do anything, because there is risk in everything. There's risk in walking across the street, you could get hit by a car.

And in life, you have to have a healthy relationship with the risks that you take on a day-to-day basis. And you have to have a healthy understanding of what risks are worth taking and which are not. And so it's just been bizarre for me to go from one extreme to the other. And I've sort of gone on this journey the last few months, trying to find a healthy medium and a happy medium. And I'm not 100 there yet, but I'm getting much closer and so I wanted to talk about that journey.

And what a journey it's been. I really don't know what caused this fear and paranoia, but there are a few possibilities.

Number one, it could be as a result of the world. Part of becoming an adult is really feeling the weight and the gravity of the news and the headlines. I feel like as a kid, you're able to sort of separate yourself a little bit more from a heartbreaking headline or a scary headline.

And in a lot of ways, the adults in your life are shielding you from that type of news and that type of information. Not always, and not every young person has that experience. But for the most part, adults try to protect children from scary realities of the world that they're not ready for yet.

Part of growing up is seeing those headlines, seeing those scary things on the news, and fully being able to comprehend the gravity and the weight.

Of those things, and it's really painful and uncomfortable and scary and anxiety-inducing.

And we're seeing the news all day long, whether it's playing on the TV in the other room, or it's on social media. Or it's on the Little News app on your phone that pops up, has like, little pop-ups on your phone, or it's on the front page of the newspaper, although nobody's reading a newspaper anymore. But, you know, the news is everywhere now, it's more shoved in your face than ever. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing, because I think it is important to be informed to a certain extent, right? I mean, I guess I don't know.

I mean, to an extent, well, that's a conversation for a whole nother day, you know, but whatever, but I think maybe this newfound paranoia is stemming from.

Me really looking at the news and at the headlines, and feeling their gravity and feeling their weight for the first time.

Because if you read every headline and you fully feel that pain that comes with it, you know something bad happened, something catastrophic happened. You read it and you feel that pain. I mean, it's more pain than one person can feasibly handle. You know what I'm saying, like, it's almost like you have to sort of put a wall up, but sometimes it's hard.

And it's frightening, you know, the news constantly shows the bad stuff, you know, that's sort of the point of the news to fill you in on all the bad shit that's going on. With maybe a rare story that's good every 10 years, I swear to God, it's pretty much all bad. And constantly being exposed to that can paint a picture of the world in your eyes.

That's terrifying. It can make you feel like the world around you is burning, which in a lot of ways, sure it is.

But it can make you feel like only bad things ever happen when that's not true, because good things do happen as well, and for sanity purposes.

You have to remember that good things happen too. You know, it's not all bad, you know, there are good people in this world, good things do happen in this world. But when you're constantly being exposed to the news, all you're seeing is the bad news.

So that becomes your reality.

And I'm not somebody who necessarily seeks out the news a lot, there are some who always have the news on, always are reading the news. I'm not that type of person and even I feel like I've been impacted by the influx of bad news constantly. And so I hypothesize that that could be a part of why.

I've had this sort of subconscious shift.

But I've also hypothesized that it could be as a result of a maturing perspective on mortality.

As a kid.

Everybody around you is telling you how much life you have ahead of you.

Oh, when you're older, you're going to do this. oh, when you're older, you're going to do this. Oh my God, you have so much life ahead of you, you can do this, you can do this.

You're constantly being told that.

Because telling a child that tomorrow is not promised is pretty evil, right? So a lot of us are constantly being reminded as a kid that we have so much time.

Because that's the only thing you can tell a kid, right? But in a lot of ways, that's maybe not the right idea, because it's kind of not true. It might be true, but tomorrow's not promised for anyone, which is a really challenging reality. But it's true.

Life is very precious.

And I don't know if young people can comprehend how fragile life really is.

And I don't know if it's even healthy for kids to comprehend that, because it's uncomfortable, it's really uncomfortable. It's much easier to just say, Oh, you know, you have so much life ahead of you, and there's this sort of hyper positivity.

When it comes to talking about life to kids, and I do think that might be the only way to do it. But the problem with it is is that when young people then grow up, it's sort of like finding out Santa isn't real. It's like, wait a minute, tomorrow is not actually promised. For me. At any given moment, some shit could go wrong to someone that I love or to me.

But it's interesting. I feel like my anxiety as a kid was around the people around me, not around myself. You know, I was worried about other people. Why?

Because, you know, the people that I cared about the most were all adults. And nobody was going around telling them like, your future is so bright, you have so much time. They were telling me that, so I wasn't worried about me because I was like, everyone's telling me. I got my whole life ahead of me, which kind of made me feel immortal in a way.

But nobody was saying that to the adults around me. You know, I'm hearing adults talk about getting older and this and that, and I was worried about them.

But I wasn't worried about me because that was not really the narrative around being a young person, right? But now, as an adult, I am realizing how truly not immortal I am. And it's not like I was ever consciously or purposely looking at myself as immortal. It was all subconscious. It was not a deliberate choice.

It's become painfully clear to me how many times a day I could die, you know.

Whether I'm driving in my car, or I'm on a plane, or I'm walking by myself on a street where I can't see anyone else walking with me. You know, or I'm home alone, or I'm cooking on the stove. Like, whatever it might be, I could die doing anything, my stove could explode, I could crash my car. The plane I'm in could come tumbling down into the ocean, someone could jump out from a bush and stab me.

I mean, I know it sounds like, so, so crazy, but it's like, it's not crazy though, because anything's possible. And those are things that you read in the news, and those are stories that you hear online, and those are things that you see in movies. And those are, you know, those are things that happen, and they're not common. They don't happen all the time, they do, and they don't, right. Like, the likelihood that it's going to happen to you is slim, but it's not, but it's not that slim.

And I guess part of being an adult is realizing, oh shit. Any of those things could happen to me at any given moment. And I could just be fucking wiped from the planet at any given moment. And that's just reality.

It is a scary reality when you are fully able to grasp it. But prior to now, I just couldn't grasp it, I just could not grasp it. I think I felt like I could grasp it, but I really couldn't like I really wasn't thinking about it.

I also wonder if you know? This sort of new understanding of mortality and how fragile life is is giving me a new sense of gratitude for being on this planet. Because it is really a miracle to be alive, in a lot of ways, it is a miracle to be alive, and I've never felt that way.

I definitely used to take life for granted. And I also think struggling with depression a little bit, especially as a young person, made me value my life even less. Which is not comfortable to talk about. But it's true when you feel depressed, you do not value life. You do not value being alive at all. you spite life, you spite being alive.

And I struggled with depression a lot as a young person, even today I do.

But I think a combination of blissful ignorance and depression as a young person made me really not see the value in life. It made me take life for granted. And I think it made me careless in a way about how I took care of myself. Because I was just like, fuck it, I don't care, I just don't care.

I don't care to even try to find value in it, and I'm just going to try to survive and be here and get through it. But now I see it as what a miracle it is to be on this planet. And what a miracle it is that I have the life that I have.

I think my new sense of gratitude for being on this planet has shaken me up a little bit. In a way. Because I wonder if maybe my brain is overcompensating for lost time. It's like, wow, I've been really ungrateful for my life. And now I need to feel so grateful that I protect myself from the world. In an extreme way to sort of compensate for this loss of time. Does that make sense?

Like, I spent so much time not caring about my life and not valuing my life. And now my brain wants to, like, overcompensate. With extreme amounts of gratitude, which is good, but also an extreme amount of protectiveness around myself, that's actually preventing me from comfortably and normally living my life at all. It's almost similar to how a parent a particularly.

Protective parent treats a child right.

An overly protective parent loves their child so much that they shield their child from the world and don't let them experience the world at all. Which then makes the child dislike and resent the parent. And then go and do even crazier shit as an act of rebellion, right? So it all ends up backfiring and it's okay. I don't know if that's the best sort of metaphor, but we're trying it. Okay with myself? I am so grateful to be alive, and I'm so grateful to be living in a physical body and to be doing this.

You know what I mean? I'm just so happy to be here, even when it's challenging, I'm just so happy to be here. That I don't want to fuck it up. So I'm shielding myself from anything that could possibly go wrong. As almost an act of gratitude, being like, Oh, I don't want, like, I'm so grateful that I'm alive, that I don't want to go and die doing some shit. But at the same time, what's so great about being alive in the first place is that you get to go experience the world.

That's the whole fucking point, right? And so I'm miserable because I'm scared to do everything and anything. It's backfiring, right? I also will say that I do have a particularly unusual circumstance in my life. That also might be adding to my sort of paranoia and fear around my safety and well-being.

That being being a public figure to an extent right, being on the internet, being widely available and widely accessible on the internet. In some ways. It's not frightening. Like me, sitting here and talking into a microphone doesn't frighten me necessarily, because it's not a security risk, okay?

But, you know, me showing my day-to-day life like I used to on the internet. If you're unfamiliar with what I used to post on the internet, I used to post my day-to-day life. Me going to the grocery store that I always went to, me going to, you know, my favorite clothing store, me going to my favorite beach, me going to all my favorite places, me doing my day-to-day life. I used to film everything I did, I used to film my home, I used to film everything, right.

Well, that's actually really scary, because if somebody wanted to find me, they could find me and I've stopped filming where I go. I don't show the grocery store I go to now, I don't show, you know, my neighborhood around where I live. I don't show my favorite clothing store. I don't show these places anymore because that's not safe. And so, you know, I think I'm particularly paranoid about my safety because there's a little bit more information about me on the internet than there is about, say, the average person who is just using social media as a casual user to share with their friends and family. You know, I'm sharing with a bit more people, which is a fucking blessing in a fucking miracle and something that I enjoy a lot. But, you know, there are some downsides to that, which is that there's a safety concern there, you know?

And I've had to sort of shift around the way I do things for my own safety. I can't show the places that I like to go anymore, etc. right?

And also I think to an extent, too, I'm a target. Possibly for certain scary things like being stopped or being robbed or something like that. Those could be the sources of my newfound fear.

It might be a combination of all of them, it could be all of them. I can't really tell yet, and maybe at some point I'll be able to properly analyze. But I think I'm too deep in it now, so I can't really tell what it is. This new terror has impacted my life in many, many areas. I used to never be terrified of flying on planes, which was great because I fly on planes all the time, more than ever in my life.

I've never traveled more in my life and perfect timing. Every time I've gotten on a plane in the last four months, I've been convinced, I have convinced myself that the plane was going to go down. And prior to this, literally, I would get on a plane and be like, Oh my God, this is the best. And I would sit down and I'd be like, Oh, my God. I'm going to order a sparkling water when the little cart gets to me, and, ooh, maybe I'll watch a movie, or, ooh, I'm going to go to sleep. And it was blissful, not anymore. Now, every time I get on the plane, I am a wreck, a wreck.

It's mainly internal. If I'm flying with other people. I really try not to express this because I don't want to make anyone else upset, right? I try to keep it inside, but it's been really challenging for me because my heart's beating, I'm sweating, I'm so scared.

I'm taking everything as a bad sign. The flight attendant messes up my name, says like, Oh, you're Emily, right? Okay? and I'm like, Oh my god, that's a sign. I just am taking everything as a bad sign.

I'm so stressed out, it's hard for me to fall asleep. If I'm taking a red eye. I'm anxious, I'm nervous, I can't do it. It takes a lot for me to calm down and the whole ride I'm in like an agitated state.

Anytime there's even a little bit of turbulence, I'm like, This is it? I knew it, and I'm like telling myself, I knew it, I knew this was it. And then it never is.

You know, I've also been incredibly afraid of a home intruder. I have lived alone since I was 17..

And even before that, I was home alone all the time because my parents worked my whole life, you know? So since I was like, 11 years old, I've been home alone and I don't have siblings. So I was really home alone. And it was never really frightening to me.

I mean, I had one occasion as a teenager where I've told the story before. But basically, I had a creepy person coming and banging on my door incessantly. Every time. My mom would leave for like a 48-hour period and it was fucking scary, that was really scary. But see, that was a direct threat, right?

That was a direct threat. Somebody banging on my door for 20 minutes directly after my mom would leave for 48 hours straight, anytime my mom would leave.

Um, that was scary, but other than that, I was not afraid of being home alone and like, living alone was not a problem for me. But recently I've been having a really hard time falling asleep by myself. I close my eyes.

I'm trying to fall asleep, all I can think about is opening my eyes and seeing somebody in my window, opening my eyes. And you know, someone's, someone's. Well, I get really afraid of even my alarm, my house alarm going off, you know, like my. I arm my house at night with a security system so that if anyone were to break in, it would set off crazy alarms. I have a fear of that alarm going off.

Like that sound going on, and me knowing that something's wrong, right? like that, scares the shit out of me. I cannot. It's been so hard for me to fall asleep when I'm by myself because that's all I can think about. Is someone breaking in? I've even been afraid of traveling to new places or traveling at all.

You know, being in a hotel has been really scary for me. Because in a way, like if somebody were to steal the master key for the whole building, they could just get in my room. I mean, obviously, you know, there's the deadbolt on the door, but it's like somebody could fucking bang the door down. I don't know, I don't know who has access to my room when I'm in a hotel.

You know what if the hotel got taken over by thieves or something, and thieves were coming in and robbing the hotel?

There's a lot out of my control at a hotel, you know, I've been scared of walking around in big cities especially.

Because, you know, there's a lot of people and it's a little bit more unhinged in a way.

Yeah, like hanging out in L.

A And New York used to be fun for me. I used to hang out everywhere in L..A. and hang out everywhere in New York at any hour of the day. I did not give a fuck.

I was like walking around here, walking around there, not being afraid of anything, talking to anyone, doing whatever. I was so aloof. And now I'm scared. Like, I'd rather get in a taxi, but I'm also paranoid about getting in a taxi. Because, like, who knows who that taxi driver is getting in an Uber?

Who the fuck is that Uber driver? I don't even know who that Uber driver is. I'm scared and then I'm scared of walking because I'm like, you know, I'm just available, anyone can come up and grab me, stab me, punch me.

Anything can happen going on the subway in New York, any type of public transportation. There are so many horror stories about that. Constantly, people getting pushed in front of the subway, people getting stabbed on the subway, people bringing weapons onto the subway. Like, you know, it just feels like, how do I even get around anymore without being afraid? Except for driving myself? Which that scares me too, because I'm like, what if someone throws a rock at my window and, like, kills me? This is how my brain's been working, OK?

I've also had this weird fear that I'm being spied on and I'm being watched and I'm being listened to. Like, I'm constantly afraid of my phone being hacked or something. And someone can see me, they can see what I'm doing, they can hear what I'm saying.

Or you guys are going to be like, Oh my god, Emma, you need therapy.

OK, and I know that, but listen, this happens. OK, because I'm going to tell you how I got through it because I'm much better now. This was just a moment in time and I've, and I got myself through it. This is not to say that I couldn't benefit from also maybe more assistance.

We can always use more assistance, there's no such thing as too much. But I've also been really paranoid about my health, constantly feeling like something is going wrong, you know, feeling like my chest is really tight and being afraid that like, something's wrong with my lungs. Or getting really lightheaded for some reason, you know, maybe I'm dehydrated, maybe I'm hungry, whatever, like, you know, but getting lightheaded on for an unknown reason. And feeling like I'm going to pass out or I'm going to have a seizure or something, you know, like constant health anxiety and fear that I'm dying.

So you can imagine my headspace has definitely impacted my life, you know, obviously. Living in this state of mind will just have you in this constant state of anxiety and fear, which is so incredibly uncomfortable. You know, constantly feeling like, just constantly afraid. There's. There's a physical reaction that comes with that. Too much adrenaline, mental anguish. All of that comes with being in this type of mindset, which is also exhausting mentally and physically exhausting, right?

I found myself sleeping a lot during this time when it was really bad. I found myself unable to to be emotionally available in a lot of ways because I was so exhausted. My energy was probably not very fun to be around for the people who I love and want to spend time with. Because they're probably like, Emma's a fucking wreck, She's a wreck. Like she's so afraid, she doesn't want to do anything because she's afraid of everything.

And I was able to cover it up at times, but not all the time it would slip through the cracks. I was really struggling. And although I'm still experiencing it a little bit, it's gotten so much better for me. And I've been able to sort of work on this on my own.

And so I thought I would share with you how I got through this because it was fucking terrible. Now. Listen, everyone's problems and struggles and issues are relative, right? You know? Some of you might be looking at me living in this state of terror about bad things that could happen. And, you know, you could say to me. But Emma, nothing fucking bad happened. So wipe up the pity party and get the fuck out of here and shut the fuck up with all that.

I totally understand that.

Because what a miracle. It is that the worst thing that happened to me during this hard time was that I was just psychologically a mess, right? It would be so much worse if all of the bad things that I thought were going to happen did happen. And there are people out there where these bad things do fucking happen. You know, I don't want, you know, me talking about this to send a message that, oh, my life sucks, oh my life this, my life that.

Not at all. I just know that I'm not the only one that has dealt with this extreme paranoia and feeling of protectiveness around themselves that has gone too far. And so the only reason why I'm even bringing this up is to hopefully help someone else who is trying to get through this and find a healthy balance themselves. You know, like, just share my tips and tricks, how I fucking got through it, because it's something I've never experienced.

And my only goal here is to help someone. But it's not to say that like, I'm not asking for pity, I'm not asking for anything like that. This is all with hopes of helping somebody else who's going through the same thing. And it's an uncomfortable thing to talk about because it's almost like, in order to talk about this, you have to be coming from a really fortunate place where the bad things didn't happen.

You were just really scared that all the bad things were going to happen. And that is a fortunate, fortunate place to be in, and so I don't want to ignore that either. Being paranoid about yourself and being scared about your well-being is, in a weird way, a fortunate thing to have to worry about. Because there are some people who don't get to worry about it because the bad thing did happen to them. So, you know, I think that's important to mention.

So all of that to say, this is how I got through it. Number one, I really made it a priority to be mindful about the media that I consume. I am the poster child of talking about boundaries with the internet. I feel like very not Gen Z for this in a lot of ways. Because it's like, not the. I don't know if it's necessarily the cool thing to be. Like the grandma, who's like, we need to be setting boundaries with the internet. You know, it doesn't sound very meta, right?

But I've really, really tried to control the media that I consume, you know, like, when I'm online, I really try to focus on watching things that make me feel good, watching things that teach me something, looking at things that make me feel good, looking at things that teach me something. And I try to control the amount of news that I see. And whether it's turning off notifications from the news app on my phone. Or it's telling the algorithm on Instagram that I don't want to see news on my Explore page. By like, saying, I'm not interested in this or whatever, you can do that.

Same thing on YouTube, whether it's doing that, like whatever it may be, trying to get the news out of my peripheral. So that when I do decide, okay, it's time for me to check in on what's going on, I can do it in a controlled situation. Like, Okay, I'm making the choice right now for the next 30 minutes to go check in on what's going on. And it's like a controlled experience. Rather than it's sort of coming to me when I'm not ready at all times, right? Because it's on every platform, it's on every social media platform.

It's all over the internet at all times. I think sort of having a more controlled routine of consuming that type of information is healthy, and setting that boundary for yourself is really important. Also, not watching as many scary things like, you know, cutting back on the scary movies, cutting back on the crime documentaries, watching things that are uplifting a little bit more. It also really helped me to just face the fears. Every time I would fly on the plane and I would be so scared to do so by the end of the flight, I'd be like, Wow, I was wrong.

Everything was okay. Every time I slept home alone, when I maybe could have gone to my boyfriend's house, or gone to my mom's house, or done whatever. Every time I successfully slept through the night, I showed myself, Wow, I was wrong, you know, I misread that situation. Everything was fine. Every time I left the house, even though it was easier to just stay home, I showed myself, wow, that actually wasn't so bad, and it actually made my day better.

You know, bearing the pain in the fear over and over and over again, and forcing yourself through that discomfort eventually, over time, shows you. I have nothing to be afraid of. And that applies with so many things, that applies with so many things, I mean, it applies with much more mundane things. Like maybe you get anxiety going into taking a test or doing a job interview. The more you do it, the less afraid you get, because you start to realize, Wait a minute, there's really nothing to be afraid of.

It's like exposure therapy, in a way, right? So I sort of did exposure therapy with myself. Where I wouldn't let myself fold and go and run and hide to something more comfortable. When I was afraid, you know, when I was afraid of sleeping home alone, I would fucking push through it and just do it. You know what I mean, just do it.

I wouldn't go running and crying to my boyfriend or my mom.

It would be kind of tough to run to my dad because he lives a six hour drive away. But, you know, my boyfriend and my mom live a little too close. It would be easy to go and run to them. When I'm scared, you know what I mean, but I would force myself to just get through it. And eventually, it showed me what I think is an instinct, right? what I think is an instinct, something telling me, Oh my god, things are going to go wrong.

No, that's just my fear talking, you know what I'm saying? I think I started to convince myself that when I would get paranoid about something, that that was a sign that something bad was actually going to happen. When the truth was, I was just scared and hyper-analyzing the possibility that something bad could happen. And I was convincing myself that that bad thing was going to happen and that me being afraid was a sign that it was going to happen, right?

When, in reality, it was not really a sign, it was just me being scared and that was really helpful and to sort of go off that. Exposure. therapy, in a way, can help ease your mind and show you that being scared isn't a sign that the thing you're scared of is going to happen. It just means you're scared. But what goes hand in hand with that is the fact that still anything is possible.

Seeing that your fear and paranoia isn't a sign can help you to ease your fear and paranoia in the moment. Because you can tell yourself, well, this is not a sign. This is just how I am. I just am afraid of this, right? So it can help ease your fear a little bit. But what still remains is the fact that it could still happen at any time.

Anytime you go to do something that's scary for you, that could be the time where something bad happens. And so that doesn't just go away through exposure therapy, what that goes away through is accepting that bad things might happen. And this piece of it has been the hardest for me, accepting the fact that I can't control if bad things happen to me.

I can't control that anything is possible at any given moment, and all I can do is make smart choices. Take care of myself as much as I can without protecting myself from the world around me. To a point that isolates me and the rest I can't even worry about because it's out of my control. That's something that's easy for me some days and hard for me other days.

And it's something I'm still working on. But I think the combination of facing the fears and then accepting that the fears may, though, still happen is the perfect recipe. But one half of that is a bit harder than the other half. The acceptance is a huge challenge that I'm still working on. I've also been really focusing on gratitude.

When I find myself so afraid of something, flying on the plane, falling asleep alone, walking in the street, driving, whatever it might be, when I find myself afraid. I try to distract myself by running through a list of all the things I'm just so grateful for, which I know. Sounds like something your mom would say, or like your grandma, or your least favorite teacher, or your therapist, or something, think about what you're grateful for. But it's really true, it's really true.

Finding at least one thing that you can just be so grateful for. Whether it's the mere fact that you're just alive on this planet. Or it's your relationship with someone who's special to you, or it's something exciting that recently happened to you, whatever it might be, shifting your thought process and using that energy to just be grateful can really put things into perspective. Because a lot of this paranoia is diminishing the good things that are happening in your life, so I really try to replace it with gratitude as much as I can. It's hard, it's easier said than done.

But I really try to do that and last but not least, I sort of self-soothe myself. It's a great skill to have, takes practice. I have moments where I'm like the self-soothing queen and I find myself getting anxious. And I immediately think like, Okay, what do I need right now? What's going to help to relax me?

Do I need to exercise, do I need to move around a little bit? Is that going to help put things into perspective for me, or do I need to call someone that I love and just be social for a little bit? Is that going to help me?

Sometimes I'm really good at that, and sometimes I'm not. But in these moments when I'm afraid, I really lean into self-soothing, trying to find what's going to soothe me, what's going to relax me. Is it taking a hot shower, is it calling someone on the phone? is it exercising?

Is it going and running errands, is it facing a fear head on and just getting over it, pushing through it? Is that what would help soothe me, proving myself wrong? What is it, you know? Figuring out what's going to help you get through that moment and what's going to help put things into perspective for you, and then doing it.

That's it, that's all I got.

I really never thought that this would be something that would be so challenging for me. I just never, I've just never even experienced anything remotely similar to it, like, my mindset has only ever been the complete opposite. And so this is just a fascinating turn of events in Emma's little brain. But, you know, I'm on my way to finding that perfect, healthy balance.

And if this is something that you're struggling with, too, you'll get there too. Okay, it's just. It's a lot of practice and a lot of proving yourself wrong, and a lot of acceptance about the truth that the world is unfair. You know, we'll get through this together, and if you're not struggling with this or you don't struggle with this, rock on.

Regardless of if this is something you deal with or not, we got this. We're going to get through this together through rain, through shine. We will fucking get through it.

Anyway, thanks for hanging out, letting me have this one-sided, except not full. It's one-sided right now because I'm talking into the abyss of my room, but it's not really one-sided. Because you're somewhere right now. Listening So I appreciate you for listening and hanging out for my little therapy session. It was a pleasure. As it always is, you can follow anything goes where you stream podcasts.

For occasional video episodes, though, you got to be on Spotify, okay, that is where you can see me talk occasionally. Follow Anything goes on Instagram at Anythinggoes or on Twitter at AGPodcast. Follow me if you want at Emma Chamberlain.

Check out my coffee company, Chamberlain Coffee, if you'd like. Today, I'm drinking a little cold brew, literally the same shit. I'm always drinking a cold brew. That's not true, actually.

Sometimes I'll have a little herbal tea, or I'll have a little matcha latte, or I'll have a little hot latte. It happens, but for the most part, I'm a creature of habit. You can use code AG15 for 15 off on Chamberlaincoffee.com. Check in with Anything Goes every Thursday and Sunday for a new episode. I always appreciate the time we spend together and I'm just so grateful that you hung out with me today.

So thank you so much and I hope you have the most beautiful, awesome day and I will talk to you very soon. And until then, just keep being awesome and tough and a badass, because that is what you're so fucking good at. So keep fucking doing it and don't stop doing it all right. I'll talk to you later.