Anxiety and publishing

Time to be a little vulnerable

I’m going to be super vulnerable and tell you about something that happened to me this past year. I’m sharing this because I suspect many other writers deal with it too.

Over the past year, I fell down a deep anxiety hole. We’re talking through-the-looking-glass deep. It started small at first, but grew, snowball style, to the point where I stopped going to the grocery store or seeing friends. Walking the dog became a challenge. Then I stopped going out of the house. Then sitting in my office chair became difficult. I was on the verge of a panic attack at any moment.

It sucked.

There are several root causes for why this happened that I won’t go into here, but anxiety is often irrational, difficult to talk about or describe, and resembles a runaway steam locomotive.

I got help. Not the right kind of help, at first. It took three very dark months of waiting and dealing with doctors and appointments. I made some major changes in life to cope: quit my full time job, stopped all caffeine (this sucked a lot), went on meds (which I didn’t want to do because I’d been on them before and they’re hell to get off), and shut off all things I could not do. I could not drive across the Bay Bridge. Definitely could not visit family or get on a plane.

A doodle I drew of myself, inspired by Anxietyland by Gemma Correll

One of the things I could not do was public events.

I’d already said no to the LA Times Book Festival (I was asked to do a signing in a bookseller booth). But it was a really awful moment when I told my book publicist (and then my agent and editor) that I didn’t think I could do events in August to launch my book The Enigma Challenge, especially because for the first time, bookstores were requesting me. My team was super supportive, but saying no felt wrong on all levels. If I said no, would they drop all support and publicity? If I said no, would there ever be another chance?

Had I just blown it?

So when my agent asked if I thought I could work towards the launch, I said yes even though I secretly thought “hell no.” Guys, the way this launch loomed heavy in my mind. I couldn’t even think about it without shaking.

But one thing I excel at is goal setting and planning. I also HATED feeling on the verge of a panic attack at the slightest provocation, like sitting at a red light or any place where I felt remotely trapped. I could only drive in the slow lane on the freeway in case I needed to pull over or exit fast, when I could drive at all. I was SO OVER IT. I didn’t want a limited life like this.

The kicker came when my 15 year old son needed to be picked up and we were making plans and I said, “I work from home, I can pick you up,” and he looked at me and said, “Come on. Really?” Ouch.

So I made a goddamn plan.

First, I want to say how privileged I am to have healthcare and support. Not everyone does, or the support isn’t in place, or any number of things that make it feel insurmountable to get better. It’s a really shit landscape of help options for people and once you’re in a hole, climbing out without help feels impossible. Quitting a full time job is not something most people can do (I went freelance and even that isn’t something most can do). So there’s a LOT of help here that was available to me that isn’t there for others. I don’t take that lightly.

Here’s what I did:

1/ I got on meds. You can absolutely deal with crippling anxiety without meds, you really, really can, but I had to suppress the constant spikes and valleys of fight-or-flight in order to get to the point where I could build. It was the right choice for me.

But the uptake period for these meds was brutal. Like chopped off head, childbirth brutal. (Okay, not childbirth, but almost.) It was almost three weeks of barely being able to get out of bed; 24/7 digestive issues, of having to make a plan each morning to force myself up, drink ginger tea for the pervasive nausea, force toast into my mouth, lie on my side to stop the constant jitters, and watch a calm TV show so my brain would stop spinning. (I watched the Victoria series on Netflix; it was the perfect blend of slow drama and sumptuous scenery without a lot of jerky movements. I tried The Office first as a comfort show but the way the camera moves in that made me motion sick, a thing that had never happened before in the 9 seasons of watching it.) I had to stop everything in life to get through this. I can’t imagine having small children or a demanding job that doesn’t allow this. For those who do have those responsibilities, you still get through it, but it’s so much harder.

2/ I got regular therapy with a therapist who tells me things like “Do that uncomfortable thing at least 5 times,” which I appreciate, and who also teaches me new coping tools.

3/ My friend Claire, who owns the Wild Sisters Book Co in Sacramento, devised a plan for me to do low-stakes author events in advance of my book launch. She had me do a signing at the launch of her, second store—there was no agenda, no pressure, just a comforting space. It worked. I had a great time. She also had me come up and help with some store-related things, none of which I actually helped with, but which made me think I did, and it felt like a win.

Doing well here (June 27). Sold most of this book stock even though I was sure no one would care. They did! They bought them!

4/ I am meeting with the owners of the bookstore where I’m having my launch, Mrs. Dalloway’s in Berkeley, to discuss how to mitigate any issues (I already know I need a fan blasting on me). They are incredible and supportive. I am also meeting with my in-conversation partner, author Michelle Chouinard, who understood immediately and was ready to support me too. In the past, I would have never mentioned it to anyone involved, and have done my best to hide it all like an injured cat, but I didn’t see the point in that this time. I need help.

5/ I am attending book launch events at the store where my launch will be. One of those was for author-illustrator Gemma Correll, whose book Anxietyland is a hilarious and amazing graphic novel that takes you through what it is like to have heinous anxiety and what Gemma herself did to get help. It seemed like a perfect fit. And it was! I definitely struggled at her launch, but getting through it was key for me.

6/ I didn’t hide in silence. I told friends. I am telling you. I am being open about it. My husband and my friends and family have been ENORMOUSLY supportive and that’s because I was very honest about this. This is also one of those areas where I’m so lucky; I have done it alone before years ago and it’s so much harder. But if there isn’t a good support team in place, fuck it. Do it yourself. You can.

7/ I said yes to that launch event. I mean, yes, it took 2 months of meds to be able to say yes, and saying yes was a MASSIVE deal that almost sent me down the toilet flush of panic attacks. But once I said yes, the other steps in my plan came together. For the first time, I don’t want to hide when I think about it. It’s August 11 and while I don’t know what will happen, I feel much better equipped to handle it.

I am functioning again.

I have a cup of coffee now.

It isn’t perfect or resolved; I still get anxious. I am anxious now. Some days it feels like two steps forward, one back, and some days it feels like three or four steps forward, one back. Sometimes are just bad ones. It feels like I have a constrictive metal collar on, and I’m unsure it will ever leave although now I think someday it will. The launch event looms large in my head for some reason. I overheat. I get dizzy. I still have to say no to things, but I’m saying yes to more and more. There’s a solid light at the end of the tunnel—maybe I’m even close to the end of the tunnel—where before it was pure darkness.

This post is not a pity ploy. It’s an admission that you can be doing EXACTLY what you want to be doing in life—writing books! Publishing them! Selling film rights! Enjoying healthcare and support!—and still feel deeply ugly inside.

It’s a reminder that you can dig yourself out of a hole, that things change.

One of the flip sides of anxiety is depression. I don’t really have that, and I’m grateful because I have had it in the past.

There is so much about publishing that can kick this off or exacerbate anxiety and depression: long stretches of silence from your editor during which you are sure you have been forgotten or fallen into the Disliked Authors bin. The envy: when you see an author who has a literary agent but you haven’t signed with one despite trying SO hard for years, or then you have one and everyone else has a pub deal but you, and then you get one but it wasn’t at auction and the advance wasn’t even enough to put a down payment on a used Toyota Corolla with 285,000 miles on it while every other author is seemingly making snow angels out of their dollar bills.

Or then they get starred industry reviews and blurbs from huge bestselling authors while everyone else said no to you, or they ARE a bestselling author; when everyone else is getting approached—APPROACHED, RATHER THAN HAVING TO BEG!—by others for interviews, and their DMs are so inundated with reader messages that they have to turn them off and your DMs are always open but empty; all of this can make you feel so ugly and anxious. In my case, when you see authors with three whole slides of tour dates, and you’re like “I might be able to do one if I medicate myself, but IDK,” you feel pretty ugly.

Or when you read industry round-ups of announced book deals but yours isn’t included and a rotten part of your brain whispers, “That’s because yours isn’t interesting enough.”

There are a thousand ways to feel ugly inside. I battle them constantly.

But I am doing that launch event.

Whatever you battle, give yourself space, be as nice as possible to yourself. Set new boundaries. Eat cake as a treat. Turn to friends, get help, be vulnerable. Your story might help someone when they needed it most.

As Gemma Correll says in her book Anxietyland,

“You can handle so much more than you think you can . . . Anxiety lies to you and tells you you’re not strong enough. But you are.”

🫣 🧟