Making friends with anxiety

Or how Melissa McCarthy is my spirit guide

When I was growing up I was besieged by anxiety. I can see that now. I ran from it most days. So lost myself in busy-ness. Then drugs when I was in my late teens. Then motherhood which in the early days meant me running with a buggy - trying to basically out-run the anxiety that was on my tail at all times. I once ran out of the house and didn’t even have my daughter tied in. She almost fell out. I did a few crazy things like that. It is genetic. Also trauma. I was talking to my therapist this week and she had a useful suggestion. ‘So when you’re feeling this anxious part of yourself, who do you feel that she is?’ she asked. I didn’t hesitate. ‘It’s my teenage self.’ I told her about my teenage years- she knew about most of this stuff but not the bit about how I’d tried to once overdose because I was so anxious and just wanted some peace. We had talked about this episode before but this time she said that she wanted me to try and talk to that teenage part of me. The anxious one. The one that has been showing up a lot this week. ‘Imagine a person that you’d like to talk to this teenage you,’ - she suggested, ‘It could be a family figure or it could be a famous people or it could even be yourself but a more grown up you.’ Quickly I closed my eyes and I thought of Melissa McCarthy. The Hollywood actress. The one from Bridesmaids (and many other brilliantly funny films). I have no idea WHY but there was something about the energy of this woman that I felt would help this teenage me.