Give Me Space but Don’t Go Far – My Unlikely Friendship with Anxiety

by Soph Myers-Kelley

Weaver introduces us to her first childhood experience with anxiety that she can remember—late at night in her bed, unable to sleep, listening to her anxiety catastrophize and create “what if?” terrible scenarios. She becomes worried that her parents might not return, and her babysitter would have to be her mom—and the babysitter probably doesn’t make as delicious pancakes as her mom does! Weaver shares her lifelong relationship with anxiety in a whimsical and soft-hearted way. In fact, she illustrates with hearts to represent people in her book, and a scribbly little scrunched black ball is her creative representation for her anxiety. These depictions make for a simple and direct way to express very complicated and adult subjects in a more picture-book type way.

As a young child, she works with a school counselor to learn that some of her techniques for coping with anxiety aren’t working as well as she would hope. Some of these include throwing tantrums, hiding, and avoiding being emotionally vulnerable by deflecting questions and situations. These coping mechanisms are personified too, making conversation with the heart as she navigates difficult situations where anxiety shows up.

As we see Weaver grow through K-12, into college, and navigating a big move to Seattle from her North Carolina hometown, we see how anxiety comes along with her. New coping mechanisms arise as she ages, too, which include the liar, the compartmentalizer, the partier, the swimmer, the astronaut and many, many more. Some of them support her in her more difficult periods of life–others exasperate and inflame life issues.

While this isn’t directly addressed by the author, I found the parts, anxiety and coping mechanisms, having conversations with one another in her memoir very similar to parts therapy, a therapy style where we communicate with different parts within us in order to come to some better sense of wholeness and understanding of why we behave the way we do, whether our needs and desires are being met or not, and what we can do about it. This is especially poignant in one of the last conversations between Weaver and her anxiety. Not to spoil anything, but we learn the inner workings of why her anxiety works the way it does—and the little ball of anxiety within me felt heart-warmed by the reasons Weaver’s anxiety shares.

Give Me Space But Don’t Go Far offers great representation on a wide variety of health topics- perfect for people wanting to learn more about anxiety, but also depression, alcohol use disorder, peer pressure, panic attacks, and treatments for some of the aforementioned mental health conditions.

______________________________________________

Soph Myers-Kelley is a medical librarian, herbalist, and activist living in North Carolina. They can be contacted at https://www.smyerskelley.com/ and followed at https://www.instagram.com/sophmyerskelley/