May Free Chapter - The Little Book of Anxiety by Kerri Sackville

The Little Book

of Anxiety

The Little Book of Anxiety

Confessions from a Worried Life

Kerri Sackville

Kerri Sackville

Confessionsfrom aWorriedLife

The Little Bookof Anxiety

is for anyone who has experienced

anxiety – which is pretty much everyone.

It is a funny book about a serious subject:

the ways in which anxiety can impact on

your life and the lives of those around you.

With humour, insight and searing honesty, Kerri

Sackville opens up about the trials and sheer

absurdities of living a worried life. From crazed

nailbiting, to becoming hysterical in a jammed

lift, to fearing her husband is dead when he's

late home from work, Kerri has done it all.

If you know the agonies of sleepless nights,

regularly jump to Worst-Case Scenario,

or drive your loved ones mad with your

irrational fears, then this book may very

well save your sanity.

9 781742 755366

ISBN 978-1-74275-536-6www.randomhouse.com.au

Cover illustration adapted from original

by Justine Beckett, Getty Images

Cover design by Christabella Designs

NON-FICTION Author of When My Husband Does the Dishes . . .

LBOA_cover_Layout 1 15/02/12 2:04 PM Page 1

Copyright © Kerri Sackville 2012. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

http://www.randomhouse.com.au/books/kerri-sackville/the-little-book-of-anxiety-confessions-from-a-worried-life-9781742755366.aspx

Kerri Sackville narrowly missed out on Hollywood superstardom when she came runner-up to Nicole Kidman for the lead role in BMX Bandits. She went on to university, and over the next decade worked variously as a social worker, headhunter, admin assistant and – for one brief, bizarre period – a weight loss consultant.

After the birth of her second child, Kerri began doing the only thing she has ever been really good at. Writing.

Kerri Sackville is now an author, columnist and social media addict. Her blog, Life and Other Crises (at kerrisackville.com), details the daily dramas of her life as a forty-something wife, mum, friend, chaos wrangler and owner of an improbably white house.

Kerri has written extensively for mainstream media and online publications, including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Telegraph, Sunday Life magazine, the Child group of magazines, Notebook, Mamamia.com and Australian Women Online. She currently writes regular columns for Practical Parenting Magazine, The Australian Jewish News and the website Daily Life.

Kerri lives in Sydney with her architect husband, their three children and an accident-prone rabbit. When she is not writing, looking after the kids or cleaning the house, she enjoys tweeting, drinking caffeine with friends and lying extremely still on the couch.

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The Little Bookof AnxietyConfessions from a Worried Life

Kerri Sackville

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An Ebury Press bookPublished by Random House Australia Pty LtdLevel 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060www.randomhouse.com.au

First published by Ebury Press in 2012

Copyright © Kerri Sackville 2012

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia.

Extract p. 191 reproduced with permission from Robert Brault.

Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at www.randomhouse.com.au/offices

National Library of AustraliaCataloguing-in-Publication Entry

Sackville, Kerri.The little book of anxiety / Kerri Sackville.

ISBN 978 1 74275 536 6 (pbk.)

Sackville, Kerri – Humor.Anxiety.Panic attacks.Phobias.Self-care, Health.

152.46

Cover illustration adapted from original by Justine Beckett, Getty ImagesCover design by Christabella DesignsInternal design by Midland Typesetters, AustraliaTypeset in Sabon 11/17 pt by Midland Typesetters, AustraliaAuthor photograph p. i by Natnee Buppapirak

Printed in Australia by Griffin Press, an accredited ISO AS/NZS 14001:2004 Environmental Management System printer

Random House Australia uses papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

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5

A Born Worrier

Anxiety in children is originally nothing other than an expression

of the fact they are feeling the loss of the person they love.

Sigmund Freud, neurologist and psychologist

All I have to do is close my eyes and I am there again, four years old

and utterly bereft. I am lying alone under my quilt, sobbing fat tears

of distress and missing my mum.

I adored my mother. As a little girl I loved nothing more than to

watch her as she got ready for a big night. I would perch on her bath

in my nightie, breathing in the sweet, sharp smell of her perfume,

fascinated as she applied her eye shadow and mascara, wondering at

the silkiness of her dress.

She was beautiful.

My mother was my safe place. She was everything to me. She was

my cuddles, my reassurance, my warmth, my love, my everything-

will-be-okay.

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6

KERRI SACKVILLE

My mother patted me to sleep. She soothed my worries. She

enfolded me and made me calm.

But that night, she wasn’t there. I was alone, and frightened,

and rapidly becoming panic-stricken. My mum was gone. She had

promised me she’d be back but that was ages ago and I didn’t know

how long I could hold out, huddled in my big-girl bed with my baby

doll under one arm and my stuffed Doggie under the other.

I stared at my white bedroom door, willing it to open. I visualised

my mum walking through, heading over to my bed with her blonde

curls and high heels and her sweet mummy smell. But she wasn’t

coming.

I sobbed harder. My mum was never coming. I needed my mum

and she wasn’t there! She wasn’t there!

The thing is, though . . . well . . . that wasn’t actually strictly

true. My mum was there. She hadn’t left me at all. She was right

outside my door, laughing, greeting guests and carrying plates of

canapés. My parents were holding a dinner party, and my mum

was simply doing her job, being the perfect hostess. What’s more,

before the party had begun she had tucked me into bed, kissed me

goodnight and told me that she loved me. I had no reason to be

afraid or forlorn.

But I was.

I couldn’t fall asleep, and I wanted my mum, but at that moment

my mum was out of reach. Instead of belonging to me she belonged

to my father, and their guests, and the bustle of the party. She was

out in the hallway, but she may as well have been on the other side

of the world as far as I was concerned, because she certainly wasn’t

where I needed her to be.

‘Mummy!’ I cried, my face red and swollen. Tears dripped down

my cheeks and onto Doggie’s head. ‘Mummeeeee!’

I could hear women’s tinkling laughter, my father’s voice offering





7

THE LITTLE BOOK OF ANXIETY

drinks, the sound of the doorbell ringing as more guests arrived.

Footsteps up and down the hall, music on the record player, glasses

being clinked together.

The sounds of the party were a wall between my mother and me.

I hated those adults invading our home. I longed for my mum and I

was becoming more and more hysterical. When would she be back?

Would she ever come back to me?

‘Mummeeeee!’ I sobbed. ‘Mummeeeeeee!’

I wanted to go out looking for her, but there were strangers in

my house and I was too embarrassed to appear in front of them

in my long, purple flannel nightie. So I just lay there in my bed and

continued to sob. And sobbed. And sobbed some more. And called

out repeatedly, ‘Mummeeeeeee! Mummeeeeeeeeee!!!!!’

Eventually, my mother heard my howls. There were hurried steps,

and then my doorknob turned and light bled into my room.

‘Darling!’ said my mother, my beautiful, safe mummy. ‘Sweet-

heart, what’s the matter?’

Relief flooded through me, releasing my tension, and I sobbed

even harder. ‘I . . . missed . . . you!’ I cried through gulping breaths.

‘I . . . thought . . . you . . . weren’t . . . coming back!’

‘I didn’t go anywhere!’ she said, and stroked my forehead. ‘I

was in the other room with my friends. I would never go anywhere

without telling you!’

I nodded. I suddenly felt very sleepy.

‘Will you go to sleep now?’ she asked. ‘I’ll come and check on you

a bit later.’ She kissed me twice and tucked the covers around me.

‘See you in the morning, darling.’

As I felt myself drifting off to sleep, I told myself I wouldn’t worry

anymore. My mum and dad loved me. There was nothing to be

afraid of.

And yet somehow, there always was.





8

KERRI SACKVILLE

• • •

I was a hideously anxious child, and that made life very difficult for

all around me. The biggest problem was that I really had nothing to

be anxious about, at least not at the age of four or five. I had parents

who loved me, and a cute younger sister. It’s not like I had to go out

to work in the coalmines, or perform in child beauty pageants, or

practise violin for three hours a day.

But I was anxious, and that anxiety needed an outlet. And so

I worried endlessly about the worst possible thing that could ever

befall a small child.

I worried about being deserted.

Night after night, I would lie awake in my bed, alert, vigilant and

listening for evidence of abandonment. In particular, I would listen

for the sound of cars. My bedroom was at the front of our house,

adjoining the street, and my window looked right into our carport.

As an unfortunate consequence of this accident of geography, I could

hear every car that drove past our house. And every time I did, I

would panic that it was my parents, sneaking out, driving away and

deserting me.

Car doors slamming made my heart skip a beat. Car engines

starting almost made me faint. Time and time again I would bound

out of bed, run to the window, lift the heavy green drapes and check

frantically to see if my parents’ car was still in the drive.

Sometimes the sight of their red Volvo was enough to reassure

me. I could trust that they were still at home, and still looking after

me; or at least, trust enough to slip back under the covers and go

to sleep.

Sometimes, however, even seeing their car wasn’t enough to calm

my fears. After all, who knew what devious lengths my parents

would take to get away from me? What if they had escaped by taxi?

What if they had packed their bags and fled by foot? How would I





9


survive? I would be left all alone with my younger sister, with no one

to love us or look after us. Or perhaps my parents would leave with

my sister in tow and I would be absolutely all alone. I would die by

myself, in the scary dark house, because my mummy and daddy ran

away forever . . .

By this stage I would have worked myself up into a state of

complete agitation. I couldn’t sleep – I couldn’t even close my eyes –

until I had crept out of my room and tiptoed down the hall, to see if

I could spot my mother somewhere in the house. I would glimpse her

in the kitchen tidying up, or on the couch watching TV, or chatting

to a friend on the phone. Once I saw her and knew that she was still

there with me, I could quell my anxieties and tiptoe back to bed.

And then I would fall immediately into sleep. After all, the panic was

utterly exhausting.

I don’t know why I thought my parents were going to abandon

me. They had never left my sister and me without saying goodbye,

let alone left us in the house completely unsupervised. My parents

adored us. Neither of them did anything scary, or hit us, or had wild

parties, or brought strangers home to stay. They didn’t drink, or

smoke pot, or engage in other criminal activities, or leave us sitting

for hours in a car park while they went to play the pokies. I had

absolutely no reason to worry they were going to leave my sister and

me in the middle of the night.

I guess I didn’t need a reason.

I didn’t tell my parents about my abandonment issues when

I was a child. I didn’t confess my fears to them until I was well

into my twenties. My mother, not surprisingly, was devastated

at the news.

‘But why were you worried we’d desert you?’ she cried. ‘We

never snuck out of the house! We never, ever left you without saying

goodbye!’ And it was true.





10

KERRI SACKVILLE

‘And you always had lovely babysitters!’ she added. Okay, so

that part wasn’t completely true. Did she not remember Steffie,

the ancient, bald woman in grey who made my sister and me sit in

the dark so that we didn’t ‘waste electricity’? Not exactly ‘lovely’.

However, Steffie wasn’t really relevant. Nothing my mother could

offer was relevant. There was no reason for my anxiety. Anxiety isn’t

rational. And neither was I.

Despite my anxieties, I have many wonderful memories of my

childhood. I was very close to my family, particularly my mum and

my sister. I went to a nice school and had lots of play dates. I did

after-school activities like ballet and tennis, had plenty of toys and

loved the Super Friends cartoons on Saturday mornings. I remember

snuggling in bed with my dad reading books, going on family

trips to a friend’s farm, sitting on the couch with our cat, Sam, and

deconstructing every single episode of Young Talent Time with

my sister.

But wherever I went, and whatever I did, I wore my anxiety like

a backpack. I carried it with me to school, to friends’ houses, at

home, even to bed. Sometimes the pack was heavy, sometimes it was

lighter, but it was always with me, day in, day out.

I’d been carrying that backpack throughout my life. Not only did

I not know how to take it off, I wasn’t even aware that I could.

I worried incessantly throughout my childhood, about matters

large and small.

I worried terribly that I was going to get kidnapped while I was

walking to school, which was literally one block down the road in a

nice suburban neighbourhood, full of families, gentle elderly people

and soft, fluffy kittens. I would walk nervously, wary of every man

(and some women) who passed, and flinching at the cars that drove





11


by fearing that an arm would shoot out and grab me and drag me

into the car. Needless to say I always walked very quickly.

I worried constantly that my parents were going to get divorced.

Now, my parents never said that they were going to get divorced. As

far as I am aware, they never came close to getting divorced. But

they did have arguments, and those arguments terrified me. I would

see them in conflict and know for a fact that this meant that they

were going to split up, which in turn meant that my world would

completely collapse. So I would run between them, crying hysterically

and screaming in panic, ‘Don’t get divorced! Don’t get divorced!’

My parents would then need to turn from each other to attend to me,

sobbing and dishevelled on the floor, which meant that the argument

was postponed for another time. So I guess it worked.

I worried a great deal about my friendships. I spent a lot of time

fretting that my friend Nat would stop liking me, or that Ella would

be angry at me, or that Louise – one of the ‘cool’ girls – would come

between me and Michelle. And to a certain extent my worries were

justified. Friendships can be tenuous when you’re a kid, and girls in

particular can be really mean. In the microcosm of school, minor

conflicts can become major issues. There are frequent episodes of

‘not speaking’ to each other, and there are other girls waiting to

pounce from the wings and take your best friend away from you at

the first hint of a fight.

Some kids roll with the punches better than others, but

I would take these interpersonal dramas extremely badly.

‘Julia doesn’t like me anymore!’ I sobbed to my mum after a

falling-out with a close friend. And you know what? She actually

didn’t. We’d been close for years, but now Julia was twelve, and

about to become a teenager, whilst I was a year younger and still

very much a little girl. She was wearing a bra, she was interested in

boys (really interested, as opposed to being content to admire them





12

KERRI SACKVILLE

from afar), and she occasionally wore lipstick. I was as flat as a

board, didn’t even have my ears pierced, and wouldn’t have known

what to do with a boy if he’d approached me with chocolate bars

and a ticket to a Young Talent Time concert.

It was natural for Julia and me to grow apart. She moved on to

Sarah – another blossoming pre-teen – and I stayed behind with

my less mature friends. Still, the rejection was devastating, and it

took me a full term to recover. What’s worse, a pervasive insecu-

rity remained in my other relationships, an insecurity that lingered

throughout my schooldays and beyond.

I also worried a great deal about going on holidays. While I

enjoyed going to visit my grandparents interstate, or staying in their

holiday house up north, I became highly anxious when travelling

anywhere else. I was a child who needed routine and constancy, so

any change in my environment would inevitably cause me a lot of

stress. This was ironic, because my parents adored travelling and

took my sister and me on frequent interstate trips and overseas

holidays. Every time, I was an absolute nightmare. I would start to

become unsettled in the car or plane, and would be completely out

of sorts by the time we arrived at our destination. There was nothing

specifically wrong; I just wanted to be home. Home was safe and

familiar and easy. Being away was scary and foreign and unpredict-

able. I hated not knowing where we would go during the day, where

we would eat our dinner or where the toilet would be if I needed

to wee. I would grizzle and complain and be unhappy and fretful,

which must have been delightful for my long-suffering family. I also

wouldn’t sleep for the first few nights in any new bed, which meant

that my parents and sister didn’t get a lot of sleep, either.

The general wisdom is that kids are flexible and adapt readily

to their lifestyles. In my case, this wisdom proved to be a myth.

I never did get used to travelling, and continued to be anxious





13


and unsettled every time I was away from home. Still, my parents

persisted in taking us on holidays, and by the time I was twelve,

though I had had some wonderful experiences, I had been grumpy

and tired all over the world.

My last and most profound childhood anxiety was to worry

about infinity.

Actually, I didn’t so much worry about infinity as harbour an

overwhelming terror of the concept. Infinity haunted me, and I would

ruminate on it in bed, night after night after night, until I’d worked

myself up into an overpowering frenzy of fear.

I don’t do my Infinity Freak-Out anymore, as I’ve learned to

control that particular destructive behaviour. I suspect, however,

that if I put my mind to it, I could still use it to induce quite a decent

panic attack. The Infinity Freak-Out is powerful and horrifying, and

I had it down to a fine art.

Instructions for an Infinity Freak-Out

1. Lie in bed with the lights off and the door closed. Drown

out the faint sounds of the TV or your family with your

own thoughts.

2. Think about death. Think about dying. Think about

YOU dying. Realise that you are going to die one day,

that there is no way you can halt this inevitable march

to your own doom. You could die any minute. You

could die now. Immerse yourself in the thought.

Feel death hovering over you, ready to snatch you up at

any second.

3. Once you can feel death nearby, start thinking about

what happens after death. Some part of you, the ‘you-

ness’ inside you, the you-ness you can feel – your soul,





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KERRI SACKVILLE

your spirit – will continue on in some form. It has to.

I mean, where else will it go?

4. Once you have thoroughly convinced yourself of this

point, reflect on how long this you-ness (soul, spirit) will

live on. Forever. It will live on FOREVER. Forever and ever

and ever and ever and EVER. Never ending. Infinity. Keep

meditating on this, for ten, twenty, thirty minutes, until

the panic sets in and you start to shake and you have to

call your mother in to help calm you down. Assuming, of

course, that she is there on the couch and hasn’t escaped

from the house . . .





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May Free Chapter - The Little Book of Anxiety by Kerri Sackville