Posted on

Measuring Anxiety and Depression Through Color and Stages

As I work to keep my mind and body in check during the pandemic, two older tools have proven useful: the Anxiety Rainbow and the Five Stages of Depression. The idea is that by measuring what you’re going through, you can take steps to manage those feelings and stay in the game.*

This isn’t a scientific breakdown, of course. It’s simply how I’ve learned to process what I feel.

Mood Music:

The Five Colors of the Anxiety Rainbow

To get a better handle on anxiety, I try to label the different kinds of anxiousness based on the first five colors of Newton’s primary color system:

  • Red. This is the worst of the worst, the type of anxiety that makes you feel like you’re at death’s door. I used to suffer from this one all the time: a cold sweat breaking out on my forehead, my heart pounding so violently that I thought it would break bones, my feet tingling and a constant feeling of having to throw up. Fear is the trigger for this one, the kind of fear that made me not want to go places, take risks or live life in general.
    Remedies: For me, Prozac has been a very effective weapon against red anxiety, as has my faith and, more recently, meditation.
  • Orange. Fear plays a big role in this anxiety as well, but unlike red, orange is usually rooted in something stressful that is really happening in your life. You could be fighting a serious medical issue and worrying about losing the fight. You could be having financial trouble that results in routine stress but the anxiety magnifies it to monstrous proportions.
    Remedies: Medication has helped here, too, as has reconstituting my exercise regimen.
  • Yellow. This anxiety is usually triggered by a lot of sustained stress at work or home. Maybe your marriage has hit a rough patch or your job is riding on the success or failure of a huge project. To get through it, your body pumps more adrenaline than you need, and you get the overwhelmed feeling that keeps you from seeing the order of work items and their level of completion. The news business is a perfect place to experience this because you face daily deadlines and a tongue lashing from your bosses if a competitor gets a big story instead of you. I don’t experience that today, but when I worked for newspapers, yellow anxiety was always with me.
    Remedies: Therapy, medicine, a heart-to-heart talk with the boss and, if necessary, a job or even a career change have all helped me. I made the career change in 2004. The medicine and therapy followed.
  • Green. This anxiety appears when the less-frequent stresses spark up. I recall one day six years ago when I was already ramped up after spending an evening at the hospital holding vigil while my father faced emergency surgery that ultimately didn’t happen. The plumber was coming to install a new dishwasher and to pound my mind into submission, I went on a chore spree. Then my cell phone died for good, and I had to spend the afternoon replacing it. The latter two events are problems we’re lucky to have, since the alternative is being too broke to afford these things. But it sent the day on a trajectory I hadn’t anticipated.
    Remedies: The only cure for this one is to reach the end of the day and go to bed.
  • Blue. This is a small, sustained level of anxiety so slight that you usually don’t see it for what it is. It’s generally a byproduct of depression. In my case, blue anxiety shows itself in the winter, when a lack of daylight sends me into blue moods.
    Remedies: Activity helps me the most with blue anxiety. Writing helps a lot, as does work.

5 Stages of Depression: Like Grief, But Different

There are plenty of articles out there about the so-called five stages of grief. Based on my experiences in that department, I find the writings mostly accurate and valuable.

I also found that these stages convert nicely to describe the course of my depressions.

  1. Denial and isolation. Things start to go wrong, but you’re not immediately aware of them. Your short-term memory starts to slip, you become disorganized, and you protest when those who love and know you best suggest you may be heading for an episode. You respond by clamming up and ignoring friends when they ask you to have coffee. You spend a lot more time on the couch.
  2. Anger. After too many days in denial, you start to realize you’re slipping into depression. This makes you angry, and you start taking it out on those around you. Your self-worth begins to sink, and you start to feel like you can’t do anything right. This leads to more anger, self-loathing, and self-pity.
  3. Bargaining. During grief, this is the stage where a person repeatedly goes over the what-ifs: what if the loved one had gotten medical attention sooner, what if you’d recognized the problem for what is was, and so on. With depression, the bargaining works a bit differently: You play the blame game with the world around you. You’re depressed because of work. You’re depressed because of a disagreeable family member. If the depression is really bad, you blame anyone and anything but the disease within your own brain.
  4. Melancholy. With grief, the fourth stage is depression. Within depression itself, the fourth stage is melancholy, at least in my experience. A deep sadness and hopelessness take hold in your gut after too many successive days of feeling like shit. It becomes hard to do most basic daily tasks.
  5. Acceptance. After a while, you realize you have a few choices. The most extreme choice is suicide. I’ve never seriously considered it, but I know people who have and, sadly, gone through with it. Another choice is to start doing things to emerge from the depression. For me, that involves talking to people and writing to get the feelings off my chest. The other step is to re-embrace coping tools. It’s not like flipping a switch; it’s more like rebooting a computer. It takes time to start using your coping tools effectively again and more time for them to make a difference. But acceptance is a start.

With COVID-19, I’m at acceptance now and I’m grateful for it.

* While I’ve written about these tools before, they’re often used together so I’ve aggregated them into one post.

Posted on

Should You Worry About Another Great Depression?

Early in this crisis, a friend made pronouncements some of us called out as fearmongering. One thing he kept saying was that the virus would cause an economic depression.

My friend has been proven right about a lot of things concerning COVID-19 these last few months. Could he be right about this, too?

The word “recession” is uncomfortable. The word “depression” can be downright terrifying, especially when “great” appears before it.

Mood Music:

I’ve been thinking a lot about all the periods of economic distress I’ve lived through, particularly those of my adult working years.

There was the early 1990s recession that led to Bill Clinton’s election as president. I was in college, so it didn’t affect me as much. The recession that followed the dot-com bust and 9-11 terrorist attacks in the early 2000s was the first where I worried about layoffs. Then came 2008 and the Great Recession. I worried about my job then, as well. I was lucky and stayed employed through both downturns.

Am I worried about job security this time around? I’ll put it this way: I never take job security as a guarantee — in good economic times or bad.

I am confident that my industry is in a good position to weather the storm. With the pandemic sending so many people into work-from-home situations and state-sponsored hackers out to exploit the chaos, information security is more important than ever. Still, it would be foolish for any industry to consider itself immune.

Indeed, some of my industry peers are worried, particularly younger folks who were still in school during the last recession. This is the first time they’re worried about being laid off. And this may turn out to be the worst downturn America has seen since the 1930s.

With these worries, I’m hearing from friends experiencing anxiety and depression. Despite my own optimism about getting through this downturn, I’m feeling it, too.

This downturn started through an unprecedented sequence of events. But the underlying economy was strong, unlike past downturns where underlying economic fissures expanded and ruptured.

Also unlike previous downturns, though, society abruptly applied the breaks, deeming social distancing necessary to manage COVID-19. Was that the right course? Time will tell.

A rapid post-pandemic recovery is wishful thinking for several reasons. Yet we won’t necessarily experience the protracted economic paralysis of the Great Depression. We’re in a different time and place. That’s cold comfort to the millions who have already lost their jobs, however.

Though I’ve been lucky at avoiding layoffs up to this point, more than a few colleagues and friends did lose their jobs in the most recent recessions. All went on to new opportunities and have achieved new levels of success. They networked, expanded their skill sets and persisted as new opportunities arose.

It’s an unsettled time. While we have past crises to guide us through, we can’t know exactly how things will go. They’ll probably get worse before they get better, because that’s how life generally goes.

But things will get better. Life generally goes like that, as well.

Keep the faith, and take things one day at a time, work your asses off and always — always — develop backup plans.

Posted on

Truth-Based Fears: Helping Us Adapt

This blog has dealt extensively with fear, specifically how I’ve let it disrupt my life in the past — ruining what should have been moments of joy and causing moments of embarrassing behavior.

Mood Music:

The topic has returned to the forefront amid COVID-19. There’s the personal impact of fearing the unknown, and the societal fear where we hand government too much power in hopes of being safe.

It’s a tricky subject to write about because, like anxiety and depression, fear has many different facets. I’ve focused mostly on the bad and perhaps not enough on its usefulness in helping us adapt and meet challenges. I’m gaining a better perspective lately, especially when trying to apply things like the OODA Loop to daily routines.

I’ve been re-reading John M. Barry’s The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, and it has helped clarify where fear helps and hurts amid the current pandemic.

He writes about two kinds of fear:

  • The kind built on mistrust and distortion, where people make tragic choices because federal, state and local officials refuse to be straight with them about the extent of the contagion’s spread
  • The kind based on truth, which scare people at first but quickly give them the wisdom to adapt

In order for an authority to maintain the public’s trust, it can’t avoid some scary truths. Barry writes:

The final lesson of 1918, a simple one yet one most difficult to execute, is that those who occupy positions of authority must lessen the panic that can alienate all within a society. Society cannot function if it is every man for himself. Those in authority must retain the public’s trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one. You don’t manage the truth. You tell the truth.

—John Barry, The Great Influenza

How leaders tell that truth matters, though. They can’t talk solely in abstractions and euphemisms. “A leader must make whatever horror exists concrete,” says Barry. “Only then will people be able to break it apart.”

Barry expanded on that second point in a recent interview, saying:

Authorities need to tell the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable — especially when it’s uncomfortable. This is important for two reasons. First, it lessens fear. People are always more afraid of the unknown. When people don’t think they’re getting a straight message they feel uncertain. In a horror movie, it’s always scariest before the monster appears. Once the fear becomes concrete we can deal with it. We can deal with reality. Second, if you want people to comply with your recommendations — and compliance is crucial to success — they have to believe you and trust you. If they doubt you they will ignore you.

I’d like to think I’ve abandoned the unproductive, panic-inducing fear that’s based on the unknown and put the truth-based fear to good use.

My approach is admittedly fatalistic on the surface: I’m just assuming we’ll be in this fight for a long time. I take nothing for granted — my job, my health, my ability to avoid episodes of depression. Losing ground in these areas is all within the realm of possibility.

By accepting that things are and will remain bad for some time and that anything can happen, I can adapt and focus on what’s in front of me — and what’s in front of me is pretty good.

In the face of the current crisis, we are already seeing humanity’s ability to adapt: we’re keeping business and learning going remotely, repurposing plant operations to churn out medical gear and moving from lost hospitality jobs to those that are in demand — grocery stores and medical facilities, for example.

To adapt is to survive and thrive. But we can’t adapt unless we face our truth-based fears first.

Posted on

When the Best OCD Management Tools Fail (and What to Do About It)

Admission: Despite all the training and tools I’ve accumulated to manage clinical OCD over the years, the demons still run over me in spectacular ways on occasion. Yesterday was one of those days.

Mood Music:

Things I’ve learned about OCD management:

  • Practice mindfulness through meditation
  • Push back thought distortions — the kind associated with something like impostor syndrome.
  • Take walks
  • Prayer (as part of that first one)

Sometimes, though, my passions run so hot that I flat-out forget to pick up those tools.

In recent weeks, my work has involved producing a lot of written guidance for businesses trying to maintain security as workforces go remote. I’ve taken the task close to heart because it’s one small way I can do my part to get society through this, aside from the physical distancing. Also: It’s my job.

But when my OCD runs hot, my patience grows threadbare. I want to get content out quickly. It’s the old newsman in me. Which can be at odds with another truth: When dealing with technological guidance, the more painfully rigorous the process, the better.

Yesterday, I realized that my obsessive-compulsive nature was trying to circumvent that process, and I suspect it made life difficult for a couple of my colleagues. To them, I apologize.

The good news: I caught myself, with gentle pushback from a couple people. Now I’m going to step back a little today and pick those tools back up.

This isn’t meant as a public self-flaying exercise. It’s a message for everyone working through these times with OCD, anxiety, depression and other mental disorders:

  • You’re not alone.
  • You’re not stupid or weak.
  • Health management of any kind is a titanic task in times like these.
  • Yes, past generations have weathered trying times (The Great Depression and WWII come to mind), but individuals who did great things along the way still failed from time to time.
  • Beating ourselves up — something I excel at — is worse than useless.

When we have bad moments, let’s take a breath, step back, dust off and get back to work.

That’s what I’m going to do.

But first, a nap. That’s a good OCD management tool, too.

Posted on

Depression and Anxiety in the Age of Trump

This post isn’t to endorse or condemn either of this year’s presidential candidates. It IS acknowledgement that people are shaken by the election of Donald Trump as president. For many, the uncertainty and fear translates into depression and anxiety.

If Hillary Clinton had won, there’d be a lot of Trump supporters suffering in similar fashion. So I would have been writing this post anyway.

The big question is how to move forward if the election has left you in a state of darkness. What follows are my suggestions. They are not scientific and I’m certainly no doctor. It is simply based on what I’ve learned in my own journey through the darkness and light.

Mood music:

For me, the fate of the world used to seem to hang on the next election.

In 1994, I was a lot more liberal than I am today. (I’ve gone from slightly left of center to dead center politically over time.) That year, the GOP swept both chambers of Congress and I was devastated. Two years before that, when Bill Clinton was elected president, I thought all would be right with the world. A lot of people had the same emotional jolt eight years ago when Obama was elected, while folks on the other side of the spectrum were as depressed in 2008 as those now dismayed by Trump’s rise.

As I got older and did a lot of work to manage my demons, I found that my personal happiness wasn’t tied to which way the political winds blow. What says it all are the lyrics from the Avett Brothers song I started this post with:

When nothing is owed, deserved or expected
And you’re life doesn’t change by the man that’s elected
If your loved by someone you’re never rejected.
Decide what to be and go be it.

My life has taken turns for the better and worse regardless of who is in office. Government can’t change me. Only I can.

But that’s where my journey has taken me. It would be unfair and unrealistic to ask people in the throes of election-induced depression to simply flip a switch and approach it like me. So I’m going to point out a few things that might make you feel better in the short term. Some of it is serious, and some of it not so much.

  1. His time is limited. People looking at the next four years with a sense of doom should remember that there’s a mid-term congressional election in two years. Given how divided the electorate is, it wouldn’t take much for a wave of voter discontent to change the balance of power in Congress. That happened to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama early in their presidencies, and it happened to George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan halfway through their second terms. The voters have a habit of balancing the scales when Washington goes too far in the wrong direction.
  2. A burning forest gives way to new life. It’s been said that a lot of people were willing to vote for Trump despite his racist, sexist comments because they saw him as a Molotov cocktail they could throw at a capitol rife with corruption. Indeed, Democrats and Republicans in Congress have failed the American people badly these last 15-plus years. Trump doesn’t have many friends among them and that could have a burning effect on the establishment that forces both parties to change their ways.
  3. He may not be so bad. If you look at his history, Trump has put women in high positions. He relies heavily on the counsel of a son-in-law who is devout in his Jewish faith, and he has said that same-sex marriage rights are settled law. He’s also backtracked on his talk about killing Obamacare, instead talking more about reforming it than replacing it. The healthcare law is certainly in need of fixing. Maybe he’ll turn out to be pretty middle-of-the-road, and the worst-case scenarios won’t materialize. All that could be wishful thinking on my part, but one never knows.
  4. New Star Wars films are coming. No matter how bad things may get, Disney has ensured that we’ll have a new Star Wars movie for each of the next four years. Star Wars always makes things better.

Whatever happens, we need to take care of ourselves. If you are prone to depression and anxiety, seek out your friends and family. Talk to someone. I’m always happy to lend an ear. If you have a therapist, keep your appointments. If you think you might need medication, talk to your doctors.

All this may seem like the obvious, but we need constant reminders — especially when we’re down.

As long as we work to be the best individuals we can be, and as long as we keep the things beyond our control in perspective, we will survive and even prosper.

donald trump by gage skidmore 12

Posted on

4 Tips to Beat Fear and Anxiety at #RSAC2016

The first time I attended RSA in 2005, fear and anxiety threatened to consume me. I feared the flights, the crowds and the prospect of failing professionally.

Fast-forward to 2016: I’m a veteran infosec journalist who has been to too many conferences to count. I can’t say that I’m done with fear and anxiety, but I’ve brought it largely under control.

I’ve met a lot of people who suffer the same debilitating anxiety I used to experience over conferences, especially RSA. I’ve watched them worry endlessly over which evening events they needed to attend. I’ve seen them recoil at the waves of humanity wafting through the Moscone Center. I’ve seen them succumb to the temptation to drink every last drop of the free booze at vendor parties.

To some, this all sounds too dramatic. These are not life-or-death situations. But that’s the thing about fear and anxiety: They make situations look scarier than they really are.

This stuff isn’t specific to infosec, either. People go through this in any industry. But infosec is my industry, and I want to direct this at my peers.

Here my tips for surviving RSAC 2016:

  • Vendor keynotes aren’t mandatory. For a new attendee, the keynote sessions can be big and scary. The crush of humanity crowding around waiting for entry can be overwhelming, especially on the morning of the first day. If you’re absolutely dying to hear what the opening keynotes are about, you gotta suck it up. But veteran attendees have learned that it’s rarely, if ever, worth it. Find some industry pals and go have a good chat over coffee instead.
  • Don’t let the exhibit floors get to you. People working the booths will hound you aggressively to see their slide deck or hear the pitch. If you’re not careful you could easily get sucked into things that aren’t going to help you. The loud displays can induce major headaches. Skip the Monday-night opening of the floor; it’s the loudest time to go. For the rest of the days, wait a couple hours after the opening before going in. Things are usually calmer by then.
  • You don’t have to venture out at night. There’s always a huge expectation that an attendee must go to all the vendor parties in the evenings. If the day has been too much and you need to be at full strength for the next day, there’s nothing wrong with retiring to your room for the evening.
  • Focus on the reason you’re here. Looking to forge a new business partnership? Or maybe you’re there for education? Then just focus on those things. The keynotes are chaotic, but a lot of good talks happen in smaller rooms throughout Moscone. If your number-one goal is to make a deal, collaborate on some research or strike a partnership with another entity, then focus on making those things happen and ditch the rest.

I know it’s easier to talk about how best to proceed than it is to do it. Nevertheless, I hope you find some of this helpful.

RSA 2015 Crowd Shot

Posted on

Anxiety Level Green

A while back I wrote about the various stages of anxiety based on the first five colors of Newton’s primary color system. In the last week, I’ve realized that I’ve been at level green for at least three months.

Mood music:

At the time I wrote it, my description for Level Green was:

Green. This anxiety appears when the less-frequent stresses spark up. Yesterday was a perfect example in my world: I was already ramped up from spending the previous evening at the hospital holding vigil while my father faced emergency surgery that ultimately didn’t happen. The plumber was coming to install a new dishwasher, and to pound my mind into submission, I went on a chore spree. Then my cell phone died for good, and I had to spend the afternoon replacing it. The latter two events are problems we’re lucky to have, since the alternative is being too broke to afford these things. But it sent the day on a trajectory I hadn’t anticipated. The only cure for this one right now is to reach the end of the day and go to bed.

In the last several months a lot of stress has been in my life. My aunt and father died a week apart in June and my stepfather died in late July. A relative has been in legal trouble and there’s been a lot of wrangling about how best to help him.

Meanwhile, I’ve taken on responsibility for the site of the former family business, which is in sorry shape and in need of costly repairs. I’m learning more about the legal, real estate and financial systems than I ever cared to know.

I’m grateful for everything I’ve been learning along the way, but it’s a rollercoaster. Rollercoasters elevate the heart rate, and this ride won’t end after a few minutes. It’s time to address the low-level anxiety that keeps my chest tight, my head sore and my legs heavy.

All in all, life is good, and I’m learning to manage the added family business without letting it bleed all over the other parts of my life. Wife, kids and work are all well, and I’ve gotten through the last few months without collapsing into a bottle of numbing liquid. I’m admittedly pleased about the things I’m learning along the way, because it puts me in a better position to provide for my family going forward.

I’m glad that at this stage of my life I can see the feelings for what they are and act accordingly.

Swim Upstream by Eddietheyeti
“Swim Upstream” by EddieTheYeti

Posted on

The “I’m Surviving” Checklist

I’ve learned that in times of disorganized thought, depression and anxiety, it’s good to make lists. Want to squeeze out all your negative thoughts about people? Make a resentment list. Need help getting your diet in order? Write a daily food list, also known as a food diary. Feeling overwhelmed by work and family responsibilities? Make daily to-do lists to stay on top of it all.

Mood music:

https://youtu.be/oKujsRIjoOA

Life has been pretty chaotic lately, and it feels like I’m losing my grip on everything. I know that’s not really true, but another list exercise is in order. For this one, I’ll focus on the positives.

“I’m Surviving” Checklist

  • My children are healthy and thriving.
  • My wife is excelling at her business, and she loves me even though I’m not always pleasant to be around.
  • My father is dying, but he’s able to live in comfort for whatever time is left.
  • I’m getting lots of quality time with him, which is a blessing.
  • Despite the family upheaval, I’m still able to do my job do it well.
  • I have legions of friends who stick by me for some reason.
  • My Crohn’s Disease is in check.
  • My eating is off, but I haven’t gone on any binges. I haven’t picked up a bottle, either.
  • Helping my father tie up loose ends with his business is a harrowing experience, but I’m learning a lot and that’ll be to my benefit later.
  • Summer is upon us, and that’s my favorite time of year.
  • I have a really good therapist.
  • I’m sleeping OK under the circumstances.
  • I have plenty of coffee to keep me going.
  • I have music.

It would appear my life is still pretty damn good, despite my perceptions lately.

Beat-up journal labelled

Posted on

Pain Leaks from Mind to Body

Mental illness can lead to physical sickness. It’s a simple fact that some people find hard to believe.

Mood music:

I often hear people arguing over whether this person’s or that person’s aches and pains are “all in their head.” You know the type: There’s never any real underlying disease, but they’re always calling out of work with a headache or some intestinal discomfort.

It’s all in their head, you say?

Well, yeah.

It’s called psychosomatic illness, when mental anguish leads to physical sickness.

I’ve been there. Migraines. Brutal back pain. A stomach turned inside-out.

But it wasn’t always clear that what ailed me was in my head. As a child I was sick a lot with Crohn’s Disease, and that confused matters later on.

To throw the Crohn’s Disease into remission, doctors used the maximum dose of Prednisone, which caused migraines. You can read more about that in “The Bad Pill Kept Me from the Good Pill,” but the bottom line is that these headaches came daily and always made me sick to my stomach.

Later in life, I developed severe back pain, the kind that would knock me onto the couch and keep me there for weeks.

In the last month, I’ve gotten an unwanted refresher course in what all that was like. I wrecked my back and was prescribed Prednisone for my troubles. The mood swings and depression I remembered returned. Thankfully, I’ve turned that corner.

The earlier examples were all legitimate physical problems. But at some point my brain lost the ability to differentiate a real Chrohn’s flare-up or back spasm from an imagined one.

When the mind thinks the body has suffered a trauma, it has a habit of becoming real.

Doctors always warned me that mental stress could trigger Crohn’s flare-ups, and I guess it did, especially when my parents divorced. I’m fairly sure my brother’s death set off the last real flare-up in 1986.

The migraines and back problems, meanwhile, seeped seamlessly into the things that were going wrong with me mentally.

Anxiety attacks felt essentially the same as a heart attack, complete with the pain shooting from the chest to the neck and down the arms. Migraines followed. Work stress often sparked migraines and back pain.

While it was difficult to separate other legitimate physical problems from those stemming from mental distress, I can tell you that dealing with my underlying OCD, depression and anxiety made a lot of ailments mostly go away.

When you deal with what’s in your head, the pain in the rest of your body can be eased and even eradicated.

Psychosomatic illness still visits me on occasion. But it’s much better than the old life of perpetual pain.

black and white picture of a bald man with his face in his hands

Posted on

5 Things I’ve Done That Scare Me

A while back I wrote a post celebrating Eleanor Roosevelt’s call to “do something every day that scares you.” Rereading that post recently, I realized I forgot something important.

Mood music:

I forgot to mention how I’m living that advice and not simply parroting it to be cool. If this blog is to mean anything, I have to lead by example, though not in the ways you may be thinking of.

I’m not about to skydive from an airplane, though some day I just might. I’m not going to ride a wild horse, though that might be a neat exercise in facing fear. But not today.

Instead, I’ve been doing the more mundane things that scare me all the same. To some people they may seem like trivial accomplishments. But to me they’re significant, because I faced down fear.

  1. During DEF CON last month, I waited in big lines and walked with big crowds despite both being major OCD triggers. I managed just fine.
  2. Despite swearing I’d never take Prednisone again, I took a leap of faith and accepted the prescription to cool a battered back.
  3. Despite that back pain, I managed to drive a hitched trailer home from an already painful camping trip. I’m always nervous driving the truck when the camper is attached. Doing it in pain was a rougher deal. But I couldn’t think of a reason not to. I was going to be in pain anyway.
  4. Despite huge fears of not measuring up at work, I postponed an important video shoot so I could put my health back in order. That was scary as hell, because I had thrown a lot of time and energy into meeting a deadline.
  5. I agreed to be a trustee for my father’s realty trust, opening me up to financial tasks and decision making that are way outside my comfort zone.

Again, seemingly small actions. But these are the things that scare me, and I didn’t run away.

Tarantula walking in man's hands