CW: Mental health.
Good morning,
Sometime last week, I asked on my silly little Instagram Stories what it was that you wanted to read about this month. When presented with a sneeze-guarded buffet of topics, a large delegation of you voted for “ANXIOUS BRAIN.” I am, admittedly, disappointed there were not more who bubbled in the “JIMMY CARTER” option, but you can rest assured, those ruminations will see their day in the sun.
Here is what I will say about my “ANXIOUS BRAIN.”
In all my years with it cruising around in my skull, we have grown quite close! So close, in fact, that I have given it, her, a name: Barb. To be clear, Barb is not so much the sort of companion you might call when you’re running an errand in their neighborhood that goes more efficiently than expected, so you call them for spontaneous hang over a glass of wine and a small vessel of briny popcorn. Barb is the roommate in your dorm suite that picks out all the marshmallows from your box of Lucky Charms.
Clinically, Barb is known as “generalized anxiety disorder,” which is, by definition, “characterized by persistent and excessive worry about a number of different things.” I, for one, find this definition absolutely hilarious. One would think the actual Anxiety and Depression Association of America could have come up with something even a micrometer more specified than a “number” (?) of “different” (???) “things” (???????).
“Barb?” I whisper into our walkie-talkies each morning, my eyes still foggy with sleep. “Are you able to advise what kinds of things we may be dealing with today?”
“Oh, but that would ruinnn the funnnnnnnnnnn,” she cackles with all the bravado of Ursula leading “Poor Unfortunate Souls.”
The actual experience of anxiety is just as nebulous, and that’s what can make it all the more debilitating. I was very good (or so I thought) at hiding it for a long, long time, simply because I didn’t think my lived mental experience was all that dissimilar from anyone else’s. I was “high-strung” and “emotive,” a “perfectionist” and an “insomniac,” and as those words became my personality traits, I became a shell.
Shortly after I moved to New York City, thrown onto this glittering garbage island where everyone’s therapist sees a therapist sees a therapist, I began to sort myself out. So here I am many years and as many therapists later, still re-learning which elements of myself are just coping mechanisms to manage the excess cortisol my body creates, and which are just Me™. Mental healthcare has no shortage of barriers to entry, from systemic racial inequity to active and passive social stigma, and I am so, so, so grateful for the access I do enjoy that enables me to do these kinds of personal excavations.
I have written about my anxiety a lot, not because I necessarily enjoy divulging my vulnerabilities on the internet. I do not! But I think, in some roundabout way, it’s because I only started to understand my own anxiety from other people who were writing publicly about theirs.
Sometimes, I like to look myself in the mirror and talk to Barb out loud. (My husband is a great sport, I will tell you that much.) I tell her she is safe, just confused. We are still learning to cohabitate in this dorm suite of my body together.
This month, I wrote about:
The new generation of fashion stylists serving a very specific clientele — TikTok stars — who are now exploring mainstream fame outside the platform.
The eternal nostalgia of American Girl, the most special, deliciously wholesome story I’ve worked on in some time.
Reigning TikTok fashion king Wisdom Kaye, who promptly signed to IMG Models after his signature styling-challenges videos continued to go viral.
K-pop girl-group Blackpink, which has inked blue-chip partnerships with four separate, visually disparate fashion houses.
I also read:
Getting to know, and like, my natural hair in quarantine (Dhani Mau/Fashionista)
Chasing the Holy Grail of circular fashion (Sarah Kent/Business of Fashion)
How working from home turned me into a dog (Ashley Franklin/The New Yorker)
Playtime with Harry Styles (Hamish Bowles/Vogue)
MGK FTW (Naomi Fry/Nylon)
Meet the BIPOC farmers cultivating green spaces in NYC (Sydney Gore/Teen Vogue)
Patagonia wants you to consider buying its clothing used this holiday season (Jasmin Malik Chua/InStyle)
Steve Kornacki’s body language anytime a new “dump” came in from Clark County
Jimmy Carter,
Maura
This month, I’ve made a donation to Smile On Me, a non-profit organization that provides girls in under-resourced communities throughout New York City with hygiene products.