Less than Stellar

In which I break my one and only (so far) Substack rule

Jul 04, 2025

Social media wasn’t good for my mental health, so I got off it. After six years I came back on, in a limited and selective way, to build an audience for my books and have a place to geek out about writing because, aside from writer friends, not a lot of folks in my life have the interest or patience for lengthy discourse on the subject. (Totally fair, by the way. Certain topics make my eyes glaze, too.) But in coming back online, to the relatively safe space of Substack, I set a rule to confine vulnerability to experiences along the writing journey and keep gut-spilling to my journal and trusted friends. In writing the rule I neglected to factor in my anxious brain. So we’re taking a detour today.

After a good long run of steady calm, this week Anxiety and her heinous band of minions showed up with all barrels blazing. I employed every usually-quite-effective strategy in my well-stocked arsenal to repel them, but every single time one of them would smirk, find a loose thread, and tug until they had me good and wound up.

You know it’s bad when you’re watching television of an evening and feel validated upon hearing an exchange like this:

Cyberman: You appear courageous, but your vital signs betray a heightened state of anxiety.

The Doctor*: Or, as I like to call it, Tuesday.

This week my to do list included a few unfun tasks—the sort which always make me nervous— and so required regular confrontations with the Procrastination Demon. I still got to most of them and, as usual, with more ease and success than my scrambled brains expected. But everything didn’t get checked off, which summoned the Perfectionism Hellhound. And etc.

For added fun, though, my daughter is also in the midst of applying for her student visa. The Other Shoe Imp, with its relentless mantra of “It’s gonna drop! It’s gonna drop!” had a field day. Think of all that could affect any sort of government application and you can imagine the nature of Imp’s tortuous questions.

Then Imp asked if the school funding is all sorted and someone else chimed in, “You really should have a Plan B, just in case that loan falls through. Although you’re not wealthy and The Spouse is retiring next year, so good luck.”

“Ah,” I said. “Look who it is; my old nemesis Poverty Mindset. Didn’t I kill you, like, twenty-years ago?” He maybe didn’t fall off that cliff in Monte Carlo like I thought, but he’s less powerful in the sequel. He’s simply not that powerful anymore. We will never be able to buy an election, but helping our kid get on with her dream—if necessary—is, thankfully, well within our purview.

Everything finally settled down by yesterday evening. Waiting periods, however, are fertile ground for worrying about what I can’t control, so I fully expect a reprise of this nonsense during the three-ish weeks it will take for the visa to come through.

“If it even does,” Anxiety muttered, just as I wrote that. See what I mean? This is how my mind can turn on me.

If reading that exhausted you, imagine how I felt when we sat down to watch our program last night. Then The Doctor found Mary Wollstonecraft’s missing infant, and as she handed the baby to the relieved mother I started crying because I suddenly realized how much I’m going to miss my daughter.

Listen: I’m thrilled about her next chapter. She’s overdue to get out of our house and on with her life. I’m delighted she gets to begin it in one of my favorite cities in the world. But she and I have come to the stage of life where we meet one another not only as mother and daughter, but as friends. And she’s a very gifted at friendship. Facts: some of my most treasured loves don’t live nearby; long-distance relationships don’t throw me and you certainly won’t have to twist my arm to visit her. In London. (Sheesh; the sacrifices we make for our kids, amirite?) But I freely acknowledge her daily absence will be well and truly noted.**

In spite of everything, this week I also:

finished a rewrite of Book #2
booked my beloved editor for her review of same
received several lovely pieces of feedback on Where We Come Home AND two invitations to speak to book club groups in autumn
picked raspberries in my own forest (pictured above). It’s not a real forest, but it’s what we call our north garden. It existed as nothing but lawn bordered by existing shrubs until The Spouse took it in his head to plant salal, ferns, and other native NW beauties, then just let them go since we never bothered with that side of the house anyway. It’s low-maintenance, aside from periodic trail clearing, while also being soothingly beautiful. This is where I go to ‘touch grass."‘

Also, both my watch and earbuds went missing yesterday but emerged from our home’s black hole this morning.

Thanks for reading. Muah!

PS: I am writing this in my gentlest, most tolerant voice, but if you are considering leaving a comment and either a) don’t think anxiety is a thing or 2) believe everything everywhere all the time is ‘cured’ by prayer, prolly best if you refrain from advice or censure about mental health. It won’t help. Go in peace. That’s what I work to do every day. Okay? Thanks.

* David Tennent is my all time favorite Doctor, but Jodi Whittaker is climbing fast.

** Last night may have owed to emotional exhaustion but I slept great, woke up peaceful, and still managed another ugly cry about my daughter this morning. This is gonna be harder than I reckoned.