How Speculative Memoirs Helped Me Write About My Separation Anxiety

By Matt Homrich-Knieling

My parents aren’t dead, but they’ve died hundreds, probably thousands of times.

This isn’t a clever word-play riddle; it represents my reality of living with separation anxiety. As a child, separation from my parents meant certain catastrophe. It wasn’t just a fear that my parents could die on the way to the grocery store or post office, it was a fear that they had died. And with that came a tormenting mix of terror, desperation, and grief. Again and again.

I...