My Mess Is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety

by Georgia Pritchett

My earliest memory is of sitting in my stroller in the snow. I was three. My mum said to my brother, “Don’t fall over in the snow.” Then my brother fell over in the snow. This made me realize: Bad Things happen. Bad Things happen even if you tell the Bad Thing not to happen. We’re all doomed.

I hated milk. One morning at nursery, the teacher told me I couldn’t play with the other children until I had drunk my milk. Sometimes everything goes right. I didn’t want to play with the other children AND I didn’t want to drink my milk. I sat inside on the floor the whole day. That was a good day.

I used to worry about the monsters under my bed a lot. Were they comfy enough? How could they sleep on a hard floor surrounded by crumbs and dust? Sometimes I slept under the bed so that they could have a turn on top.

I lost my first tooth biting into a toffee apple. I was alarmed but my mum tried to cheer me up by telling me about the Tooth Fairy. This was unwise. I was troubled by the concept of some weird old fairy breaking into my house while I was asleep and then taking body parts in exchange for money. It was the slippery slope. Where would it end? Was there an Ear Fairy? Was there a Toe Fairy? If I tucked my hand under my pillow while I was sleeping, would she take that? Sometimes at night, my head would end up under my pillow. And my head had teeth in it. Would she just take the whole thing? What was a fairy’s load-lifting capacity? And why did nobody have the answers to the really important questions?

When I was little I used to think that sheep were clouds that had fallen to earth. On cloudy days I used to worry that I would be squashed by a sheep.

Mum has always had a complicated relationship with the weather. Every morning the first thing she does is to get the newspaper and look up the weather in every place she has ever been to—a bit like stalking an ex. So, often, when I came down to breakfast, I was greeted with a furious “You’ll never guess what it’s doing in Honfleur!” And whatever it was doing was seen as some kind of personal provocation or betrayal.

I used to worry that everyone else in the world was a robot and I was the only human. And if I let on that I knew this secret, they would kill me. When I told my brother this, he pretended to be a malfunctioning robot and then tried to kill me. I think anyone would have done the same in his position.

I didn’t like parties when I was a child because, well, who really likes parties? But one time I came back from a party and to my parents’ amazement, I said I had had a good time. “Why?” they asked. “I had cake and I didn’t join in any of the games.” This has very much been my approach to life.

My mum tried to help with my anxiety by buying me a teddy—a companion, someone who I could tell my worries to. But you only had to look at the bear to see that he had some serious issues. His eyebrows were knitted (in both senses), his little mouth was wonky, and his ears looked extremely perturbed. I named him Anxious Bear. I tried to help him, but this was a bear with multiple neuroses. He was fucked up. He was scared of heights, scared of noises, scared of being alone, scared of other people . . . he worried about illness, about death, about a meteor hitting the planet. He was one high-maintenance little ball of fur. It was exhausting.

For some reason I had very bad teeth as a child. One day I had to have a tooth removed by the dentist. I worried about this A LOT. When I came to, I found out he had removed SIX teeth. He hadn’t wanted to tell me because he thought I would worry. This taught me that when you are worried about a Bad Thing happening, the Bad Thing Will Probably Be Even Worse Than You Think It’s Going to Be.

One day I decided to Run Away From Home. My mother had done something terrible (I think she might have suggested I eat fewer sweets) so I decided enough was enough. I wrote a note, packed a bag, and headed for the door. I was halfway out of the door when I heard howls of laughter. They had found my note. This wasn’t the reaction I had been expecting. Regret, remorse, self-recrimination, yes. Laughter, no. I tiptoed back to the living room. Apparently I had written: I hat you al—you hut my flings—I’m runin awa This taught me that you must never attempt to do something you can’t spell.

At primary school, we used to have Assembly once a week. And every week, we would sing the hymn: “My Ding-a-Ling” by Chuck Berry. At least I thought it was a hymn. I found out it wasn’t during a Religious Education lesson at secondary school. That’s when I got my first detention.

I did not like wearing shorts when I was little because I didn’t want people to know I had knees.

I used to think that when you went to the theater, the loud boomy voice that told you to take your seats and also told you about ice cream was the Voice of God. Later, I found out that “the Voice of God” is a term used by entertainment professionals for these very announcements. A religion based around where the nearest available snacks are is the kind of religion I could get behind.

When I was little I used to worry that I might be the Messiah. I really didn’t want to be the Messiah because: a) I’m bad at public speaking and I thought being the Messiah would probably involve a lot of that. b) Germs make me very anxious and so I definitely don’t want to touch sick people and I really don’t want them to touch me. c) I have a very low pain threshold and I can’t help feeling that being the Messiah is going to end badly. d) My frizzy hair would not work well in stained glass. Stained glass is a very unflattering medium. e) I’m not sure about Eternal Life. It seems like life is long enough already.

Every afternoon, he would go out shopping. I always felt he was shopping for characters rather than groceries.

Back at school, I was put on playground duty. I tried to stalk round the playground exuding authority, but I’ve never been good at exuding. After a few minutes, a girl approached me and asked me if I was new. I said I was. “Are you lonely?” she asked. “No, I’m busy,” I answered curtly. “You can be my friend if you haven’t got any other friends,” she told me. I tried to explain that I wasn’t a pupil, I was a teacher. “You’re not a teacher!” she laughed. The next day I dropped out of college. This six-year-old girl knew me better than I knew myself. I wasn’t a teacher and I was really lonely.

Having decided I was a writer, my first job involved writing precisely one word. My name. On a sticker. I got a job at Catford Broadway Theatre as an usher for an Irish jig competition. Lots of tiny children had come from all over the world to compete. I was fascinated by the way their faces stayed so still and so solemn while their legs went bananas. My face stayed still and calm while my brain went bananas.

I remember the triumph I felt, sitting in the dark in the dented 2CV, hearing the first joke they used and punching the air with joy. And then listening as my name on the credits was given as George. Of course it was. I was the only woman in the room. But that would change, wouldn’t it? No. It wouldn’t. It was twenty-five years later (and in a different country) when I finally got to write with other women.

To make things worse, I’m told I dress like someone whose best clothes are in the wash.

That’s when I realized I should have been a badger. Badgers just go around secreting pheromones. I bet I’d be good at secreting. Or maybe I should have been a giraffe, and then I could just do a special wee. I’m really good at weeing. Or if I were a fish I could just go and squirt my eggs under a rock and wait for a male fish to hover over them. I’d be a great squirter.

I discovered that if you’re a shy woman who doesn’t say much but smiles a lot, people project onto you who they think you are or who they want you to be. This makes going on dates doubly interesting/terrifying. I would not only be finding out who they were, I would be finding out who they had decided I was. And the problem was, however much I did or didn’t like them, I never liked their version of me.

I’m not good at talking about my feelings. I have a habit of under-sharing. If only there was an easier way than talking. Maybe I should learn semaphore—then I would be able to discuss all my maritime or nautical issues. One day a friend of mine asked me how I felt about something and got so exasperated at my evasive response that she shouted, “STOP MINCING AROUND THE BUSH!” In her fury she had combined “mincing words” with “beating around the bush.” But actually, “mincing around the bush” is the perfect description of how I express my feelings.

I hate Making Points and I prefer to admire the Moral High Ground from a distance,

Inside, I was frantically pulling emergency cords, sending up flares, tapping out distress signals in Morse code, writing “SOS” in the sand, shouting “MAYDAY! MAYDAY!” at the top of my voice. But on the outside, I just kept smiling and smiling and smiling. And if anyone asked, I said, “I’m fine, thanks, how are you?”

I felt worse. Like a ghost, I drifted around. Absent from the world but too present. Unable to leave, unable to stay. I was desperate for sleep. I longed for oblivion. I would stare at the stars. At the blackness. At infinity. I felt as if I was being sucked into a black hole. The light I could see from the stars had been traveling for hundreds of years. The stars might even be dead now. I felt as if I was dead, but still somehow transmitting some long-out-of-date light into the world. And nobody had realized I was gone.