social anxiety
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Anxiety Is for Girls, Gays, Wimps, and White People
The second biggest lie that I allow people who’ve read my book, and who’ve heard me speak about my book, to believe is that I’m brave. “How did you find the courage,” they ask, during Q&As at independent bookstores, and through emails and (now) Zoom talks, “to be so forthcoming and vulnerable about your neuroses…
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That Awkward Moment When You're The Only One Who Shows Up to an IG Live
I’d wager that a lot of us are spending significantly more time on social media these days. I know my phone—where I consume, probably, 80 percent of my social media—is always near which means I’m scrolling through news, sales, hot takes, Michael Jordan truther takes (truly a subgenre unto itself), fake news, unfriendable statements, art…
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You Know What? Taking Cell Phone Pictures for Random People on the Street is a Lot of Pressure
I hate taking pictures for people. There, I said it. You know what I’m talmbout. You’re standing outside, minding your own business, and then out of the corner of your eye you see a group start to get in formation of some sort, a few hushed whispers begin and then somebody breaks formation looking for…
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A List of Every Stress-Related Illness I’ve Ever Had, Ranked From Horrible to ‘I Think I’m Dying’
When you don’t listen to your body, your body has a way of forcing you to listen. Or at least that’s what my body does, over and over again, from annoying to terrifying effect. When you suffer from stress-induced anxiety, as I do and have since I was a child, you get a host of…
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If You’re Still Mad That People Didn’t Want You in High School, I Get It, but Please (for Your Own Sake) Get Over It
If you happened to be a teenager in 1996, and if you were a teenager who also happened to be black, there is a moderate to strong likelihood that you have a soft spot in your heart for the Ghost Town DJs. If this describes you and you heard Virgo Williams’ 18-word-long a cappella soothe…
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‘Friends With Benefits’: The Truth About Living With Anxiety
I constantly wonder: what happens to a black girl who is too anxious to ever feel like magic? Can she still fly? Can she still be fly, with wings that tremble? Poet Jae Nichelle is speaking about her “friends with benefits” relationship with chronic anxiety before a full auditorium—no small feat for a woman who…
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Once on This Island’s Opening Night Gives Me Jitters While I Consider Reginald F. Lewis’ Billion-Dollar Deal
OK, first off, in this revival of the 1991 Tony Award-nominated musical Once on This Island, I had no clue that it was Merle Dandrige from Greenleaf playing the death demon, Papa Ge. I’ve watched one-and-a-half entire seasons of the OWN religious drama, and I thought I could pick her out of a lineup, but…
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