
I used to think that whenever my boyfriend was running late, he’d been hit by a car.
Well, not just him. All my loved ones, actually. If my parents’ flight had been delayed after a trip, I assumed it had crashed. If my sister wasn’t answering her phone, I thought she’d been abducted.
Paranoid thoughts plagued my mind every day. How long will it be before the police contact me? I’d think to myself. I knew my intense anxiety was ridiculous, but I didn’t know how to stop it.
It happened so often, planning funerals in my mind became routine. I rehearsed eulogies as habitually as I’d plan an outfit for the next day. (Post continues after gallery.)
Mental health services in Australia


