Recovery Diaries In Depth

A Writer & Therapist with Pure OCD and Anxiety; with Hannah R. Goodman | RDID; Ep 115

• Recovery Diaries • Season 1 • Episode 115

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Hannah R. Goodman is busy: she has a Substack, she’s a writer and novelist, she is a therapist, she’s a spouse and a mother. She has a lot going on in her life; and a lot going on in her head, too—as she’s very open about—particularly “pure O” and generalized anxiety disorder. There’s so much going on that it was surprising that she found time to spend an hour with us to sit down and talk, but she did! And we’re grateful for it.

Hannah has long been a friend of Recovery Diaries; she’s published two essays with us, The Big Scare: My Anxiety Disorder Story and When Thoughts are Sticky; Pure OCD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (she reads this one aloud on our podcast, and knocks it out of the park). Hannah has a remarkable facility not only with words, but with human emotion, and she opens herself up in a vulnerable and moving way with our host, Gabe Nathan, as they share their experiences with anxiety and obsessive thoughts, and about expressing themselves creatively through writing.

Hannah reveals that she is in an “interesting place” regarding her writing and, during the interview, she breaks down what she means. She also speaks about losing her father, one of her strongest supporters and someone who helped her understand and navigate her anxiety, even though he had little formal knowledge about or training in mental health.

Come be warmed and helped through this compassionate conversation between two people who admire and respect each other, exploring issues and facets of mental health that aren’t commonly discussed on platforms like this. Like, share, and, of course, subscribe!

Conversations like the ones on this podcast can sometimes be hard, but they’re always necessary. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider visiting wannatalkaboutit.com. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call, text, or chat 988.

https://oc87recoverydiaries.org/

Gabe Nathan:

Hello, this is Recovery Diaries In-Depth. I'm your host, Gabe Nathan. Thanks so much for joining us. We're very happy to have you here today on Recovery Diaries In-Depth. We are delighted to have Hannah R Goodman as our guest. She's a writer, teacher and a mental health counselor in Rhode Island. She has two essays on our site and she's gonna be talking about the one that deals with sticky thoughts. Each week we'll bring you a Recovery Diaries contributor folks who have shared their mental health journey with us through essay or video format. We want to see where they are in their mental health journey since initially being published on our website.

Gabe Nathan:

Our goal is to continue supporting our diverse community by having conversations here on our podcast to follow up and see what has shifted, what has changed and what new things have emerged. We're so happy to have you along for this journey. We want to remind you to follow our show for new and back episodes at recoverydiariesorg. There, like the podcast, you'll find stories of mental health, empowerment and change. You can also sign up for our mailing list there so you never miss a new podcast episode, essay or film, and you can find this podcast pretty much anywhere. You get your podcasts. We appreciate your comments and feedback about our show. It helps us improve, make changes and grow and, of course, make sure to like, share and subscribe. Grow and, of course, make sure to like, share and subscribe. Hannah Goodman, welcome to Recovery Diaries in Depth. It's so lovely to have you here. Thanks for joining us.

Hannah Goodman:

Thank you for having me.

Gabe Nathan:

It is a pleasure. So you are a mental health counselor. You are someone who lives with multiple mental health diagnoses. You came to us a number of years ago by now with your first essay, so I just want to ask you how are you today?

Hannah Goodman:

That's the right question to ask, right? Yeah, First of all, thank you for asking. You're welcome. I'm good. I am probably. As far as my mental health goes, I'm probably in the best place I've been since the breakdown I referenced in my first essay, which was in 2014,. Despite having lots of physical health issues, loss of my father and some other things go on, surprisingly, I'm sorry to hear about that.

Gabe Nathan:

And when I was preparing for this interview today, I was looking at your essay. You have two on our site, but I was looking at the one where you referenced him specifically and there's that lovely picture of the two of you together and it's so sweet, effortlessly reassures you when you're having these intrusive thoughts and you're talking about it's just your anxiety and I was thinking about my parents' relationship to mental health. It's very different than that. So you were very lucky to have that guy in your life. I was Giving you that gift.

Hannah Goodman:

He was a huge influence on just talking about my anxiety because he suffered from these panic attacks and we used to sit on my porch as an adult and talk and one of our last porch talks he shared with me I think I had forgotten about this that he wanted to be a psychiatrist, he wanted to work in mental health. He never did. He was a mad scientist, a research physicist, but he was very proud of me, that I became a therapist and that I was also able to write about my anxiety and talk about my anxiety. And, um, yeah, he was. You know, he was. Fathers are complicated, parents are complicated.

Gabe Nathan:

Amen.

Hannah Goodman:

But especially for the time period. Uh, he comes from I, I thought it was. I thought it was great that he, from the beginning, the very first panic attack, he said you know, and to my mom's credit too, she said you know, your father has these. So of course they didn't know what to do back then. They just threw in a Xanax, not a Xanax. What was it back then?

Gabe Nathan:

Whatever the big drug was, you said you got a script for Valium as a kid, right.

Hannah Goodman:

One pill and I said you know what, even though I was like 17, I was like you know what.

Gabe Nathan:

I don't think this is the right one for me, and that's great, because another type of person might have taken one pill and been like God damn, this is the thing for me.

Hannah Goodman:

So it's good that you didn't go that way, that's great One of the things about people with anxiety disorders that I have found as a clinician and as a human with an anxiety disorder we're too neurotic half the time to really abuse honestly in my case and then also in the case of a lot of my clients the level of neurosis.

Gabe Nathan:

To get someone to take a medication, even with an anxiety disorder, can be hard, so I'll speak to that myself. I started going to counseling in college at the college counseling center and I was referred almost immediately to a psychiatrist to be put on medication. And I was that bad and I said absolutely not. I'm so scared. And also, as a college student, I never drank and I mean never, and at a big drinking school but I was absolutely terrified of what a drink would do to me and what a lowering of my inhibitions would be like and if I wasn't in full control of everything that I said or did. And to this day I don't drink. And it's what you say about people with anxiety disorders and resistance to addiction or even anything that could potentially, no matter how far fetched the scenario, go down that road. That rings very true to me. Go down that road. That rings very true to me.

Hannah Goodman:

It's so true that I actually similar to you. I was in college and never drank. I had some bad experiences with alcohol before I realized I had a panic disorder and it all made sense after, but in college I never drank. In my 20s and my 30s I'm turning 50 this year and I started having wine about five years ago and my psychiatrist said to me this is a big breakthrough for you. Normally I don't encourage drinking. You know what I'm talking about, right?

Gabe Nathan:

My therapist has recommended. You know, gabe, like maybe a drink or two every now and then might not be the worst thing for you and I'm like what the hell's wrong with you? But it's, yeah, I get it.

Hannah Goodman:

She's a good. She's a good therapist, because it was really wonderful for me to learn that I was able to have the altered state and and and be, and not only be okay, but actually enjoy it, you know.

Gabe Nathan:

Right Not do anything criminal you know, lose your mind or debase yourself in public?

Hannah Goodman:

no well, maybe a little debasing, but not in public. I like to drink in my house with my family that's good, but it's exposure therapy.

Hannah Goodman:

It really was and everything I mean quite honestly, every day is exposure therapy. So right, you know, but that was a big one and it is a big one. I. I have a couple clients that uh, won't drink and I share my story and I say just a sip, I want you to do a sip and just sort of experience what that's like and which is funny, right, like that's not normally what you hear, but we are special, we are special breed.

Gabe Nathan:

That's for sure. My therapist has also tried to convince me to be late to things, which is another thing that I'm, you know I used to show up. This interview is not about me, but we do share a lot. You know, when I used to work at a psychiatric hospital, haha, I would show up like two hours early for my shift and just sit in the parking lot like two hours early for my shift and just sit in the parking lot and I even got like I would get yelled at for clocking in early, like you can't clock in this early. If you're going to show up, you have to stay in the parking lot. It was very aberrant behavior that at a psychiatric hospital maybe should have been treated differently for a staff member.

Gabe Nathan:

but no, but I would show up really early to these therapy appointments and my therapist was like you know, you really need to dial it back, Like it would be really great if you could show up like 10 minutes early or even be 10 minutes late. You know, I think that would be really healthy for you to experience. That, you know. And what is the fear, of course. And what is the fear of course? That a persona that I have built up of being reliable, dependable, will somehow be eroded and that people will have a negative perception of me, because late is not nice, it's disrespectful to be late, but I was never actually going to be late.

Hannah Goodman:

But even if you were, I would argue that late doesn't always equal disrespectful. Late equals a lot of different things.

Gabe Nathan:

It's just sometimes shit happens and that's when we have to be human.

Hannah Goodman:

And we have to be okay that we're not perfect and that's a big problem for those of us with anxiety disorders. A big part of my exposure therapy back when I had my breakdown in 2014 with this therapist who he was kind of mean, but he was good and he really pushed me to do all those things I had gone for 10 years without real symptoms and then, bam, over 10 years and then I just fell apart and I wouldn't leave the house. I had children, I had a life, I had a business and I had to quickly get back and it was exposure therapy, which I think is you can't just do exposure therapy. I just also want to say we are complicated, multi-layered people, but a big part of the crisis aspect of panic and anxiety disorders and OC, all the things is to do some exposure. So I, like you, have a good therapist. Yeah.

Gabe Nathan:

He's. I mean, I've been seeing him since 2010. So we're we're pretty tight, um, and you know, I obviously wouldn't be sticking around if I. I if I questioned that he? No, he knows, he knows what's up. Um question for you about writing. Do you view writing about your mental health as a form of exposure? Exposure?

Hannah Goodman:

to therapy.

Hannah Goodman:

Yes, when I wrote both of those pieces that are on your site, I was, I think, the first one. I was 2017. So I was finishing school that year to be a therapist it was my third career and had come out to close friends at my place of work, which at that point had become this large therapy practice, and even to my patients, and exhilarating and healing on both ends. You know, there's something very bonding about that and the trust. You know, someone coming in and being like what does she know? And then I go honey, let me tell you what I know. So what scared me about doing this and what I felt compelled to do was that now I was really coming out. It's one thing. To come out one at a time, it's another thing. I also had no idea Maybe nobody would read this. Come to find out a lot of people right.

Hannah Goodman:

We try to make sure.

Hannah Goodman:

Job done, great job, and it was my therapist at the time that said just do it Again. What's the worst that will happen? Oh, you won't be perceived as perfect. What is perfect, all those things. So, yes, writing about mental health is exposure. I continue to write about mental health on. I have a sub stack. Now that's a lot more casual. I'm a psychotherapist by day, but I'm actually a romance novelist by night. That's a whole other story. I just had a book come out, a romance book come out in January. That's exposure therapy, because that's a whole side of me that is really up for ridicule, right. I'm putting myself on the chopping block and I have a practice and I have my patients, know, my, my patients and stuff. Oh my God, what's that going to do?

Gabe Nathan:

You publish under your real name.

Hannah Goodman:

I do, but I add the R. You'll love this instead of just Hannah Goodman. Oh, I think I did it for this too. My writing persona is Hannah R Goodman. I don't know, I couldn't. I'm you know what? I can't keep track of a pen name and I just yeah.

Hannah Goodman:

I just so I know also it's an act of I'm constantly putting myself in situations that I'm incredibly uncomfortable and finding that it peaks. It does the same thing every time that my original therapist told me. He said your anxiety is going to peak and it's going to fall down. And it happens every time.

Gabe Nathan:

Yeah, what is that ride like? Is it different, like than it was earlier?

Hannah Goodman:

yes, there's a liberty in getting to be very close to 50 as I, each year of my 40s it became more and more and probably watching uh health issues go on. My father's cancer, like I just real, and he was always like can I swear on here or is that not allowed?

Gabe Nathan:

Oh God Fuck. Yes, oh yes.

Hannah Goodman:

My dad was like fuck everything, go for it, be yourself. And my dad was definitely himself. He had no problem and so, yeah, I think that the ride is better now. I'm having some trouble with this book that just came out, because my practice is now thriving and it's big for a solo practitioner and my therapist gave me an exposure assignment. A couple weeks ago. I had a signing coming up in the town where I work and she said I want you to put a sign up in your office and I was like, oh God, are you sure? She said I am sure and I did. And I had a patient come in who has been with me since the first day of my practice. He looked at me and he says looks behind me, goes. So do you write for the money? He's a funny guy. Do you write for the money?

Gabe Nathan:

So no, I'm a therapist for the money.

Hannah Goodman:

Yeah, right, I go. Uh, no, it was just really funny. And then he asked me just a couple questions and I'm a very, you know, transparent person. I said, yeah, I write romance novels. And he was like, oh okay, and then we moved on. See, and that was important to have that happen, because, look, I live in Rhode Island, you realize, like everybody knows everybody, small state Yep. Someone's going to find out and so far nothing terrible has happened.

Gabe Nathan:

Yeah and it won't. But of course there's that nagging voice of anxiety what if, what if, what if? And there's a part I can't remember which essay of yours it is Okay when I think it's about the knife right here it is, it's right here, yeah the knife.

Gabe Nathan:

So I was standing there in my kitchen I know you're supposed to be reading this. No, you read the blade of the knife gleaming and scaring the shit out of me because of the thoughts I had. What if I lose control and stab myself in the stomach? What if blood goes everywhere? What if I can't stop and I just go crazy? And again, as someone who also lives with generalized anxiety disorder, those two words what if? Words, what if? Just ring in my head constantly, and it's a constant companion. It's a constant critical voice and what I've learned about that voice is it's like the guardrail on the side of the highway as you're driving up a mountain it wants to keep you safe.

Hannah Goodman:

That's all it does. Yes.

Gabe Nathan:

And so I've learned, I've tried to learn about it as less of an antagonist, which is, I think, in my twenties that's how I viewed it. It was this enemy that just kept coming at me that I had to keep fighting back, and now I kind of understand it and I have empathy for it. For those two words.

Hannah Goodman:

Yeah, and I have empathy for it, for those two words. All your brain wants to do is keep you alive. And if the back of your brain takes over and the executive function skills, kind of like, go offline, it's going to do a misfire, but it thinks it's trying to help you. It's all about us saying, okay, oh, I get it All right. Thank you, brain. I say this all the time to myself and I tell my clients, when that starts, two things oh, that's my anxiety. And then thank you.

Gabe Nathan:

Yeah, Because my anxiety loves me really.

Hannah Goodman:

Yeah, it does A lot, it loves you a lot, and when we, I think I talk about in that essay, where if you struggle with it and you start arguing with it now, you're causing the secondary pain, and that can be, and to me, I think when I work with patients, I see that's actually what perpetuates us, starts to form problems like agoraphobia or, like you know, just not being able to do things.

Gabe Nathan:

Yeah.

Hannah Goodman:

You know, you.

Gabe Nathan:

You mentioned to me right before we started the interview that you're in a I think you said a quote weird place with your writing um related to mental health. Can you talk a little bit about that, cause it's such an important part of your life and you have the sub stack and the romance novels. So what's the weird place?

Hannah Goodman:

Okay, so here's where my panic comes in. But we're doing exposure therapy, so we're going to go for it.

Hannah Goodman:

Let's have it happen right here. My breakdown in 2014,. And I don't remember. I did reread the essay and then, you know, as an anxious person, I forgot everything I read. I don't know how much time I spent, but the kickoff for it was breaking up with my agent at the time and realizing that my dream of being the next Judy Blume that I'd worked for since, you know, I was gosh 15, realizing the truth of the publishing world and all of the disappointment and all the things that went wrong in that relationship with her, which was five years, it really took a toll on me. It felt like the end of the world, which, when I tell people this, I'm like man. I don't know if I can convey the impact of having a dream and actually working on it and being this close for at that point, like almost 20 years and then gone, and I just had to re. I was in the process of.

Hannah Goodman:

I had a tutoring business Before that. I was a high school English teacher, had kids, wanted to be home, had a tutoring business, got my MFA, got agents, got awards, got this, got that. The ball was rolling and then bam, this last agent. I had just failed me miserably. I feel comfortable saying I've written about it.

Hannah Goodman:

So that happened and the embarrassment, the failure, the lack of perfection, having to face everyone in my family that I had failed. I did face students, I taught writing workshops, I taught writing workshops and publishing at this point and I had to talk about exposure therapy. I had to tell everyone about my failure and it ripped me apart. It ripped me apart. It was really bad, really bad. So now that's the bad part. Fast forward, go to a great therapist. Fast forward, go to a great therapist. Get my life together. Refocus my life so that my self-worth is no longer tied to whether or not I'm the next Judy Blume. Work really hard at becoming a therapist. Fall in love with that Write. Basically, by the way, the essay, the first one that you published, was I don't even know if I ever say I don't think I say this my therapist said I want you to write something and submit it somewhere and expect I want you to try to fail.

Gabe Nathan:

Oh damn, I should have rejected it, sorry.

Hannah Goodman:

No, but a beautiful thing happened. It was okay either way. So when I did make it, it was like oh, but my whole self-worth isn't defined by this. This is the cherry on top. This is my art. This is not all of me. This isn't defining me.

Hannah Goodman:

So I worked through all of that and things started to happen as they do when you stop holding something with a chokehold. So I had my essay published with you and then several other online mental health publications. Then I got a book contract on my own, without an agent, in 2018. Then I got another book contract in 2023, but my dad passed away just as I got that contract, and I did not have the energy, nor the will, nor the desire, because what it takes to be an unfamous author and I wrote all about this on my sub stack, if anybody wants to, and it's about mental health too what it takes to be an unfamous author is you really got to swallow any ego you have to be an unfamous author? Is you really got to swallow any ego you have?

Hannah Goodman:

And I knew that. I knew that I was at risk of tying my self-worth to whether or not this book was going to do well or not, and I had to be careful. My dad had just died, so I'm in a weird place because my dad passed away in 2023. Publishing is a long process, so the book didn't come out until 2025, january and, truth be told, it's hard. It's hard to. I just had a book signing where they did not do a nice job of making me feel welcomed. I wrote about that, too, on my sub stack. So my mental health my husband actually said to me today the only thing he's worried about with this book is that is how am I really or am I able to separate my self-worth from how I'm going to be received and how my book's going to be received? Because if you're not famous and you write a fiction novel, you're pounding pavement.

Gabe Nathan:

Yeah.

Hannah Goodman:

You know so.

Gabe Nathan:

Well, how are you really?

Hannah Goodman:

Not great with the publishing stuff. I'll be honest with you. At least now I'm able to say I'm great here and I'm great here Like I'm able to, kind of. But the publishing this has not been easy. This recent book signing was humiliating, you know, a lot of things were said and promised and then I get there and nothing Like shoved in a corner, no, it just was bad. And I feel I wrote this whole thing on Substack that I felt like guilty for feeling. You know, you know this right, I did something wrong.

Gabe Nathan:

Yeah, of course.

Hannah Goodman:

You know what that is? That's our generalized anxiety, that's our OCD, and it was flaring loud. So I did the only thing I know how to do besides take my meds, get exercise and go to therapy.

Hannah Goodman:

Just write about it, I wrote about it, I wrote about it and I have more to say. I wrote it and I sent it to my good friends and they're like. I think you have more to say. But I'm also afraid what's going to happen if that bookstore, which is my favorite bookstore, or it used to be bookstore, which is my favorite bookstore, or it used to be, but I have to, I have, I shouldn't be swallowing, you know, that's another thing we do, those of us with anxieties, we just put up with a lot of shit and we let ourselves get treated like this was not good.

Gabe Nathan:

Yeah, and if one of the things that's lovely about getting you know closer to 50 or whatever age it is for other people is that I'm kind of done being the world's doormat, yeah, um then I agree I don't know. Lean into that, because what if the owner of blah blah, half-priced books or whatever it is, gets pissed off at you? Okay, yeah.

Hannah Goodman:

That's okay, and I say this a lot when people are anxious in my office and I go is your side of the street clean and mine is? I did not do anything other than do what I was supposed to do. Right, and if there's going to be blame and we're going to point fingers, it's definitely not at me. When you invite someone to be a guest in your bookstore, there are I've done this for 20 years. There are things booksellers and event planners do. None of those things occurred. In fact, it was again humiliating.

Hannah Goodman:

And thank God, my husband, one of my daughters, two of my, you know, my best friend, one of my really good friends, everyone's there for me to support me, and that's if you're attempting to do this. You have to have support, people who love you, and thank God for them. But they were all looking after. They were like, oh my God, is she okay? Sure, yeah, and I'm okay. I'm like I'm fine, I'm not having a panic attack, I'm not like ripping myself apart, self-esteem wise, or like I have a lot of self-compassion for myself. But I am so sad and disappointed because this book this is the one that my agent and I broke up over, because she did such a shit again, a shit job of doing what she was supposed to do, and so I'm sad about that, I'm sad that we're off to the start and it's just really disappointing, and I have to face that face it and express yourself about it and work through it.

Gabe Nathan:

Work through it Because it's also bringing up all that stuff about the relationship with the agent. So that's all still there and that's hard.

Hannah Goodman:

Yeah, and feeling humiliated is such a weird feeling, because if you dissect humiliation, it's like well, but it's not your fault, and yet you know what. You know what really sucks is is and I think a lot of us with anxiety disorders wind up feeling this way, like but I didn't do anything wrong and I'm the one carrying around false guilt, like right, which I used to call myself when I was trying to get better. Like way back when I had my, my breakdown, I used to call myself an anxiety warrior, like I was trying to talk myself up, you know, because that's what I feel like in these moments, like I'm an anxious person, so I'm automatically going to assume responsibility, even for whatever. But then that stronger part of me, that warrior, has to be like no, protect yourself, you didn't do anything wrong, you know. So how am I doing? It's hard, I don't know yeah, and that's okay.

Gabe Nathan:

That's okay and it's much better than like diluting or putting on an act or a mask, which is what you know a lot of us do to get through just the everyday and also the really hard stuff. But let's move on to a lovelier part of writing and self-expression and let's get into one of the two essays of yours that are on our site, and this one is called when Thoughts Are Sticky, pure OCD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, by Hannah R Goodman.

Hannah Goodman:

Though I'm in recovery from generalized anxiety disorder, that doesn't mean I am cured. Gad can be chronic, with periods of remission and mini flare-ups. One of the symptoms I struggle with during these mini flare-ups is intrusive thoughts. These thoughts are not necessarily pathological or an indication of a mental illness. If you are human, you have had an intrusive thought at some point in your life. Make that probably some point in your day. Intrusive thoughts are basically anxious, scary thoughts that float into your brain, sometimes for no specific reason. The majority of the time those thoughts float in and float out and you can move on with your day. For me, sometimes I go for long stretches where these types of thoughts don't really stick to me. An anxious thought floats in, I take note of it and then I can watch it float by. Other times, when I'm having a mini flare-up of anxiety, anxious, scary thoughts stomp into my brain, have a fit, and they don't leave In this state. My thoughts do this OCD type of thing that I call sticky thinking. My thoughts do this OCD type of thing that I call sticky thinking. This is sometimes referred to as pure OCD. With this type of thinking, you feel like you are grabbing onto each and every disturbing or painful thought and then rustling it into the ground in the hopes that you will make it go away.

Hannah Goodman:

Earlier this year, I found myself in a desperate wrestling match with some very sticky thinking. Earlier this year, I found myself in a desperate wrestling match with some very sticky thinking. I was going through some of my out-of-control work-related stress and noticed that my thinking was becoming more and more sticky with each passing day, to the point where every time I would walk into the kitchen I would think there are knives in here. What if I lose control and stab myself? Or if I managed to make it all the way to the kitchen and actually pick up one to use to cut up fruit for my daughter or carrots for dinnertime? I would immediately worry that if I didn't cut everything up quickly, I might lose control and stab myself. One morning during this time I was running around getting my youngest ready for school while also trying to pack my own lunch to take to work. When just the sight of a kitchen knife laying on the countertop triggered me, I began to worry and obsess that I might grab the knife and totally lose control and stab myself. And then my children would see this and I would forever scar them, because this was not my first time in a mini OCD flare-up.

Hannah Goodman:

It was a part of me that knew I was having these thoughts, not because I actually want to stab myself, but because I'm afraid that somehow and here is where the irrational brain does its thing I will lose control, blink out like a computer on overload and possibly act on the scary thought. It's the obsessive and compulsive process of if I think it, then I won't do it because I will scare myself enough. If I think it, then I won't do it because I will scare myself enough. So there I was, standing in my kitchen, the blade of the knife gleaming and scaring the shit out of me because of the thoughts I had. What if I lose control and stab myself in the stomach? What if blood goes everywhere? What if I can't stop and I just go crazy?

Hannah Goodman:

Though this only lasted a few minutes, those moments were treacherous and a lot went on. In those moments my mind went right to but I don't want to hurt myself. What if I can't stop myself? Oh no, why am I having this thought? Then? Great, you're going crazy. See, you can't be a therapist. You're sicker than any client you may ever help.

Hannah Goodman:

But, unlike what might've happened years ago, I caught myself. I became mindful of what was happening and, instead of wrestling with the thought or trying to stomp on it and make it go away, I took a breath, and then another, focusing on the in and the out sensation, and in this act, I began to allow for some space between me and these scary thoughts. In this space, I was able to remember what a therapist once advised for these moments Tell yourself okay, that thought scares me. Of course it does, that's fine, let it be, do nothing, just breathe. This type of self-talk is what helps me get through a mini flare-up. I'm not turning away from or avoiding my thoughts. Instead, I acknowledge them and then I focus on the breath, which brings me into the moment. The way I spoke to myself when I first saw the knife was all future-oriented, what-if thinking, the type of thinking that can really amp up my anxiety. However, I caught myself and then basically challenged these thoughts with soothing, rational, in-the-moment self-talk. When I did this, I felt my anxiety lower. I continued to make my lunch and then move on to the rest of the morning.

Hannah Goodman:

I remember the first time I had scary knife thoughts. As I referred to them. I was in my late teens and on vacation with my recently divorced dad. On that first night after a day of cross-country skiing, as I waited in the lobby for my dad to go to dinner, an image of the blade of a knife came to my mind. I wasn't hallucinating, it was a. An image of the blade of a knife came to my mind. I wasn't hallucinating, it was a clear image of a knife and the sharp tip of it in my mind's eye. It caused me to cringe a little, almost as if thinking about it would cause it to physically hurt me. I tried to push it away, but it kept turning. Finally, over dinner, I confessed to my father and he simply said that's your anxiety, don't worry about it. Though my dad wasn't a mental health provider, he was no stranger to the weirdness of anxiety symptoms and since he had them himself, he normalized this experience for me.

Hannah Goodman:

On and off over the next decade, these thoughts would come in and stick and I would think of my dad, what my dad told me, and somehow I was able to move on. But here I was at that kitchen counter, a full grown adult with the responsibility and stress of small children, work and marriage, having those same knife thoughts. This time they weren't fleeting, they were constant, triggered by anything from watching MasterChef to walking by a knife that lay on the counter in the kitchen. I was in therapy at the time for a tune-up for my anxiety. I told my therapist to explain what pure OCD is. Knowing that this had a specific name helped and knowing that it was, as my father had indicated years before, another symptom of anxiety, I could put it in perspective. It didn't make learning to cope with these thoughts easy, but it definitely made it possible.

Hannah Goodman:

My thinking during these times can not only be scary but also make me feel like I'm a bad or evil person for having such thoughts. But then I remind myself that a thought is just a thought, not a behavior. The very fact that these scary thoughts cause anxiety means that I don't want to act on those thoughts. And, at the same time, a thought only has the power that you give it. I take the power of irrational, scary thoughts through soothing self-talk and breathing into the present moment.

Hannah Goodman:

In the past, I would work very hard to push away, deny, avoid or repress all scary thoughts, yelling at myself, hiding knives and avoiding using anything sharp, even a pair of scissors. All that did was increase the power of the thoughts, and then I actually made my anxiety worse because I created more suffering, which is now a secondary pain to the first. Secondary suffering occurs in an effort to avoid the emotional pain, you shove it away forcibly, and in the act of shoving you actually become more upset. The best way to explain this is from a video by Birch that I watched when I took the Payloose Mindfulness course, which shows an example of how secondary pain works. Basically, it's the original pain. It's like the original pain is a blue cushion on your lap and the secondary pain is piling more and more cushions on top of the original blue one.

Hannah Goodman:

It's like when you feel that first rush of panic. That is painful, but it's the piling on of what ifs and coulds that we tend to add to panic that actually makes it a whole lot worse. My heart is racing and my skin is hot. I'm having a panic attack. First blue cushion oh no. First purple I could die. Second purple cushion what if I go crazy? Third purple cushion what if I pass out? Fourth purple cushion what if I blink out and can't remember anything and do something stupid? Fifth purple cushion when we reach a five cushion pile up, we are at a 10 on the anxiety scale. We might even be in a full-blown panic attack mode.

Hannah Goodman:

This is where the compassion and rational self-talking come in, not to push away anything, but to actually turn towards it. I like to picture the thoughts as leaves floating by on a stream and I'm looking at them passing by. The key for me is not to spend too much time here, to note or acknowledge, and then this is the key part move on to the next thing. This has taken a tremendous amount of practice and even now that I've become really good at it, there are moments sometimes a lot of moments when the sticky thought really gets stuck and I'll try desperately to pry it off my brain. That's when I take a step back, breathe and visualize those thoughts as leaves on the stream, and then I get on with my day.

Gabe Nathan:

Thank you so much for reading that.

Hannah Goodman:

That was really wonderful to listen to in your own voice.

Gabe Nathan:

Thanks, that was really wonderful to listen to in your own voice. Thanks, what was that like for you reading that?

Hannah Goodman:

and looking back on when you wrote that and sent that here and and all of that, I felt so calm. I felt so oddly calm reading it. I mean, I'm I was like nervous about reading and all the normal nerves, but like the thing itself, you know, it used to activate me, just to talk about and that was all part of my exposure. Therapy was to, and I didn't feel on a scale of zero to 10, there was like no anxiety On a scale of 0 to 10, there was, like no anxiety.

Hannah Goodman:

So I wasn't afraid of knives, I wasn't afraid of like, like, all of that is how it used to go Triggers, you know. And really it's just kind of amazing to read it now and when I, like, I'm meant to be a therapist when I read that I wrote that in 2019, I just started my private practice, had only been a therapist for maybe four years, I guess at that time. And I'm not supposed to be the next Judy Blume, I'm supposed to be Hannah the therapist, that's for sure.

Gabe Nathan:

That a great realization. I love that. All roads lead to here. You've had three careers, you've gone through a lot of shit there's multiple mental health diagnoses here and challenges that you're struggling with but you're doing the thing that you're supposed to be doing, um, and I just think that's really great, even when you sort of arrived at a place where you are really quite happy.

Hannah Goodman:

I am, I'm quite happy. Isn't that interesting? You can be quite happy and still have this. I mean I am an, I sounds whatever it sounds like. I mean I'm an artist too, and the writing, the fiction writing, is an art that's. It's hard to be an artist. It's so hard because you put so many hours into things right and someone may never see it. Or if they do, I think about how quickly people read books and I'm like, no, do you know how long that writer well, I have that struggle.

Gabe Nathan:

I mean in my personal life, like I write a lot and I went to school for theater and you know it was very clear to me very early on that I was not going to become a professional performer. So I do that, as you know community theater and things like that and you find all these ways to keep something alive right. Find all these ways to keep something alive right. Yes, or to sublimate, or to go down a different track and not lose that thing. But it's a constant struggle and a constant pain. But professionally, here at Recovery Diaries we publish long form essays. The essays are 1200 words, 1500 words. A lot of times they're longer. And then I get these stats that the average length of time people spend on the site is a minute, a minute and one second.

Gabe Nathan:

Nobody's reading a 1500 word essay in a minute and it's very disheartening because, it's like, well, what are people doing and are people really getting what we want them to get out of these essays or these films that are 15 minutes long or seven minutes long, or you know, so that's that's really hard. Longer you know, so that's that's really hard.

Gabe Nathan:

But the fact of the matter is is that it gets down to control, and I can't control how long people stay on the site and I can't control if they thoughtfully read something or if they are listening to a podcast while they're doing dishes and they're maybe getting 30 of it or or what. Yeah, we can't control it. No, we just put something out into the world and hope.

Hannah Goodman:

Hope, if there's. I love everything you just said. It was very healing to hear. I think as a writer I'm pretty isolated. I don't have. I used to have a community that I was really part of. I haven't. I need to find that again. But I appreciate what you're saying because it's it's like we're saying like I got it. I'm right there with you because you put so much and you do think, oh, I can't wait for someone to read. This is going to change people and I, for example, this book I just published, like it has a pretty controversial twist and I thought I was just like this is going to start conversation, like nope, all I get not listen. I'm grateful when anybody reads my book, don't get me wrong, but I wanted control. I wanted this to be a conversation starter about a specific thing and it's disappointing that it's not.

Gabe Nathan:

But I'll counter you with one small thing is that there may be conversations happening about this that you have no idea are happening. They might be happening in someone's living room. They might be happening between two colleagues at work. Oh my God, did you read Hannah's book? You have no idea.

Hannah Goodman:

Oh, I love that.

Gabe Nathan:

So we only know what we see online in the comment section or in comments on social media posts. If they're not there, that can signal, that can give us a message that it's not happening at all and that's not necessarily true. And the fact of the matter is is that even if one person reads it and it's sparking conversation internally in them, it's getting them to think about something in a different way.

Hannah Goodman:

Yeah.

Gabe Nathan:

Then that's great, then it is happening.

Hannah Goodman:

And I think what's changed I think you're bringing up a really important point about writing today, even from 10 years ago is a lot of people read stuff and they don't necessarily respond online. You know I'm guilty of it. I try to be very thoughtful and if I take the time to read something and finish it, I try to give some sort of indication, just because I know what it's like to be on the other side. But most people aren't thinking that way and I'll have people reach out to me, maybe about something on a sub stack or whatever, not in the comments but directly. But I sort of forget that right, like in those moments.

Gabe Nathan:

I forget Because we want to see the engagement we want to see it right now.

Hannah Goodman:

I want to see the engagement.

Gabe Nathan:

Yeah, I get it, believe me, it's the same thing here. I want to see the stats for the essays. I want to look at YouTube views of the films, all of that shit, but at YouTube views of the films, all of that shit. But that only tells a piece of the story. So just don't forget that.

Hannah Goodman:

I know You're right. You're right. I do have to remember that.

Gabe Nathan:

And that's the note we're going to leave it on a hopeful, lovely, positive note. You don't always know the things that the stuff that we put out into the world is sparking in other human beings, and that's the wonderful thing I think about being, you know, a creative person, which you clearly are, so keep putting it out there.

Hannah Goodman:

I'm going to keep trying. Thank you, this was inspiring to me, like this was a great conversation and it, you know, it's made me even think about that heartbreak. I'm experiencing with writing a little bit differently, and that's the other thing for anxiety, right, we get locked into one perspective when we're an anxious person, so we have to widen the perspective. So I take a lot from this, a lot from this. This is the highlight. So if nothing else happens related to writing, I'm good.

Gabe Nathan:

This is the golden nugget for the week.

Hannah Goodman:

That's it. Yeah, that's it.

Gabe Nathan:

Thank you, hannah. Thank you so so much for being here. Thank you, thank you. Thank you again for joining us in conversation today. It's beautiful to see the progression of our contributors. Thank you so so much to our guest today, hannah R Goodman. She's a writer, teacher and a mental health counselor. She has two personal mental health essays on our site. She has a new romance book out and a Substack. You can follow her there at substackcom at Hannah R Goodman. Before we leave you, we want to remind you to check out our website, recoverydiariesorg. There, like this podcast, you'll find additional stories, videos and content about mental health, empowerment and change. We look forward to continuing to grow our community. Thank you so much for being a part of it. We wouldn't be here without you. Be sure to join our mailing list so you never miss a podcast episode, essay or film. I'm Gabe Nathan. Until next time, take good care.

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