For Your Nervous System
hello from los angeles
What are your shoulders doing right now? Do they feel like cement?
Do those questions help them sink into warm molasses? How about your jaw? Tight? Armpits? Knots? I love to be reminded of these body parts. The reminders help me morph into jello, bringing my attention to the tension.
Some days the reminders aren’t enough. Some days I need more help to function. The alarms won’t stop. The mind won’t hush. Some days my nervous system is brittle and seemingly beyond repair.
In therapy I’ve learned to tap, tap, tap my own shoulders, my arms criss crossed over my shaken, hollow frame. My eyelids closed, I’m supposed to take myself somewhere else— a place I’ve carefully curated, just waiting for my arrival in the event of a crisis. It is a space born out of being asked to paint the word “safe.”
This space is a covered wooden deck with three walls. Furnished like a plush living room. 4:00PM. Tropical rain, loud and steady. The vibe is outdoors and indoors simultaneously, and I’m appreciating the best of both. Seated in a wide upholstered arm chair with a matching ottoman. My legs stretched over it, under a down comforter and two quilts. One of the quilts I take pride in because here, in this universe, I made it myself. A quilt covered in apples alternating in color. Its craftsmanship feels both homemade and professional, and I’m proud to be under it, cradled by my own masterpiece.
There is one standing lamp eight feet to the right of me, on and warm. My chair and I face the one open wall, really just a wall of heavy rain, wind-free. I hear a ding; I’m in a group text with five friends— two of them the Olsen twins. But I’ll respond later. The rain is too bewitching. I point my toes at the curtain of water before me, and think of upcoming events: lunches and family travels and dinner parties marked in my calendar. I let images of these future plans dance in my head, knowing fully well that today is for being right here, under blankets, in a space untouchable to trauma or disaster. If your nervous system has had a demanding week too, I hope this imagery is even an iota easing.
In 2015, I sat in a restaurant with my mom and some of her friends. Watching plates of Chinese food being passed around the table, the world abruptly went from bright to evil, my vision blurred and my stomach flipped. No warning. And I had no clue why. I ran to the bathroom thinking, Oh my god. Nothing is okay. And what is wrong with me? What is happening to my brain? What is happening to my stomach? What is causing this?
I had no idea what triggered me, I only knew that I couldn’t explain myself. And for the next six weeks I had daily panic attacks. I couldn’t eat solid food without throwing up. And I couldn’t sleep. I journaled, trying to describe my baffling condition, trying to make it make sense. Doing my best to describe what I was going through I wrote down, it feels like… everyone I know is dead. It feels like I’ve just been told that everyone I know is dead. It was the best I could communicate it.
If you met me or spent time with me in the Spring or Summer of 2015, I don’t know who you were interacting with. Her body was there, but the sunshine couldn’t reach her soul.
I was single at the time, and went on a few horribly awkward dates, in denial that I needed real mental help. Instead of slowing down, I tried running with a broken leg. I remember showing up to work and having a colleague ask if I’d received bad news recently or something. I remember wanting to say “yes” so that my feelings were justifiable. I remember sitting at my desk fantasizing that a gunman would barge in and shoot me in the arm just so that I could say, “I’m in pain.” But mostly so that the response would be, “I can see why."
Loved ones told me they were worried about me, which only made me feel more broken.
Somehow, eventually, I found myself watching the movie Paris, Je T’aime in bed. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a series of romantic short films. Soaking in the French vignettes it was the first time I started to feel a teeny bit better. Holy shit, I thought. Progress.
Was cinema the answer? I watched more movies from bed, but they didn’t move the depression needle as much as Paris, Je T’aime had. I stared at the ceiling and thought about why that might be, and then it was obvious. It was the romance. Two people mesmerized by one another, confident and selfless in the name of love. Anxiety and depression tell us we’re doomed. But the nature of romance suggests the future is bright. Happily Ever After. Romance is anxiety’s antithesis.
Shortly after this revelation, sitting at my desk in my office, I opened up a blank document, knowing I needed to write. That’s when a story poured out of me unexpectedly. I wrote a romantic short film, about a woman and her anxiety (if her anxiety was a man). I romanticized my anxiety in an effort to deflate it. I pictured him, her anxiety, my anxiety. He was tall and hairy. He wore a white button up that was too tight. He was probably Zach Galifianakis or Martin Starr. The visual was helping. It was suddenly really helping. And then I remembered something my High School video production teacher once told our class about horror films— something Alfred Hitchcock once said. I couldn’t remember the quote verbatim, but it was something like, “The only thing scarier than seeing the murderer, is not seeing the murderer.” That sentiment helped clarify perhaps the most terrifying thing about anxiety and depression; you can’t see them. You don’t know when they’re coming, how long they’ll stay. So, by that logic, visualizing and personifying it/him removes some of the terror. My visualization powers were healing me, my mind communicating to my heart and stomach without me having to open my mouth. The magic, my god.
In just a shitty forty-five minute lunch break, I wrote an entire short film. About a woman named Wilma, and her Anxiety. Without reading it over, I immediately emailed it to my mom and my best friend. They both replied right away insisting that I find a way to make it. With the help of Kickstarter, my loved ones, and Martin Starr agreeing to play Anxiety, I did make it. My directorial debut. I made some mistakes and I made some brilliant choices. I’m still very proud of it. A hero of mine, Patton Oswalt, saw it and emailed me asking me to promise him I’d never stop writing and directing. I printed that email and framed it.
The entire experience introduced me to some potential I would’ve sworn didn’t exist. It taught me that when I am mentally in aguish, my thinking is limited. When I’m in crisis I believe wholeheartedly that the world is a windowless room. Because that is all that tortured eyes can see. It helps me to remember that my eyes are not the only ones on Earth. I learned that year how my real mental health goal isn’t self improvement; it’s self acceptance. Way more can be healed that way.
I was born and raised in Los Angeles. Last week I watched neighborhoods from my childhood burn. I watched streets I cherish fill with panicking families as they were forced to abandon their cars, clutching their pups and toddlers. I received text after text and watched instagram story after instagram story all notifying me of dear friends, families I grew up with, fellow girl scouts, High School classmates, countless members of my community, who’d lost everything. I kept praying for the emergency of it all to end, as the wind smashed trees into our old building’s offset windows, smoke and ash seeping in. New hills caught fire, this time closer by, and my husband and I packed a go back just in case. Ultimately deciding it was way too premature to leave, we agreed we’d just try to get some sleep. I buried my head under the covers but the smell of smoke still found and tortured me. My stomach turned, and a cruel old friend revisited me in the dark. He was backed by his posse: panic, insomnia, nausea and relentless trips to the bathroom.
I tried acknowledging my shoulders and taking in a deep breath, but, um, hello? The smoke. How could deep breathing have comforted me? The thought of my sweet baby in his crib breathing it in all night turned every one of my muscles to brick. I had had panic attacks before but only when there was no tangible crisis. In 2015, my loved ones were sleeping comfortably in their safe homes; the outdoor air was restorative, breathable. But this time, everyone I knew was suffering. And I see now that my symptoms were the same, in 2015 and 2025. The anguish was the same. Absolutely zero difference. If anything, this latest episode was less destructive to my body. Because now I have tools, a therapist, a language for the pain, and the invaluable experience of having cared for my nervous system before. My rainy deck was already waiting for me, the armchair cushion appropriately fluffed.
My body can set off alarm bells when there is no fire. Because, I’ve learned, that PTSD is an internal fire. But how do you tell yourself everything is fine when things are not fine? Is it still okay for me to visit my fantasy deck when everyone around me is on edge too? When is it healing and when is it denial?
I only know that the nervous system desperately needs care, and that there are ways to nurture it. Gentleness. Permission. Simplicity. I highly recommend reading those three words again and again until they feel reinvented.
Here are some final suggestions:
If someone shares that they’re actively experiencing crippling anxiety or depression, never respond by just saying, “Why?” Do more listening than advice giving.
When you notice incremental, positive changes in your own mental health, celebrate every tiny victory.
Not if, but when you finally feel some restoration, use that stability to help someone else.
the way you describe your anxiety is closer to mine than I’ve ever been able to express. THANK YOU for writing and sharing
wow thank you SO much for this 🥺