Maureen Johnson Became Friends with Her Anxiety Monster

Maureen Johnson loves mysteries. Loves reading classic detective fiction and loves writing mystery stories, which young readers have been gobbling up for years. Some of Maureen’s stories feature teenage sleuth Stevie Bell, who, besides having a knack for solving cold cases, deals with an anxiety disorder. It’s not all there is to Stevie, of course, but it’s definitely there and she has to manage it on an ongoing basis. Maureen tells us about Stevie and about her own recent anxiety mystery when she was suddenly whomped by a massive wave of anxiety that would not go away and severely affected her life for quite a while. Faced with that mystery, Maureen got to work gathering clues to figure it out, ultimately finding many effective techniques, including to fighting the anxiety monster (which she visualizes as Gossamer, the big red furry monster from Bugs Bunny cartoons) but welcoming it, getting to know it, and finding out what made it tick. She also got some lab work done, which pointed to a pronounced iron problem that was fixable.Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at [email protected] Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. Help is available right away.The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALKCrisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines  Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh