Episode
The Scariest Thing I Have Ever Done
- Podcast
- Heretic Hereafter Podcast
- Published
- Jun 24, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 234
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Summary
My Secret Fear For someone with an anxiety disorder, I have managed to do a lot of scary stuff. Things like: moving away from my family, getting married when I was a dumb 22-year-old, moving to another country without a job or a place to live— twice! having kids, and telling a deeply personal story onstage at The Moth. But the actual Scariest Thing I’ve Ever Done was none of those things. It was self-publishing my novel last year. Maybe that sounds like not a big deal, but honestly, during the entire 6-month process I was WRECKED, mainly because I have a giant fear of other people thinking I am stupid. Yes, I was the 6th grader who toted around a leather-bound volume of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare like it was a magical talisman that could protect me from porny 90s culture which treated all femme girls like complete bimbos. Yes, despite all evidence to the contrary, there’s still a part of me that fears being reduced to my reproductive organs. This fear stockpiles my shortcomings and whispers them back to me in the middle of the night. Waiting for my novel to publish, it fed me nightmares of all my Super Smart Literary Friends reading my book and thinking, “I can’t believe she thought this was good enough to publish, she must be delusional.” The fear was strong, so much so that I SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED not publishing my book at all. Like, I announced it and then thought maybe I ought to just take it back?! Lessons from a Border Collie When I was growing up in rural Montana, we had a border collie named Mickey who, in accordance with his breeding, liked to herd other animals. Sometimes this was cute, like on hikes when he would nudge laggards onward. (Nothing like a border collie snout to the backside to make you pick up the pace.) But it was a problem when M…