Andrea Gibson

I wouldn't eat nuts on an airplane out of fear that I would suddenly develop a nut allergy at 32,000 feet.

Like it was, it ruled my life.

Yeah.

Yes.

Like, absolutely.

All of these things.

All of those things I would do.

But when I got diagnosed, all of that stopped.

And the first thing I realized that my whole life, there was grief underneath that anxiety.

That ultimately under all of that was a fear of not being connected.

A fear of dying because of fear of losing everyone that I loved.

So anyway, I've not had a lot of fear through this time.

And so I read it.

I see how everything in my body calms down.

I go to grief and over the next three days before I talk to my doctor,

I probably spent about eight hours solid every day singing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah at the top of my lungs.

I just sang it over and over and over, except I would take breaks every now and then to scream, to scream, you are not going to break my fucking spirit to everything that hurt.

Like I would just walk through the house screaming, you are not going to break my fucking spirit.

Then I would dance to Ain't Nothing Gonna Break My Stride.

which is such a great song.