Caroline Foran

Yeah.

Where did you get the time to write?

Well, thanks to the creators of Paw Patrol, my son was really in a Paw Patrol phase last summer.

I'd sit beside him and I might get an hour done while he watches two episodes.

That's how I did it.

But this book was 10 years of...

it was all in me.

It's not like writing a fiction book where you're starting from page one and you're building characters.

It was like, it's all there, just vomit it out.

So yeah, the first book, Owning It, is what set me on this path.

But I was 25 then when I went through the anxiety and I was 27 or something when the book came out.

So I was still figuring it out.

There was so much I still didn't know and there was a lot of lived experience I hadn't gotten to.

This is 10 years later, I've become a parent, which challenged my own mental health.

we've all collectively been through so much like COVID is something that we just be like oh yeah that happened that was a bit strange wasn't it the impact on that of that on our like collective anxiety is huge even if we're not aware of it like we're not consciously aware of it that has to have left a mark and then things like I know you and I post about it often but the

constant like genocide and live stream on your phone all these constant threats that we're receiving because our nervous system reads that as like it doesn't matter if it's far away across the world we're seeing horrible things happen horrific scenes and imagery all that's going in and of course that's going to lead to anxiety that you mightn't think is about that but then is like your capacity at work is compromised I turned on the radio the other day I was driving into work sometimes I'll drive in if I have a podcast before I'm going into the office or something like that

Yes.

But I never would have had the language to describe it to me.

I had a very typical upbringing.

Everything was fine, which is why I found it so hard to sort of understand why I was so anxious.