At the end of July, my body staged a coup, and I was stuck in bed with a stomach flu for three days. I was too sick to work. I tried to conduct an interview in the middle of it and had to hang up, so I could run to the bathroom. The downtime forced me to think. In bed, crying during my fourth consecutive viewing of The King’s Speech, I realized I wasn’t in a terrific place. And it was all my fault that I landed in this shitty situation because I’d never set boundaries for myself. I never let my friends be, well, friends. People couldn’t read my mind. It was up to me to ask for help, or tell them when I needed downtime.

So I started to tell them. I finally opened up about how hard the summer had been — hitting a wall so hard and feeling sick all the time. I fessed up: I took on too much because I was afraid if I didn’t, I wouldn’t work again. And, because they’re real friends, they listened and understood, and made me feel better.

In September, I started keeping a night or two a week open so I could stay in and read or see a movie. That made the rest of the week packed with work and events feel less daunting. If I needed an extra day to complete an assignment, I did what was previously unthinkable: I asked for more time. (It turns out most editors are flexible.) I’d be honest about telling pals I was tired, and if I didn’t want to go to an event I was dreading, I didn’t go. (Gasp.) I took time to eat breakfast, lunch, and grab a coffee if I needed one. I stopped relying solely on power bars and energy drinks. I began to think I was better. Talking about having anxiety was obviously the cure to my anxiety. (Clearly, I was in denial.)

But by October, the pendulum began to swing back in the other direction. I stopped looking ahead in my calendar (vowing to “live in the moment”) — and I tried to convince myself that this was helping me feel less anxious. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work that way, and once again I was taking on too many assignments and making multiple dinner plans per night, telling myself that pausing every so often to take deep breaths or eat a proper lunch would keep me sane. But soon I was back to the old Tetris game, and there I was, having an anxiety attack at a restaurant, trying to discreetly pop a few Pepto-Bismol tablets, while my friend told me about her day. I wasn’t listening to her, I was just running through an endless list of “What Ifs.” What if I don’t get another writing assignment? What if my friend hates me because she knows I’m not listening? What if I have to take Pepto-Bismol daily, forever?