Doctorate Denied!

When you have anxiety, you want to be able to walk down the street and have nobody look at you. New York is as close as you’re gonna get to that.

I’m a very panicky guy, and I worry a lot. That’s where my brain goes. There’s a dread thing that I have to fight on a daily basis. When I think about having a baby, I go right from “Yay, a baby!” to “OH MY GOD IT’S NOT BREATHING!” There’s nothing in between those things.

Here’s a fun anxiety thing that happens to me sometimes. I’ll be asleep and then all of the sudden I’ll feel like I can’t breath, and there’s that moment where your body is paralyzed, and I jolt awake with my heart pounding, like, I’m gonna die!

Tim’s the kind of guy who is forever second-guessing his behavior, as if the people in his life are constantly scrutinizing every single move he makes, and he’s completely correct about that—we are. Anytime he’s been petrified at the thought of social interaction or obsessively reexamined something he’s said, his fears have been entirely reasonable, given our nonstop monitoring of his behavior.

Anxiety will get you out of bed. Depression will keep you in it.

It’s going great, but there is this weird lack of drama that activates this thing in my brain that tells me, you obviously aren’t paying attention because you should be worrying about shit.