The Fear Talking: The True Story of a Young Man and Anxiety

A compelling, heartbreaking story of a teenager, his family, and finding the courage to live with anxiety. It’s an everyday story of life, friendship, love, going to school and terror. The Fear Talking tells the true story of Chris Westoby, who as a teenager has a life-long anxiety condition, but he doesn’t know it
no one does as he’s undiagnosed. He wants to be alone, all day, forever, and swallows every aspiration that he has to complete his education, be a good boyfriend and live a life without perpetual fear. Deeply ashamed of his own thoughts, he juggles lies to friends and family to keep his anxiety secret. He seeks out secluded places in his hometown of Barton to avoid the world and find a way to get better. He begins investigating the patterns of causes and effect in his anxieties, the meanings and effects of the places that he goes to, the objects that he touches, the music that he hears and the words that he speaks. A sense of control might just be in reach, but it comes at a price that he doesn’t know he’s paying. AUTHOR: Chris Westoby livesin Hull and works as a researcher in the Faculty of Health at Hull University. He has an MA and PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Hull. SELLING POINTS: . The remarkable true story of Chris Westoby and how he managed to find the causes of his undiagnosed Generalised Anxiety disorder and help himself overcome it to change his life . An honest heart-breaking account of how generalised anxiety disorder affected Chris, his family and everyone around him, yet went undiagnosed