The title of my book, Maybe I’m Crazy, But the World’s Gone Mad, often makes people smile. Some laugh. Some pause. Others immediately understand exactly what I mean.

For much of my life, I misunderstood the difference between healing vs fixing yourself. I believed that healing meant correcting everything that seemed wrong with me. I thought I needed to become calmer, more productive, more accepted, more successful, and somehow more worthy. Looking back, I realise I was not trying to heal. I was trying to fix myself. The distinction may seem small, but it changed everything.

For many years, I did not understand the relationship between anxiety and self awareness. I thought anxiety was simply something that happened to me—an unwanted visitor that arrived without warning and disrupted my peace. Whenever it appeared, I wanted it gone. I wanted to silence it, escape it, or distract myself from it. It was only later that I began to realise that beneath the noise of anxiety was something much quieter. Beneath the fear, the racing thoughts, and the endless what-ifs, there was a deeper truth trying to be heard.