She was vaguely aware of the issues caused by Anxiety with a capital A to demonstrate that it can be a serious thing and not just a simple synonym for concern or another such synonym. When recently watching The Peanuts Movie, she'd been struck hard by Charlie Brown's mental health struggles. Beyond the clear fact that he regularly consults a pop-up psychiatrist who is nickeling and diming (although mostly nickeling) him out of common sense and into bizarre behavior and a tunnel of self-doubt. Only a psychiatrist who regularly refers to you as a blockhead and pulls the chair out from under you -- or the football out from your kicking windup at the last minute (again that one is super hard to describe… but you've seen Peanuts, right?) -- can inspire more concern than healing. Watching Charlie Brown struggle through choosing from a closet of matching yellow shirts, seeing him fly one kite after another into the kite eating tree, and feeling everyone's response to the tiny and awkward jumble of sticks that he chose as the tree for the Christmas show -- all of these feel like every day experiences to those who suffer from anxiety. Plus, consider the little red haired girl… she's so amazing that simply to name her would be sacrilegious. Here's one of CB’s conversations with his five cent psychiatrist on this topic:
CB: she's something and I'm nothing. I just can't talk to her. If I was something and she was nothing, I could talk to her. If she was nothing and I was nothing, I could talk to her. But she's something. I mean, she's really something. I can't talk to pretty girls.
Lucy: what are you saying? I'm a pretty girl and you talk to me. WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY?
CB: Auuuuuyuugghh
Lucy: Hey! You owe me five cents!
CB: Good grief!
Lucy: How I love the sound of nickels…
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