The worry arrives before anything has actually gone wrong. You run tomorrow’s conversation in your head, then the version after that, then the worst possible version. By the time the actual day arrives, you’ve already lived through it three times. Some part of you knows it’s out of proportion. That part rarely wins.
Your body takes part too. A chest that stays tight through the afternoon, sleep that breaks at 4am, a stomach that acts up before anything important. Maybe you’ve had it checked and nothing physical turned up. That’s useful, and it doesn’t make any of it less real.
If you recognize yourself here, it’s worth knowing how ordinary this is. Anxiety is one of the most frequent reasons people first contact a therapist, and most arrive with no diagnosis and no crisis, only a sense that the worrying has been making too many of their decisions.
What this looks like
The mental side you’d expect: circling thoughts, replaying the day’s mistakes, bracing for the worst reading of an email. The physical side surprises people more. Tight chest, poor sleep, stomach trouble, a fatigue that weekends don’t fix. The body runs the same alarm the mind does.
Then there’s avoidance, the part almost nobody notices while it’s happening. You take the longer route to avoid a certain road, and you let invitations lapse because evenings out have started to feel like work. Each choice looks reasonable on its own. Together, they quietly rearrange your life around the anxiety until the smaller version starts to feel normal.
None of this has to reach a crisis before it’s worth doing something about. If worry has been shaping your week for months, that’s reason enough.
What the work looks like
Dr. Mason draws on several methods, and the balance depends on what your anxiety is actually doing. CBT works on the thinking habits that keep the alarm running, the predictions and all-or-nothing readings that feel like facts. Exposure therapy means approaching, in small planned steps, the situations you’ve been avoiding, so they get the chance to become ordinary.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) comes at it from another angle: you learn to let the feeling be there and get on with what matters to you anyway. Alongside these, person-centred supportive counseling keeps the work grounded: a conversation with someone who listens properly and takes you seriously.
What happens when you get in touch
You call or send a message and set up a first conversation. In it you can say what’s been going on, ask anything, and see whether this feels like a fit. It’s fine to arrive with no words for any of it; finding them is part of the job. Nothing dramatic happens in a first meeting, and a first message commits you to nothing.
What you share is treated as confidential. What happens after that is up to you.
Privacy, plainly stated
What you tell us stays with us.
What you share is protected under the same professional confidentiality standards that govern licensed psychologists and counsellors. We don’t confirm to anyone, including family or employers, that you’re a client here.
If you’d rather not share your full name at first, that’s fine, tell us what to call you and we’ll go from there. Read more about confidentiality
Get in touch
Reach out, at your own pace.
A message here doesn’t commit you to anything. Ask a question, describe what’s going on, or just say hello, we’ll take it from there.