Editions of Stories | @caroline-cavanagh | The Anxiety Alchemist

3 Jun 2026 · 1 min

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1:15

In this spoken segment, Caroline Cavanagh likens the way personal stories evolve over time to the children's game of Chinese whispers. She explains that each retelling introduces tiny changes that accumulate, gradually reshaping the original experience. Using a concrete example of feeling awkward at a party, she shows how the narrative can shift from a mildly uncomfortable event to a catastrophized version where people are hostile, the speaker is bullied, and ultimately the story ends with a firm decision to avoid parties altogether. The monologue illustrates how this progressive distortion fuels anxiety, reinforcing avoidance behaviors. The purpose is to make listeners aware of how their internal storytelling can unintentionally magnify fear and to encourage more accurate, compassionate self‑narratives.

Chapters

I wonder if you've ever played that, that game that children do of Chinese whispers where someone starts with something and it goes round and the more people it is the further it gets away from where it started. And fundamentally we do the same. When we tell a story we will make tiny little changes and that new addition becomes the latest addition and then we make another little change So, let's say, for example, you went to a party and it was quite difficult to chat, you felt awkward. You will tell that as a story. It was a really difficult party. And then maybe the next time you tell yourself the story, people were really horrible to you. That becomes the new edition of the story. The next time you think about that, not only were people horrible to you, you got bullied. That becomes part of your story. And then very quickly the story is, well, I'm never going to go to a party again because it was the most horrendous experience. So we've gone from it was a bit uncomfortable to iterations of the story to the new version being I'm never going to go to a party again.