Totally Booked: LIVE! In this special episode of the podcast (in-person at the Whitby Hotel with a live audience!), Zibby chats with journalist, content creator, and bestselling author Carrie Berk about MINDFIRE: Diary of an Anxious Twentysomething. Carrie opens up about her mental health journey, from experiencing intrusive thoughts as a child to managing panic attacks during COVID. She shares personal stories, practical coping strategies, and the importance of reframing anxiety, not to “cure” it, but to coexist with it. The two explore the healing power of writing, the realities behind curated content, and how storytelling can help others feel less alone.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Carrie. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked. I am so excited to have you here to talk about your book, Mindfire. Congratulations.

Carrie: Thank you. I'm so excited too. 

Zibby: For those of you who don't know, Carrie. I have to redo this Super impressive and extremely long bio because her accomplishments at age 22 surpass probably most people that I know.

And certainly I'm gonna guess most people in the room, but, but don't feel too bad. Um, okay, Carrie, listen to all of this. Carrie Berk is a New York City based journalist, content creator and bestselling author. Her most recent book, My Real Life Romcom, was a Barnes and Noble bestseller and peaked at number one in the dating and intimacy category on Amazon. Berk Freelances for several publications including New York Post, Page Six, HuffPost Women's Health and Newsweek. Berk is a bestselling children's book author with 21 books to her credit, she penned her first book, peace, love, and Cupcakes in 2012 when she was eight. This is so embarrassing for those of us who had.. 

Carrie: Embarrassing for me hearing it. 

Zibby: No, this, this is amazing.

The Cupcake Club series went on to publish 12 books, selling over 300,000 copies worldwide, and became an award-winning offer. Broadway show and featured selection in 20 seventeen's New York Musical Festival. Her second series Fashion Academy stems from her passion for fashion. The six book series also became an off-Broadway production at Vital Theater and is currently licensed worldwide by Concord Music Publishing.

She also published a three book series called Ask Emma, Go Into Page Two. She is a verified content creator. With 3.8 million followers on TikTok and 880,000 on Instagram. Now, an extra couple people from this audience with a combined engagement of more than 100 million. You can follow her at Carrie Berk.

Welcome. 

Carrie: We can all breathe now. 

Zibby: We can all breathe now. Wow. 

Carrie: Okay. 

Zibby: So you just like to kick it and relax? You're not like a doer or anything. 

Carrie: No. I actually love taking naps. I try to fit in like one nap every day. 

Zibby: Wow, that's, I mean, that's even more impressive. 

Carrie: It's necessary. 

Zibby: Your productivity per minute ratio is like off the charts.

Carrie: Oh, thank you. I just started a full-time job too, which makes the naps a little more difficult, but we make it happen anyway. 

Zibby: What is your new full-time job? 

Carrie: I'm a writer reporter at Okay Magazine. So I'm trying to make the, the switch from doing only freelance to actually like being a part of a company and trying to grow with them.

Zibby: Well, that's fun. Well, after reading your book and having you go through all of the anxiety and isolation of COVID, knowing that you've now ended up. In a community where you're surrounded by people is great. 

Carrie: Thank you. 

Zibby: I feel like that deserves a round of applause. Oh yes. Very grateful. So, Carrie, tell us about Mindfire.

Carrie: So this is my latest book, Mindfire, and I'd like to describe it as a roadmap for anyone who is struggling with their mental health and looking for guidance and looking to feel less alone. So I wrote this because back in 2020, I was the class of 2020. I didn't have a prom or a graduation or anything like that.

So my generation was really struggling. And one night I was sitting on the couch and just started having a panic attack. And I didn't really understand what was happening. I took myself to get a COVID test. 'cause I thought the shortness of breath was because I was sick. Obviously it was not COVID. And that's when my mom proposed this idea that it's anxiety.

And to me, anxiety was just. Synonymous with stress. I thought it was like that butterfly feeling you get in your stomach before a test. I didn't really understand how debilitating it would be until I started experiencing it firsthand, and it started off as purely physical symptoms until one day I was at a pumpkin patch with my friend, and she told me that her anxiety got so bad to the point where she actually cut her wrist and then she showed me her wrist.

And in that moment I was extremely triggered and my brain started to make this false association that if she had anxiety and. I had anxiety that maybe I was destined to end up like her, that I was destined for doom. That because I had anxiety, I was gonna hurt myself just like her. And it was confusing because I valued my life.

I was blowing up on TikTok at the time. Everything was seemingly great, but there was this thought at the back of my head that I was just gonna end up like her one day, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. And eventually I brought myself to a therapist, presented all of this information to her. Told her that I had all these contradictory thoughts in my head that I didn't align with, and she diagnosed me with generalized anxiety disorder and OCD.

Which I was confused about. 'cause OCD as it's portrayed in the media is cleanliness and organization. You don't really see the mental rumination and the mental obsessions, but as she described it, all the pieces really started to fall into place. So my mission with. Mind fire is to tell my story in hopes that other people might be able to relate to teach people about the OCD and the anxiety that we don't see in the media.

Because I knew that if I had a portrayal like this that I could look up to when I was 18. I would've felt so much less alone. 

Zibby: So this didn't just start for you during COVID, you started having intrusive thoughts when you were about eight years old. You call it qua with your mom. Tell me about that. 

Carrie: Yeah, so it, it was different.

So my OCD symptoms started all the way back when I was eight. It wasn't necessarily intrusive thoughts back then. It was more like that cookie cutter OCD that you see in the media. So if I touch something with my right hand, I would have to touch it with my left hand, otherwise. I wouldn't be at peace in my mind, and I didn't understand what it was.

I didn't know what OCD was, so I made up this silly name for it. I called it qua quo because it made it seem less serious at the time when I knew how debilitating it was. And one day I kind of just sat down and told myself, almost said an ultimatum with myself and said, if I continue on this path, if I keep doing this every day, then I'm just gonna lose people I love.

'cause I'm gonna make myself so isolated from the world. I don't know how 8-year-old me managed to do that, but I did and my anxiety and my OCD didn't really manifest itself until I was 18. 

Zibby: My gosh. Well, I have to tell you, I was reading sections of this out loud to a friend last night on the phone. 

Carrie: No way.

Zibby: Yeah. And, and I was like, no, no, no. Keep, let me keep reading. Let me read this section. What do you think? And it made the person feel so much better. 

Carrie: No way. Yeah. What section did you read? 

Zibby: We were reading about. OC that you have OCD and then you have OCDP, right? 

Carrie: OCDP. 

Zibby: DOCD. Wait, O-C-P-D-O-C-P-D. Lots of letters.

So, okay. How you can be OCD or you can have a generalized, uh, perfectionistic tendency where things have to line up and it's not about the hand washing so much as a thought process. And I read about breakup. 

Carrie: Yeah. 

Zibby: Um, and the trauma of that. And I read about. Intrusive thoughts and how you just can't sometimes get out of your own head.

Carrie: Yeah. 

Zibby: And what to do, how you recommend. Well, actually, maybe you should answer that. Like what do you recommend from your experience when you are having, yeah, these intrusive thoughts. And it can be something, it doesn't have to be about everything. It could be about like, well. Why didn't this one thing work in my life?

Why? What if I went back? It's like you're replaying the reel over and over again. What if I had done this? What if I had done this? 

Carrie: Yeah. 

Zibby: How did you learn to get through that? 

Carrie: It's like that thought loop where over and over and over again, you go over this one memory or event and you feel like you can never fully be at peace with it.

I, I'll say first and foremost, I'm not a doctor or. A therapist or anything like that. I don't pretend to be in this book. There's enough data out there and statistics about mental health and hashtags on social media. What I was trying to do here is just to be as real as possible and present myself as someone who is in their twenties, who's going through this and presenting these themes that are.

Not just pertinent to people in their twenties, even though I'm going through it in my twenties, but these are universal themes. I think we can all relate to the feeling of being so deep in our heads sometimes that we can't pull ourselves out to ground ourselves back to reality. And I've kind of realized as I'm writing this, this is, this is something that's meant for.

All ages, genders. It's not just people in their twenties in college and sororities. It's like, I'm not trying to pigeonhole it. So to go back to your question, how to handle intrusive thoughts, but,.. 

Zibby: But this is good because now you've expanded your market audience by like a million percent. So it's good. 

Carrie: Oh, okay.

Good. 

Zibby: Yes. This is a book for everyone. There we go. 

Carrie: Okay. I am glad I clarified that. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Carrie: Um, how to deal with intrusive thoughts. So it's tough because I still go through it myself. Of course. I would say first and foremost. Reframing the perspective in your mind, so you realize anxiety does not have a finish line.

You're not trying to get cured. If you're continually trying to get better or cured, it's gonna be like trying to fill a cup with a hole in it. If you look for your anxiety, your anxiety's going to always. Be there. I think the goal is to just exist with your intrusive thoughts and your anxiety and learn how to be stronger in them so that one day they just get a little quieter and fade into the background of your mind.

They're always gonna be there, but they're not gonna be as loud and you're not gonna wanna pay as attention, as much attention to them. So I would say that's number one, just realizing it's not gonna go away and you need to learn how to just exist with them. And then I'd say another really good way to handle them is movement, exercise, using your five senses to ground yourself back to reality.

It feels silly in the moment, but naming five things you see, hear, smell, et cetera, can really help bring you back to reality. And then it sounds simple, but just surrounding yourself with people who. Get it and they are out there. It might take a little extra searching for something as sticky and taboo as OCD, but there are people out there, there are resources out there, and the goal is to just make yourself feel as less alone as possible in your anxiety.

Zibby: Well, what you do really well in the book is you feel like you are our co, like the reader feels that you are our coach and that there is nothing wrong with whatever we might be feeling, and that we are not warriors. We are warriors. There's a, a, a shift in how we're experiencing it and that you don't have to, I think sometimes people, when you're having an issue, then feel bad again about having the issue, right?

So it becomes even worse. What are some of the inaspiring things and I could read a few if you want. 

Carrie: Oh, um, I'll probably let you search for a few, but she mentioned. We are not warriors, we're warriors. So it's all just a means of switching your perspective. I think I say in there, self-care isn't selfish.

All these little golden nuggets I like to say that you can kind of take with you and you read it and you're like, oh, like that makes sense. I'm gonna actually take this little phrase into my everyday life and use it as a tool. Next time that I have anxiety. I also have in there I will mention. Although the book is primarily memoir and me talking about my experiences and self-care tips, I learned, I do include a few boxes where therapists provide real textbook definitions of what is an intrusive thought, like you said, OCD versus OCPD.

So you can get like that real scientific definition to substantiate all the anecdotes in the book, but go ahead. What'd you find? 

Zibby: No. Um, well first of all, you used to your aunt's brother when you ran a marathon, carried a sign that said, carry on. 

Carrie: Yeah. 

Zibby: Carrie, her name's Carrie. Um, as a way to motivate, and I feel like that's a good, I feel like that would be the name of the, the subtitle, how you learned to Carry On.

Carrie: You know, what's. So funny. Everyone is pointing out that section to me and they're like, your aunt's brother, isn't that your uncle? And I'm like, it's not my uncle. It's literally my it's my dad's brother's wife, her brother. And so many people have sent this to me and they're like, oh, so your uncle's really great.

And I'm like, it's not my uncle, but it's, I don't know. It's really funny that that's the section you found. 

Zibby: Um, well, there's another section that really resonated and you said, I've learned how to fake being Okay. It's a talent really. People assume I'm just obsessed with my phone when really. I spend hours checking and double checking things that are unnecessary.

They'll tell me I'm so organized, but they have no idea how much time spent organizing drains my energy. Tell me about this. 

Carrie: Oh my God, it's so true. 

Zibby: Facade. 

Carrie: I feel like we can all relate to just the feeling of faking being okay sometimes. And with OCD, it's. Really a facade. 'cause sometimes you can just look like you're busy on your phone or swiping through social media, but you can get caught in these compulsions like checking and double checking emails to make sure you didn't miss anything.

Or for my own life, I have like a lot of B-roll for TikTok and I'll make sure that I. Put all the B-roll away and like filed them correctly. And it becomes difficult with so much stuff going on in our lives to make sure everything is compartmentalized. So that's where the traditional like organization OCD comes in, but it's also pretty debilitating.

Like it can take up so much. Energy and so much of your life just being stuck inside these compulsions. 

Zibby: Well, the way you write about it is really motivating and clarifying for everybody else. 

Carrie: Thanks. 

Zibby: Everyone has stuff they're trying to get through and the way that you did it here and give us all these specific tips and tactics and advice, it's so.

It just makes you feel like you're not alone in whatever, just like you were saying. 

Carrie: Yeah. 

Zibby: Like that, that you went through this, and I'm sorry that you had to go through all of this on your own. 

Carrie: Hey, it's, it's all good. It made me empowered enough to write this book. I think I mentioned at the end of the book that.

Throughout my whole anxiety journey, I really struggled to find purpose. I didn't understand how I was gonna live with these random, taboo thoughts popping in outta my head all the time. And eventually, as I started journaling and writing more about my anxiety, I realized that this is a part of my purpose, to tell my story in hopes that other people will be able to relate and eventually branch out and tell other people's stories.

That's what I really want to do as a journalist, I mean, I'm primarily an entertainment journalist. I write about celebrities, but for example, yesterday Madison Beer, who's like a big pop star, came out and said she was like suicidal when she was 19, and I got assigned that story and I got to tell her a story.

So moments like that are really valuable for me where I can bring other people's stories and their struggles to light and hope that other people can relate. 

Zibby: So we spoke earlier to Debbie Millman about creativity and how many people who are creative have this desire to just keep doing things, putting new things in the world.

The act of creating is something that never stops. And that sort of unites them. You as a content creator have that same thing going on. Obviously you've been writing your whole life and you're still so young. You have all these tiktoks and you talk about how even at your lowest moments. You turn to your TikTok creativity as a way to escape and something to help you through. Talk a little bit about how creativity helps you, and then go into the TikTok thing and how you made that happen. 

Carrie: Um. Well, I'm being a little lazy lately with my TikTok, so I feel like a little bit of a facade talking about this, but 

Zibby: I can't imagine you're really lazy about anything.

Well, this is my, I might, you know, I don't know you that well, but I did read the book and.. 

Carrie: No, with TikTok it's becoming increasingly difficult with a full-time job, but I do keep up with it because it is such a great source of creativity for me, I love being able to connect with people online. Even like your daughter, when you told me your daughter was a fan of my TikTok.

Those are the things that really keep me doing it. I feel like burnout is a real thing, especially when you're in social media for so long and your views fluctuate and everything like that. I mean, being an influencer was never really my goal. I'm, I'm a writer, first and foremost. I fell into TikTok during the pandemic in the thick of my anxiety.

I just was bored. I was just graduated high school and I had the whole summer to do nothing. Started posting videos online and I just had one take off and they just kept taking off. And that's why I kept with it because I realized that my whole platform as a writer was about empowering other people.

And then I was starting to empower people through these short form videos. And I realized that if I could maintain a platform like this, eventually post-college, when I have a job and a career, I could use that platform and. Leverage it for good. So now I'm leveraging it to promote my book. Back in 2021, I was working with no bully, an anti-bullying organization, and I was posting stuff about them.

Uh, right now I'm partnering with NOCD, which is an OCD support talk therapy website and app. They're fantastic. And I'm just, I don't know. Social media for me is not like all. All fluff. I feel like a lot of people just see it as like a, a quick endorphin boost where you're just gaining followers and making money.

But I don't know if that was all it was about, then I would've stopped much earlier. The reason why I continue it is because I, I have this platform and I know it's rare to have this platform, and I wanna use it to my advantage in order to spread awareness for important issues like mental health. 

Zibby: By the way, what Carrie was saying about my daughter, my daughter has been a fan and following Carrie since she first started, I guess, posting videos.

And even today it's like, oh my gosh, like you're interviewing Carrie Berk. Uh, but Carrie was so nice and she actually went and met my daughter in real life and they filmed a little TikTok together and it literally made my daughters. 

Carrie: Like, oh my God, we had so much fun. We had like a play date. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Carrie: I was actually looking back on this yesterday.

I was, I was showing a friend at dinner that I, I said I was doing this podcast and that her daughter was a fan and like that's how we kind of connected. And then I was just digging through and try to find the video and I found the video and I showed her, gosh, don't, 

Zibby: don't post it again. My husband had dyed my daughter's hair during COVID. Just, just delete it. Stop. Don't, don't, don't dig it back up. And thank you so much for, oh my God. No, no. It was the same. 

Carrie: I was looking at it last night too, and I had the worst like bleach blonde hair that was just like frizzed out to the gods and my roots were awful.

So That's funny. Both of us had hair issues at the time. 

Zibby: Which videos of yours started going viral and how did you. Feel being so exposed because going viral on TikTok is like becoming a movie star overnight. 

Carrie: So I loved it. I mean, I had been in the public eye since I was eight, so it wasn't really anything too drastic of a change.

At the time, I was getting recognized on the street a lot, like in front of my house, which was a little weird 'cause I needed to maintain like privacy. But my first video that blew up was a fitness video. Actually. It was How to get ABS in 10 days. It just didn't work. It wasn't like real, uh, it was something I found online and like, oh, this is cool.

Zibby: Three years later, five years later, still working on the abs, but it's okay. 

Carrie: Yeah. Literally. I don't think it, I think everyone knew it was kind of like satire. Mm-hmm. But basically the move was there was a foam roller and you lay on the foam roller with your arms behind you for five minutes, and that's supposed to like stretch out your abs.

I don't, I don't really know if it worked, but it got like a million views overnight, 10 million views to date. People were just obsessed with this hack. I started a trend and I didn't even know I was starting a trend, so I continued posting fitness videos since that's what seemed to do well, and then at one point I just started getting like PR mailings, so makeup brands and skincare brands.

I started getting products and they were really cool and I wanted to share them with my followers. So I started posting those and that's when my niche kind of moved from fitness to product reviews and that was good for me. 'cause then I started getting brand deals and like monetizing my platform more.

And today it's kind of a combination of both because I don't want my account to just be one large cash cow where all I'm doing is. Posting brand deals. I'm a runner. I love fitness. I wanna share that part of my life with people, but also people love product reviews. So I keep doing that and it's been like five years and I'm still doing that.

Zibby: You mentioned in the book your love of running and how you actually had a panic attack. I think about mile 20 on a marathon that you were running. Yeah. And you just were crying and you couldn't even call your family 'cause your phone was so sweaty and you were all alone and 

Carrie: Yeah. 

Zibby: It was just the crowds sort of getting you through and how you still run for hours.

And you said in the book, yes. Hours. 

Carrie: Yeah. Hours. 

Zibby: So how do we, how do we know what something we're doing? Is adaptive good for us? Too much? You know, no judgment, I'm just wondering. 

Carrie: Yeah, adaptive. I don't know if you guys wanna run for hours. It's brutal. I don't even do that unless I'm training for a marathon, which now is probably gonna be every other year. It's funny, I've run to the New York City Marathon twice, and it always falls right around Halloween and Halloween's my favorite holiday. I'm obsessed with Halloween, but when you're running the marathon, it's a few days before and can't celebrate Halloween. 'cause you don't wanna go out and get sick.

So the reason why I'm doing it every other year is because I wanna celebrate Halloween and I wanna have a Halloween party. So this year is my year off. Like thank God. 

Zibby: Do you have a costume picked out? 

Carrie: Not yet. I gotta start looking. 

Zibby: Okay. It's April FYI for whenever this comes up. 

Carrie: It was so pathetic. Last November for Halloween, like right before the marathon, I had a little house party with my friends and I just bought a Dunkin Donuts onesie, like head to toe Dunkin Donuts logo.

So I was Dunking Donuts for Halloween last year, which is just a total,.. 

Zibby: Is that part of a brand deal? 

Carrie: No, it was just weird and I want it to be comfy. I don't know. So I need a better costume this year. But anyway. How do we know it's adaptive? I don't think anyone has to become a marathoner. I mean, if you want to like.

Power or two. Ew. It was something I found during the pandemic. I was just so anxious. One day I just kept running down this road and kept going and I was, I had all these intrusive thoughts and I was like running away from them. And I reached the end of the road and I turned back around and I think it was like seven and a half miles.

And I came home and I was like, mommy, I'm gonna run a half marathon. And she's like, you do that. And then I did, and then I broke both my legs. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. 

Carrie: But that's a story for another time. Um, this is, that's like the ultimate teaser. It, it wasn't like anything crazy. I just, I was training myself and I was over training and I was in the wrong shoes.

And I stress fractured, like both shins. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. 

Carrie: That's, that's the story. Um, but yeah, I think movement can be something as simple as going for a 10 minute walk every day doing yoga, just moving your body in whatever way feels good for me, it's putting my body through hell and running for hours. But it does not have to be that for you.

I think just the overarching theme is how, how much movement is medicine and how much it can. Support you in your mental health journey. 

Zibby: You also recommend therapy and finding the right person for you. And you said in the book that your first experience was not very pleasant. You had gone to see a therapist for your eating disorder.

And they had suggested you had to work with a nutritionist, were quite didactic about everything and you said, this is not for me. And so you were resistant to seeking therapy when you needed it for something else. 

Carrie: Yes. 

Zibby: Can you just speak quickly on that? First experience. 

Carrie: Yeah, so I had an eating disorder when I was maybe 14.

It, it was like the prime age when like everyone has their issues with body image and I went to see a nutritionist. I didn't really want to, but my parents wanted me to and. I don't know. I was open to it. I feel like she knew about my whole life story and I just like revealed all of myself to her. And then one day, wait, it wasn't nutrition.

A therapist. I saw a therapist. I was telling this to my therapist and one day the therapist said she wouldn't continue seeing me unless I saw a nutritionist. Like she would not let me schedule another meeting until I saw a nutritionist. And I felt so lost because here I am like revealing my whole life to this person, and now she's saying I'd never see her again just because I wasn't ready to go to a nutritionist and I wasn't at that point yet.

So then that was it. That was the last time I saw her and I was kind of scarred. I actually saw her on the subway the other day, oddly enough, and I gave her the most dirty look and she gave me the most dirty look back and we just like stared each other down. Yeah, really weird that that happened. But years later, I feel like when you.

When you have to see a therapist, when you want to see a therapist, that's when it's gonna be most valuable. At the time, I was open to it, but I wasn't fully there. I didn't want help. Like you can't force yourself to see a therapist and nobody's gonna force you to see one. Like you have to have your heart in it.

You need to want the help. Like when I got therapy for my OCD, I was genuinely. Needing the help. Like I was the one that stood up and raised my hand and said, this is something I want. This is something I need. I know this is gonna help me. It can't be, you know, your parent forcing you into it and saying, you have to see them at this specific time, this specific day.

'cause then you're just not gonna be receptive to anything they're telling you. 

Zibby: Well, Carrie, your book is so helpful. It's so honest and open and raw and real, and we're not catching you when everything is tied up with a bow. We're catching you as you make your way through it, and that is what we are all doing in the world.

Making our messy way through life, through whatever we have to deal with and seeing you authentically and openly tell us and do it in the public. I know less is really. Really helpful and I know will help so many people. So thank you so much for coming on. 

Carrie: Thank you 

Zibby: Mindfire. Great for all ages.

Everybody in the world. 

Carrie: Yeah. We should put like all ages. The front, all age girl. Good stages. 

Zibby: Thank you so much. 

Carrie: Thank you.