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Mindfire: Diary of an Anxious Twentysomething

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When your mind is on fire, how do you extinguish the flame?

Here’s one thing college doesn’t teach Adulting is hard. Studies show that millennials and Gen Z-ers are two of the most anxious generations in history—approximately 50 percent of adults ages eighteen to twenty-four suffer from anxiety. Mindfire takes readers along on the emotional journey that is growing up, and offers insight on the anxiety that comes with it.

Written by twenty-two-year-old journalist and influencer Carrie Berk, this book is a raw and vulnerable exploration into the parts of being in your twenties that aren’t always pretty. Berk, who was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and OCD at eighteen, shares intimate diary entries that unveil what it’s like learning to cope in her adulting era. What do you do when panic strikes unexpectedly? Or when you’re plagued with intrusive thoughts on vacation? How about when you lose someone for the first time? Anxiety can make you question your core beliefs and leave you more confused than ever. Berk shows how there is hope, happiness, and strength to be found in forging your path forward.

Mindfire is a road map for anyone who has ever struggled with mental health—and felt alone. Packed with real-life therapy definitions and self-care suggestions, Mindfire shows how you can level up and learn to love yourself—anxiety and all.

200 pages, Paperback

Published May 13, 2025

4 people are currently reading
35 people want to read

About the author

Carrie Berk

25 books10 followers

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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
Profile Image for Jenna.
1,102 reviews
Read
May 19, 2025
a recent read by @carrieberkk about her mental health struggles that are both vulnerable and relatable to so many 20-somethings that had a unique experience having their teens and early 20’s dealing with a pandemic and then a heightened emphasis on social media validation. ⁣

I remember during the 4th or 5th lockdown we had near Toronto that there was a hashtag #codepink that was going around (I shared it multiple times seeing it myself from my kid and his friends), about the devastation of having day in and day out locked downs . And what it was doing to their mental health, emotional well- being and the level of anxieties that were being hidden by the daily emphasis on numbers in sewer water. ⁣

This isn’t about feelings for a pandemic, this is about the after shocks of an anxiety filled adulthood. And Carrie lays out her own experience along with tips and suggestions. ⁣

I recently went to a funeral where the family was very open about the emotional health that was ripped apart for their single daughter whose mental health was strained by this time of life. And while you, the person reading this, may not have had that experience… or maybe don’t understand how the younger generation is struggling with crippling anxieties, then maybe this book is for you. ⁣

I know a few people who need this gifted to them. ⁣
And I know a few others that need to acknowledge that there are so many dealing with mental health anxieties that have left them crippled. ⁣
That social media mirrors can wreck havoc on self esteem. ⁣

Profile Image for Ashley B.
203 reviews17 followers
Read
May 25, 2025
Carrie was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and OCD at age 18. This book is her roadmap to learning to live through her mental health struggles.

I appreciated Carrie’s perspective on something so many people struggle with, especially young adults trying to navigate the world and a lot of people regardless of age can relate to her especially after living through a pandemic. She gave tips and suggestions throughout the book for things she tried and what worked for her. I appreciated her vulnerability to share her perspective on how this affected her daily life! It will be so encouraging to readers to know they aren’t alone in their struggles.
Profile Image for Nikki Newbauer.
15 reviews1 follower
May 26, 2025
It takes courage to share your story. For that reason, I always give memoirs a 5-star rating.

Carrie’s book is an honest and brave account of her struggles with OCD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I am thankful for her willingness to speak up and advocate for herself and others living with OCD (including my 11 year old daughter). It’s an informative read for parents and loved ones who are supporting someone with an OCD diagnosis.

I appreciated the advice from mental health professionals throughout the chapters and Carrie’s helpful tips for self-care.
Profile Image for Jill (jills.bookshelf).
387 reviews19 followers
May 12, 2025
Thanks so much to Carrie Berk for the gifted ARC. All opinions are my own.

“Mindfire” is the personal story of author Carrie Berk’s mental health struggles as a twenty-something, and it is a road map for anyone who may have similar circumstances. I applaud Berk’s courage and vulnerability in sharing her experiences with anxiety and OCD. While Berk shares her journey as a twenty-something, I think readers of all ages can relate to the hardships she has faced, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to discussing her personal challenges, Berk gives readers real-life therapy definitions to give a better understanding of different mental health conditions. She also includes self-care tips and suggestions, which I think many readers may find helpful.

During this Mental Health Awareness Month, it is so important to share our stories so that anyone dealing with mental health struggles knows they’re not alone. Thank you Carrie for sharing your story and helping others!
1 review
May 13, 2025
The way Carrie can articulate the feelings of deep anxiety is so rare and will make so many readers feel less alone
Profile Image for Alex Lynn.
423 reviews
May 18, 2025
Wow! To say I loved this book is an understatement!

Carrie Berk writes about her struggles with mental health as a twenty-something. As someone who struggles with pretty crippling anxiety, I basically related to pretty much everything she wrote.
Most people don’t like to talk about their mental health struggles, so seeing Carrie so devoted to not just talking about it, but showing how it affected her & her daily life all the way to obviously writing a book is soooo incredibly courageous and encouraging.
She also includes self-care tips (which literally I will be implementing into my everyday life now, so TYSM for that, TRULY! 🥲😭🩷)

“Anxiety can make you question your core beliefs and leave you more confused than ever. Berk shows how there is hope, happiness, and strength to be found in forging your path forward.”

I also just love how this was released during Mental Health Awareness Month.
Carrie, thank you so much again for my physical ARC of this book! It is amazing! 🩷🥰
Profile Image for Marisa (marisalynnreads).
156 reviews15 followers
July 22, 2025
🧠🔥𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲🔥🧠

"𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘮𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨. 𝘛𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦𝘴. 𝘈𝘭𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵'𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘰𝘯."

When @carrieberkk first reached out about sending me a copy of Mindfire, I had no idea how deeply my soul needed it. After reading only the first few pages, I 𝘀𝗼𝗯𝗯𝗲𝗱. Never in my life had I felt so seen, so understood. Where was this book when eighteen year old me was spiraling, desperate for help and understanding?

OCD can be so hard to wrap your head around at first.... How do you explain to someone that the thoughts you're obsessing over aren't how you actually feel? You're so overcome with the fear that you begin to question your own thoughts and intentions. All of the possible what if's run through your mind, you grasp onto every thought and dissect it with a fine tooth comb. 

Through Mindfire, Carrie dives into her own personal journey with OCD and anxiety, sharing the challenges she faced and overcame. She discusses the struggles of mental health and gives you real life therapy definitions and self care suggestions along the way.

Mindfire breaks anxiety and OCD down in a way you don't see often. It's meant to show you how to level up and learn to love yourself- anxiety and all. This book is so vulnerable, in the best ways possible.

We live in a society where everything online is curated to appear perfect and people are portrayed as flawless. Carrie's role as an influencer makes her openness about mental health even more impactful. 

This book is everything to me, especially to the young girl that once felt so alone in her struggle. Anyone who struggles or knows someone who struggles with OCD and/or anxiety, 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀 to read this. 

Thank you Carrie for writing this and for the gifted copy. You’re going to save so many lives with this book!
Profile Image for Jenn.
515 reviews11 followers
May 20, 2025
Mindfire is written by Carrie Berk who is an Influencer and author. The pandemic hit at the end of her senior year of high school, and all her well laid out plans suddenly were gone. During this time her anxiety and OCD showed back up in a big way, and this book is her story about how she dealt with this and the strategies that worked for her.

I very much appreciate her honestly and candour and I am so happy to see how talking about mental health is becoming more and more normalized. She speaks frankly about the fact that people need to speak about their struggles. It’s so important for people to see they’re not alone with their thoughts and experiences.

While this book will likely hit home for anyone who struggles with anxiety, depression and/OCD, or loves someone who does, I feel like this book would be especially great for young adults to hear what someone who went through many of the same things they did. Her voice is definitely that of an early 20-something and I felt as though I was hearing the story through a different voice than my own and was able to see a different perspective on things.

Even though she is an influencer, she outlines the dangers of social media and how it can damage mental health and provides stories of some of the hurtful and harmful messages she has received.

The change in how mental health is handled over the last decade or so is night and day from when I was in my 20s. The fact that therapy is celebrated and spoken about freely is so refreshing and such a positive change. We still have a ways to go, but people like Carrie who are willing to put themselves out there in such a vulnerable and open way, will only help those out there suffering in silence.

TW: Self harm
Profile Image for Zibby Owens.
Author 8 books24.6k followers
June 18, 2025
Twenty-two-year-old journalist and influencer Carrie Berk offers a raw exploration of anxiety and mental health in your twenties. Diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and OCD at eighteen, Berk shares intimate diary entries about learning to cope with panic attacks, intrusive thoughts, and the challenges of adulting. From her first panic attack during COVID to discovering that OCD isn't just about cleanliness but mental rumination, she provides a roadmap for anyone struggling with mental health. Packed with helpful descriptions of different therapies and self-care suggestions, this book shows how to find hope while learning to coexist with anxiety.

This book felt like having a conversation with your most honest, supportive friend who truly gets you. Berk's vulnerability in sharing her mental health journey is incredible—from calling her childhood OCD symptoms "qua quo" to a triggering “pumpkin patch” moment. I loved how she reframes anxiety as something to live with rather than something you overcome. Her practical tips for grounding oneself are genuinely helpful. Her writing about "faking being okay" really hit home, especially the myth that being organized is always a strength when it can actually be an exhausting compulsion. What makes this so powerful is that she's not writing from a place of having figured it all out—she's right there with us. This is exactly the kind of honest, accessible mental health resource that can help young people feel less alone.

To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at: https://zibbymedia.com/blogs/transcri...
Profile Image for Marielle.
569 reviews50 followers
July 1, 2025
Mental health is so important!

In MINDFIRE, Carrie Berk- author, content creator and social influencer- paints a raw, unfiltered chronicle of a young woman’s struggled with depression and anxiety- and her slow, fierce climb back to herself.

As someone with a background in psychology, and who has wondered about the lasting mental health effects of the Covid pandemic, this memoir captures what so many in Gen Z and the younger millennial generation are feeling but rarely articulate out loud: the crushing weight of anxiety, the spiraling numbness of depression and the desperate desire to seem fine in a world that keeps breaking.

Carrie isn't shy to peel back her curated surface to reveal something messier and far more human. She doesn’t write around the pain of her experience- she walks straight into it, using personal anecdotes, coping mechanisms and conversations with her own therapists.

What is really helpful- and educational- for readers is that throughout the memoir there are clinical definitions provided for what Carrie is experiencing, such as Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Intrusive Thoughts, as well as tips for navigating and self-care using such strategies as Relaxation and Normalizing Making Mistakes.

I commend Carrie for writing something so raw and vulnerable- this is an incredibly relatable read with vaulable tips, tricks and insight, and I think this read is especially impactful for younger generations trying to make sense of their mental health as they navigate the bridge from their twenties into adulthood in the face of the current instability of today's world.
Profile Image for Lexie.
1 review
Read
June 28, 2025
I appreciate any chance for mental health to be at the forefront of the conversation, so I just want to send love to Carrie Berk for the openness and honesty it took to put this book into the world.

Carrie details her experiences with OCD and anxiety as a young 20-something. She shares her inner reflections through journal entries, with facts shared from licensed professionals. Each chapter also shares strategies or resources for coping with mental health struggles. I particularly loved the focus on the benefits of therapy.

It takes a lot of bravery to put your heart and inner self onto the page, and I hope this book finds its way into the hands of anyone who needs it. Especially readers in their late teens and early 20s. I wish I had a book like this back then.

Carrie also touches on the dangers of social media—bullying and even death threats. This is a very important reminder that, regardless of follower count, the people behind screens are human beings & should be treated with kindness.

Some quotes I appreciated:
✨”I want people to educate themselves and try to understand what it feels like to function while your mind is on fire. To go to work while your anxiety is already working overtime. To set goals when mental illness tries to stop you.”
✨“You can be smiling and still struggling. You can be outgoing and still feel alone.”
✨“You can be broken and beautiful at the same time.”
Profile Image for Luna and Co.
142 reviews7 followers
December 14, 2025
3.5 stars rounded up. I loved the memoir/diary parts. As someone diagnosed with OCD, it was so interesting to have someone else's honest experience and evolution. If it were only for those part,s it would've been a 5. But then the self-care advice and therapy definitions were... pretty basic to me. (They would be useful to someone who recently got diagnosed tough). It felt like this book was trying to be too many things at once: memoir, self-help, and medical information.


Thank you, Netgalley and RBmedia for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review
Profile Image for Tori.
72 reviews
December 5, 2025
I commend Carrie Berk for bravely sharing her mental health journey. As someone who has struggled with similar challenges, I found this book incredibly relatable. She also offers insightful advice and personal stories about managing anxiety that felt both honest and helpful.

Carrie Berk narrates the audiobook herself and does an excellent job bringing her story to life.

Thank you to Carrie Berk and NetGalley for providing this ARC!
1 review
May 13, 2025
This book is very relatable and can be helpful for anyone dealing with anxiety.

Profile Image for Taylor  J.
1 review
May 13, 2025
so proud of carrie and her vulnerability on such an important topic!!!
1 review
May 15, 2025
Amazing book! Touched on many sensitive topics about anxiety from a personal and professional perspective! Would recommend
Profile Image for Jill Jaysen.
1 review4 followers
May 19, 2025
Thank you, Carrie for sharing your story and for paying it forward with compassion, vulnerability and a heartfelt authenticity. You are truly making a difference. 
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews

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