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Headlands: New Stories of Anxiety
In 2017, Ministry of Health figures showed that one in five New Zealanders sought help for a diagnosed mood or anxiety disorder, and these figures are growing. Headlands: New Stories of Anxiety tells the real, messy story behind these statistics – what anxiety feels like, what causes it, what helps and what doesn’t. These accounts are sometimes raw and confronting, but they all seek to share experiences, remove stigma, offer help or simply shine a light on what anxiety is.
The stories in Headlands are told by people from all walks of life: poets, novelists, and journalists, musicians, social workers, and health professionals, and includes new work from Ashleigh Young, Tusiata Avia, Danyl McLauchlan, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Hinemoana Baker and Kirsten McDougall.
Edited by journalist Naomi Arnold, Headlands shows that some communities have better access to mental health services than others and it underscores the importance for greater understanding of the condition across the whole of society. It is not a book of solutions nor a self-help guide. Instead, it has been put together for all individuals and whānau affected by anxiety. It’s also for those who are still suffering in silence, in the hope they will see themselves reflected in these pages and understand they are not alone.
Cover artwork and design: Hadley Donaldson
Naomi Arnold is an award-winning journalist. After working as a daily news, columnist and feature writer for five years she turned freelance and now writes full-time for New Zealand and international publications, frequently on health, the environment, and science. She is the founder of Featured, a website that collects the best of New Zealand’s non-fiction writing. She has hosted a journalism podcast with The Spinoff, appeared on writing and media panels, reviewed books for Radio New Zealand, and coordinated the Nelson Readers & Writers Festival. She lives in Nelson.
The stories in Headlands are told by people from all walks of life: poets, novelists, and journalists, musicians, social workers, and health professionals, and includes new work from Ashleigh Young, Tusiata Avia, Danyl McLauchlan, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Hinemoana Baker and Kirsten McDougall.
Edited by journalist Naomi Arnold, Headlands shows that some communities have better access to mental health services than others and it underscores the importance for greater understanding of the condition across the whole of society. It is not a book of solutions nor a self-help guide. Instead, it has been put together for all individuals and whānau affected by anxiety. It’s also for those who are still suffering in silence, in the hope they will see themselves reflected in these pages and understand they are not alone.
Cover artwork and design: Hadley Donaldson
Naomi Arnold is an award-winning journalist. After working as a daily news, columnist and feature writer for five years she turned freelance and now writes full-time for New Zealand and international publications, frequently on health, the environment, and science. She is the founder of Featured, a website that collects the best of New Zealand’s non-fiction writing. She has hosted a journalism podcast with The Spinoff, appeared on writing and media panels, reviewed books for Radio New Zealand, and coordinated the Nelson Readers & Writers Festival. She lives in Nelson.
272 pages, Paperback
First published July 15, 2019
About the author
Naomi Arnold
10 books16 followersNaomi Arnold is an award-winning journalist based in Nelson, New Zealand.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 19, 2018
This one took me a very long time to get through and was, unsurprisingly, an emotionally draining read. It highlights the way in which anxiety is subjective and speaks openly about the ins and outs of mental health issues that we tend to shy away from in day to day conversation in NZ.
For me, it just felt too personal. It felt like I was reading all of these people’s diaries, their innermost thoughts and fears. It made me realise that I personally find it more helpful to explore these issues through fiction. It was eye opening though, and it is an important book.
A few of the essays that particularly stood out to me were about:
- anxiety in Antartica
- being a suicide prevention officer
- anxiety about pregnancy and motherhood
- volunteering with birds as a kind of self care
- a comedian feeling anxious and doing things anyway
- physiotherapy for anxiety
- intrusive thoughts
And this quote: “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”
For me, it just felt too personal. It felt like I was reading all of these people’s diaries, their innermost thoughts and fears. It made me realise that I personally find it more helpful to explore these issues through fiction. It was eye opening though, and it is an important book.
A few of the essays that particularly stood out to me were about:
- anxiety in Antartica
- being a suicide prevention officer
- anxiety about pregnancy and motherhood
- volunteering with birds as a kind of self care
- a comedian feeling anxious and doing things anyway
- physiotherapy for anxiety
- intrusive thoughts
And this quote: “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”
February 28, 2026
Headlands: New Stories of Anxiety has one of the best ranges of voice and perspective I’ve read in an anthology. That’s why Naomi Arnold’s introduction is so disappointing to me: It seems to go against the entire purpose of the collection.
Headlands goes for breadth in the range of experiences of anxiety, allowing people from all walks of life to show solidarity in the face of anxiety, despite their vastly different lives. I was especially inspired by the essays on how the non-Pakeha experience with anxiety differs from the Pakeha experience: ”it’s easier and more acceptable for Pakeha not only to access care for mental illness, but to be diagnosed with it in the first place.” (”Introduction”, p11) This difference was best acknowledged and explored in Donna McLeod’s poem “Voices.”
Why, then, is the first paragraph of Arnold’s introduction dedicated to gatekeeping the illness, saying things like, ”Nope. That is not anxiety” (p9). The introduction is surprisingly hostile and elitist for an anthology about “reassurance and validation” (p13). Furthering this issue is the purple prose used. While the prose in the essays served to heighten their meanings, Arnold’s use of it in the introduction instead distracted from genuinely interesting information about the circumstances of the collection’s construction and statistics about anxiety, and instead furthers the divide she makes between the book and the intended audience. As someone who struggles with anxiety, I found it ironic that Arnold’s introduction made it flare up and sweep my symptoms under the rug, as, obviously, Arnold and the contributors of Headlands must have it way worse.
As for the collection itself, the contributing authors made it something truly special. Headlands validated my experiences with anxiety, and I’ve come away from the book with newfound reassurance, coping strategies, and interests. I’ve rated the collection so highly because, in trying to pick out a few favourites, I’ve sticky-tabbed half the book. You’ll find the lists below are practically the table of contents.
I’ve split the essays I enjoyed into two lists: the essays I personally resonated with, or took something away from, and the essays that were particularly well written, or I thought someone else might gain something from. I generally disliked the essays that portrayed anxiety as purely agony, with no hope of alleviation or coping, as they seemed to exacerbate the elitist tone of the introduction (note that the first two essays of the collection fell into this category, which make me worried that the whole book was going to end up being adults playing Ride the Cyclone with much lower stakes). A standout exception was D.A. Glynn’s “A Short History of Unease”, which used his own anxious anecdotes to supplement well-researched discourse.
Essays I Took Something Away From
- “Water Wings” by Sarah Lin Wilson
- “In a Scorched Room” by Michelle Langston
- “Dream Selves” by Kirsten McDougall
- “Voices” by Donna McLeod
- “Mrs Housewife” by Holly Walker
- “The Curse Machine” by Kate Kennedy
- “Scared to Death” by Kerry Sutherland
- “Anxiety in the Body” by Rosemary Manning (genuinely helped me get back in the gym)
- “Writing From A Dark Place” by Lee Murray (my favourite in the collection)
- “The Midst” by Alan Drew
- “Micronutrients and Mental Health: An interview with Meredith Blampied and Julia Rucklidge”
- “Ghost Knife” by Ashleigh Young (my other favourite)
Essays I Think Someone Else Could Take Something Away From
- “What Happens” by Zion Tauamiti
- “The Beginning” by Aimie Cronin
- “Fake It Till You Make It” by Eamonn Marra
- “It Needs to Start Early: An Interview with Riki Gooch”
- “Naming” by Bonnie Etherington (has a really good section about naming our anxiety, but also tries to cover every other topic under the sun)
- “Worry People” by Madeline Reid
- “Earnest PSA” by Susan Strongman
- “Side Effects” by Paula Harris
- “A Short History of Unease” by D.A. Glynn (played the “anxiety is misery” card right by using it as supplementary to actual discourse)
- “Mountain View Road” by Mikey Dam
- “As Fresh as They Come” by Tusiata Avia
While not every essay in the collection is featured above, anxiety is such a varied illness that I have no doubt that every essay will have at least one person who deeply resonates with it. Overall, Headlands does exactly what it set out to do: provide hope and reassurance for all people struggling with anxiety, even if the introduction puts it on the back foot in achieving this goal.
Headlands goes for breadth in the range of experiences of anxiety, allowing people from all walks of life to show solidarity in the face of anxiety, despite their vastly different lives. I was especially inspired by the essays on how the non-Pakeha experience with anxiety differs from the Pakeha experience: ”it’s easier and more acceptable for Pakeha not only to access care for mental illness, but to be diagnosed with it in the first place.” (”Introduction”, p11) This difference was best acknowledged and explored in Donna McLeod’s poem “Voices.”
Why, then, is the first paragraph of Arnold’s introduction dedicated to gatekeeping the illness, saying things like, ”Nope. That is not anxiety” (p9). The introduction is surprisingly hostile and elitist for an anthology about “reassurance and validation” (p13). Furthering this issue is the purple prose used. While the prose in the essays served to heighten their meanings, Arnold’s use of it in the introduction instead distracted from genuinely interesting information about the circumstances of the collection’s construction and statistics about anxiety, and instead furthers the divide she makes between the book and the intended audience. As someone who struggles with anxiety, I found it ironic that Arnold’s introduction made it flare up and sweep my symptoms under the rug, as, obviously, Arnold and the contributors of Headlands must have it way worse.
As for the collection itself, the contributing authors made it something truly special. Headlands validated my experiences with anxiety, and I’ve come away from the book with newfound reassurance, coping strategies, and interests. I’ve rated the collection so highly because, in trying to pick out a few favourites, I’ve sticky-tabbed half the book. You’ll find the lists below are practically the table of contents.
I’ve split the essays I enjoyed into two lists: the essays I personally resonated with, or took something away from, and the essays that were particularly well written, or I thought someone else might gain something from. I generally disliked the essays that portrayed anxiety as purely agony, with no hope of alleviation or coping, as they seemed to exacerbate the elitist tone of the introduction (note that the first two essays of the collection fell into this category, which make me worried that the whole book was going to end up being adults playing Ride the Cyclone with much lower stakes). A standout exception was D.A. Glynn’s “A Short History of Unease”, which used his own anxious anecdotes to supplement well-researched discourse.
Essays I Took Something Away From
- “Water Wings” by Sarah Lin Wilson
- “In a Scorched Room” by Michelle Langston
- “Dream Selves” by Kirsten McDougall
- “Voices” by Donna McLeod
- “Mrs Housewife” by Holly Walker
- “The Curse Machine” by Kate Kennedy
- “Scared to Death” by Kerry Sutherland
- “Anxiety in the Body” by Rosemary Manning (genuinely helped me get back in the gym)
- “Writing From A Dark Place” by Lee Murray (my favourite in the collection)
- “The Midst” by Alan Drew
- “Micronutrients and Mental Health: An interview with Meredith Blampied and Julia Rucklidge”
- “Ghost Knife” by Ashleigh Young (my other favourite)
Essays I Think Someone Else Could Take Something Away From
- “What Happens” by Zion Tauamiti
- “The Beginning” by Aimie Cronin
- “Fake It Till You Make It” by Eamonn Marra
- “It Needs to Start Early: An Interview with Riki Gooch”
- “Naming” by Bonnie Etherington (has a really good section about naming our anxiety, but also tries to cover every other topic under the sun)
- “Worry People” by Madeline Reid
- “Earnest PSA” by Susan Strongman
- “Side Effects” by Paula Harris
- “A Short History of Unease” by D.A. Glynn (played the “anxiety is misery” card right by using it as supplementary to actual discourse)
- “Mountain View Road” by Mikey Dam
- “As Fresh as They Come” by Tusiata Avia
While not every essay in the collection is featured above, anxiety is such a varied illness that I have no doubt that every essay will have at least one person who deeply resonates with it. Overall, Headlands does exactly what it set out to do: provide hope and reassurance for all people struggling with anxiety, even if the introduction puts it on the back foot in achieving this goal.
September 26, 2020
CW: iatrogenic harm and coercive psychiatry, among other difficult subjects
An anthology of essays (for the most part; some are interviews; one particularly arresting work from Donna McLeod could be read as a poem) from 30+ New Zealand people who have (mostly) anxiety. Many are writers (journalists, poets, essayists, novelists, musicians, etc.). Some are not writers and it shows. Some don’t even suffer from anxiety but rather “treat” people with anxiety. Two clinical psychologists write a very odd entry about micronutrients for anxiety. Another non-sufferer, a physiotherapist, writes about one of her patient’s experiences of anxiety, without ever addressing how much of a problem it is for her to be telling us about someone else’s experience and without telling us if she asked this patient for her consent in publishing her story or if she changed this person’s name. In this same essay, the author refers to some of the patients she has worked with as “extremely psychiatrically ill.” The biggest problem with this uneven work is that despite the subtitle, many of these stories of anxiety are not actually that new. Almost all of them discuss medication and psychiatry without criticism. Many of these essays could easily be advertisements for Big Pharma. Several essayists repeat the bogus “mental illness is a chemical imbalance” line. The overall issue with the anthology can be captured in the back cover copy (which is reproduced here on Goodreads, in the book info above). It’s the same blah-blah anti-stigma messaging we’ve all heard countless times: “In [year], this [government body] figures show that [same ole same ole stat we’ve heard a million times, usually 1 in 4 or 1 in 5] [citizens of some country] sought help for [some variation on “mental health” condition/mood disorder/depression/anxiety/whatever].”
The pieces that tell a person’s real experience with anxiety (the “diary entries” another reviewer mentions) work really well. Worth noting is the holistic definition of “anxiety” used for this anthology. Anxiety here is defined very broadly and includes psychosis, voice-hearing, dissociation, deep melancholy, suicidality, etc. This broadness was one of the work’s strengths. Its focus on wrapping up most of the works with some kind of recovery narrative were definite weaknesses.
That said, some very beautiful work in here too and a few triggering moments that took my breath away and left me in tears. Unsanitized experiences of crippling anxiety, chest-collapsing panic, out-of-body-ness, psychiatric abuse, ableism, sanism.
Standouts include pieces by Hinemoana Baker, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Donna McLeod, Holly Walker, Madeline Reid and Yvette Walker.
“I’ve learnt that antipsychotics don’t rewrite my thought patterns, and cognitive behavioural therapy can’t transform my learned behaviours,” writes Reid. “There’s just time and light, and the unfortunate things that happen in between” (p.149).
An anthology of essays (for the most part; some are interviews; one particularly arresting work from Donna McLeod could be read as a poem) from 30+ New Zealand people who have (mostly) anxiety. Many are writers (journalists, poets, essayists, novelists, musicians, etc.). Some are not writers and it shows. Some don’t even suffer from anxiety but rather “treat” people with anxiety. Two clinical psychologists write a very odd entry about micronutrients for anxiety. Another non-sufferer, a physiotherapist, writes about one of her patient’s experiences of anxiety, without ever addressing how much of a problem it is for her to be telling us about someone else’s experience and without telling us if she asked this patient for her consent in publishing her story or if she changed this person’s name. In this same essay, the author refers to some of the patients she has worked with as “extremely psychiatrically ill.” The biggest problem with this uneven work is that despite the subtitle, many of these stories of anxiety are not actually that new. Almost all of them discuss medication and psychiatry without criticism. Many of these essays could easily be advertisements for Big Pharma. Several essayists repeat the bogus “mental illness is a chemical imbalance” line. The overall issue with the anthology can be captured in the back cover copy (which is reproduced here on Goodreads, in the book info above). It’s the same blah-blah anti-stigma messaging we’ve all heard countless times: “In [year], this [government body] figures show that [same ole same ole stat we’ve heard a million times, usually 1 in 4 or 1 in 5] [citizens of some country] sought help for [some variation on “mental health” condition/mood disorder/depression/anxiety/whatever].”
The pieces that tell a person’s real experience with anxiety (the “diary entries” another reviewer mentions) work really well. Worth noting is the holistic definition of “anxiety” used for this anthology. Anxiety here is defined very broadly and includes psychosis, voice-hearing, dissociation, deep melancholy, suicidality, etc. This broadness was one of the work’s strengths. Its focus on wrapping up most of the works with some kind of recovery narrative were definite weaknesses.
That said, some very beautiful work in here too and a few triggering moments that took my breath away and left me in tears. Unsanitized experiences of crippling anxiety, chest-collapsing panic, out-of-body-ness, psychiatric abuse, ableism, sanism.
Standouts include pieces by Hinemoana Baker, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Donna McLeod, Holly Walker, Madeline Reid and Yvette Walker.
“I’ve learnt that antipsychotics don’t rewrite my thought patterns, and cognitive behavioural therapy can’t transform my learned behaviours,” writes Reid. “There’s just time and light, and the unfortunate things that happen in between” (p.149).
November 15, 2020
A mixed bag of short accounts of anxiety and depression. Some real eye opening tales, and others not so much. Ashleigh Young's (Ghost Knife) is a standout.
September 13, 2022
For me, some of these were amazing 5 star pieces of writing, and others I didn't gel with at all
December 20, 2018
HEADLANDS offers the gift of bringing anxiety, an embarrassing and misunderstood phenomenon, into the light for examination without judgment. Many essays hit similar marks, building a generalised picture of anxiety that's detailed and suggestive of a need for broader public understanding (because it's so much more common than you might think), but each writer demonstrates that every experience is unique. This book is a public service and a fascinating read, if one you might need to take a bit of time with.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews