🕸️ “Monster in My Mind”: When Anxiety Dresses Up for Halloween

Kelly Clarke
Oct 28
2 min read

October is full of jump scares — haunted houses, creepy clowns, your inbox after a long weekend. But for some of us, the real monster isn’t under the bed — it’s in our head.

Anxiety loves Halloween. It gets to wear all its favorite disguises:

The “what if” witch who brews worst-case scenarios.
The perfectionist vampire who sucks all your energy until nothing feels good enough.
The ghost of past mistakes who whispers “remember when…” at the worst possible time.

At ABC Counseling, we see anxiety not as a villain to banish, but as a misunderstood character in your story. It’s often trying to protect you — just doing it in a very over-the-top, horror-movie way.

🧙‍♀️ Step 1: Name the Monster

It sounds silly, but it works. When you give anxiety a name (“Karen the Catastrophizer,” “Nervous Ned”), you take away some of its power. You stop being in the story and start being the narrator.

🧟 Step 2: Don’t Feed It After Midnight

Anxiety thrives on caffeine, doomscrolling, and overthinking. (Basically the holy trinity of modern living.) Setting gentle limits — a screen break, a bedtime routine, a “no email after 9 p.m.” rule — can quiet the noise.

🕯️ Step 3: Call in Your Allies

Every horror movie hero learns this: don’t go it alone. Therapy is like bringing a flashlight into the dark woods — you still have to walk the path, but now you can actually see what’s around you.

🍬 Treat, Don’t Trick, Yourself

This season, try a little kindness instead of criticism. When your brain gets loud, ask, “What do I need right now?” Sometimes the answer is rest. Sometimes it’s a walk. And sometimes…it’s a Reese’s cup.

So as Halloween creeps closer, remember — you don’t have to fight the monsters alone. We’re here to help you unmask your fears, rewrite your script, and maybe even laugh at the jump scares along the way.

🧡 Happy (and emotionally safe) Halloween from all of us at ABC Counseling Inc. — where we believe therapy should feel more like pumpkin spice and less like a haunted house.