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In the Media
Growing Up in an Age of Anxiety
June 7, 2023

Fellows mentioned in this story: Karen Tan

From Hawai‘i Business Magazine:

Anxiety can feel like a squirrel in your head. Thoughts get stuck, circling over and over. The constant internal chatter makes it hard to slow down and calm your thoughts.

That’s how Chachie Abara describes it, as she recalls anxiously fixating on what other people thought of her. Insecurity may be a hallmark of youth, but hers felt unmanageable. “I was constantly obsessing about whether people liked me,” she says.

She says that need for assurance likely stems from being a shy child. She emigrated from the Philippines at age 7 and while she longed for close friends in her new ‘Ewa home, they were difficult to find.

As she grew older, social media exacerbated her anxiety and bouts of depression. Instagram can be the worst culprit, she says, as people “show off” in their postings, inviting comparisons.

Continue reading at HawaiiBusiness.com.


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