Why this book exists
A focused place to understand what is happening
Sheila can tell you exactly how far she can go. There is her house. There is the corner shop, four hundred yards down the road, reachable on a good day. There is her daughter's house two streets over, if her daughter drives and comes to fetch her. And beyond that, in every direction, is a shaded region on the map only she can see, marked: cannot go there. The map was not always this small. Fifteen years ago it was the whole world. And then, so slowly that she never once saw it happening, the edges began to come in. The motorway became difficult, so she took the back roads. The big supermarket became difficult, so she used the small one. Each adjustment was, at the time, entirely sensible, a reasonable accommodation to a bit of anxiety, and not one.
The writing is designed to reduce shame, bring the underlying pattern into view and give you practical ways to respond without pretending that every life follows the same formula.
