The week I was stressing out over this decision, my favorite newsletter by Mike Monteiro included a link to a post from his friend Jason Cooper who made a very cool browser extension called Kill Yr Substack you might wanna check out. Mr. Cooper said it perfectly so I’m just going to quote his post here:

In case you think I’m being hyperbolic about Substack’s whole deal, here’s some background from people who cover this beat for a living:

• Rolling Stone: Substack Loses Major Newsletter Platformer Over Nazi Content

• Ars Technica: Substack’s Nazi problem won’t go away after push notification apology

• The Atlantic: Substack Has a Nazi Problem

And then, last week, Substack promoted Andrew Tate as their #1 new “bestseller”. Just out there touting a convicted rapist and human trafficker like it’s something to celebrate. Cool company. Great leadership.

So, fresh starts and stuff.

You can find me at Anxious Abroad if you’re interested. I’d love to see you there!

xA

But a lot has happened — I spent 2025 writing a real actual book which I’m currently working on my 3rd draft of AND I finally moved abroad which was one of my top life goals and deathbed regrets. Which is amazing and wonderful and ratcheted up my anxiety to a whole. Other. Level.

In the process of planning the move I came across tons of helpful articles and videos from folks sharing their experience. But I often had more questions or started to panic about small details that I couldn’t find or understand. At the same time in trauma therapy, Dr. X and I started to talk more and more about another diagnosis — OCD. I wasn’t surprised and have probably joked about having this in a somewhat perverse way for decades, but the truth is my OCD has been the most debilitating aspect of my mental health for some time. And I thought I’d like to write about the intersection of that and moving and living abroad because it seemed like maybe there was a gap there that I could in some small way fill.

I’m still trying to understand the overlap between CPTSD and OCD and anxiety disorder and depression. What came first? Does one cause the other? What’s the worst one? Which one should I work on first? And other questions that there simply aren’t clear answers to.

Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you’re all hanging in there.

Warmly,

Alex