By Mallory Mattingly
HGTV’s Erin Napier revealed that she is “absolutely terrified” for her family’s summer trip.
“I am such an anxious worrier,” she admitted on Annie Downs’ “That Sounds Fun” podcast. “I could worry professionally. Someone could pay me a salary for the way I worry, and it would be a good salary, too, because I’m very good at it.”
“It’s funny though, because you used to worry about the big stuff,” Erin’s husband, Ben, said, “and now you worry about the little stuff.”
Erin revealed that their family will head to Scotland this summer to “study his [Ben’s] family heritage, and I am absolutely terrified.”
“Like, I have so much anxiety about crossing an ocean with my children,” she added. “I, like, can’t even think about it. I have to just — I’m disassociating from it ’cause I can’t let myself think about all the things that can go wrong. I could list at least 20 things right now if you want to hear what I think could go wrong.”
In 2022, Erin shared a post on Instagram about the importance of mental health after she suffered from a mysterious illness years prior.
“This time of year, I feel the anniversary of illness so acutely. These hospital photos were taken in 2014, at the end of my 10-year illness from (unknowingly) a perforated appendix,” she wrote.
Erin went on to explain that even eight years without any symptoms, she learned that there were “some deep ruts in my neuro pathways that have left me with an extreme fear and preoccupation with sickness, nausea in particular, ever since.”
“My brain, without my permission, sets off on a fight or flight mission to save my life, when my life is not in any danger at all. Panic attacks and spiraling thoughts come rushing in,” the HGTV star continued. “I’m relieved at least to have connected all these dots in recent months, brought to the surface by the constant upheaval and dread that came with living in a pandemic.”
But despite Erin’s struggle with anxiety, she and Ben trust God and have seen His faithfulness throughout their lives.
“For us, none of this would have happened without our faith. I’m sure a lot of people would say that, but for us, it was literally not something that we were seeking out. TV was never even an idea for us,” Ben previously told Guideposts of their lives.
“It was kind of like we were stepping into something totally unknown simply by saying, ‘Yes, OK, God, we’re going to let You take this and if it works, great, and if it don’t, we know You’ll take care of us.’ For me and for Erin, too, we both rely on our parents a lot for advice. And when you are from South Mississippi and you start talking about having a national TV show on HGTV, that doesn’t really happen,” he continued.
Though what-ifs crowd Erin’s thoughts ahead of their trip, she will certainly lean on her faith in God and her husband, Ben, for guidance.
Read Next: ‘We Don’t Fold on Family Time’: Ben and Erin Napier Share Secret to Family Happiness
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