I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still

watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,

soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,

Stories Without End from WB EZ Chicago.

Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure.

Listen, wherever you get your podcast.

From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdad.

I'm Greta Johnson.

It is Friday, whatever that means. It's also May 22nd, whatever that means. And I am still talking to you from the floor of my bedroom closet,

which means this must be another edition of Nerdette's introverts guide to the good life.

So for the past couple months, we have been making episodes to help you figure out how to make the best of this situation,

partly by giving you heaps of ideas for things to keep you busy and entertained and hopefully at least a little fulfilled, too.

And I don't know about you, but something that I have been dealing with much more than usual since all this started is anxiety.

So we thought now might be a great time to get in touch with an expert to help us unpack all of our complicated feelings and figure out what to do with

them. Our guest today is Claire Bidwell Smith. She's a grief counselor who wrote a book called

Anxiety, The Missing Stage of Grief. Even if you haven't heard of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, you're

probably familiar with her five stages of grief.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Claire has a lot of respect for the work that Elizabeth Kubler-Ross did, but she thinks anxiety should fit in there, too.

Even she herself said that the five stages were really just

meant as guideposts and she acknowledged that there were many other aspects to grief.

Our culture loves the idea of these stages, right? Like wouldn't it be nice if we could just hop through?

...