Brittany Richmond’s Journey From High-Functioning Anxiety to Published Mental Health Author
From Anxiety Diagnosis to Award-Winning Mental Health Speaker
Brittany Richmond is an award-winning mental health speaker who has spent 14+ years in the mental health field and 7+ years as a keynote speaker, impacting more than 80,000 audience members in person. Her signature talk, “The Breakfast Club,” has been rewatched over 1 million times online.
But her journey to that stage wasn’t easy. After high school, Brittany was diagnosed with multiple anxiety disorders. For years, she wrestled with the lies anxiety told her, constantly asking herself: Why are things so easy for other people but so hard for me? She felt alone.
It took years of working on herself and learning to talk about how she felt before she could truly move from “suffering from” anxiety to “living with” it. With a master’s in psychology and years of experience as a mental health professional in schools, Brittany discovered her mission: to blend personal story, clinical insight, and real-world tools to help others face anxiety head-on.
“After years of working on myself and learning to talk about how I felt, I’ve found my mission: to help students, educators, and communities face anxiety head-on.”
Why a Keynote Speech Wasn’t Enough: The Gap Between Stage and Page
Even as Brittany stood on stages watching people nod along, she knew something was missing. The conversations she most wanted to have, the deep, honest ones about overcoming anxiety, were too nuanced for a 45-minute keynote.
She wanted to sit across from someone and say: I see you. I’ve been there. Here’s what helped me.
An anxiety book could do that. A book could be the friend she wished she’d had.
Because Brittany discovered that you can live with anxiety AND have a happy life. They are not mutually exclusive. But she needed a way to share that message beyond the stage.
“I wanted it to feel like a conversation between me and the reader. Whether it was 1 book sold or 10,000, I wanted it to feel like it was just ME and THEM.”
Finding the Right Publishing Partner at the National Speakers Association
When Brittany connected with Alex and Will at the National Speakers Association, everything just clicked. She found people who genuinely invested in her vision and cared about her book as deeply as she did.
“When there are good people, the organization is good. I can’t speak highly enough about the company, the leadership, the support, or the process! They truly cared about this book as much as I did, and I made lifelong friends I cannot see my life without.”
Creating “Lies My Anxiety Has Told Me”
Creating Lies My Anxiety Has Told Me: Going from “Suffering From” to “Living With” Anxiety meant walking back through her own journey. The moments of high-functioning anxiety that others couldn’t see. The coping mechanisms that didn’t serve her. And the strategies that finally did.
Writing the book meant being vulnerable about the years she spent feeling alone. It meant sharing clinical insights from her experience alongside the deeply personal story of her own healing.
Streamline Books helped her capture her voice on the page exactly as it sounds in real life: warm, grounded, and disarmingly honest.
How an Anxiety Book Elevated Her Speaking Career
The anxiety memoir added immediate, tangible value to Brittany’s speaking career. It raised her authority, supported higher speaking fees, and acted as a business card that kept working long after she left an event.
“The ROI is there!”
But Brittany had one simple hope beyond the business metrics: she wanted readers to feel like she was speaking directly to them.
And that’s exactly what happened.
Reader Reviews: “It Felt Like Having a Discussion With a Friend”
Readers began sharing their reactions on Amazon, through social media DMs, and in person after speaking events:
- “It felt like having a discussion with a friend.”
- “Never in my life have I read a book where I felt so connected with the author.”
- “Brittany talks to you like she’s your best friend.”
- “It showed up in my life at the exact right time.”
One reader called it “a game changer” for understanding their own high-functioning anxiety, ADHD, and sensory processing disorder. Another said the book helped them identify anxiety issues they hadn’t even realized were anxiety-driven while also providing practical tools to manage them.
She wrote it for her former self, and now it’s reaching thousands of people who need exactly what she needed.
What Is Brittany Up To Now
Today Brittany continues speaking full-time, though she’s intentional about limiting her engagements to around 40 events a year because, as she jokes, her hobbies include “going home, coming home, staying home, being home.”
Home is her sanctuary. When she’s not on stage, she’s showing up for her husband (a high school teacher and baseball coach), cheering at games, hosting events for his baseball boys and their families, and planning fundraisers. They’re huge baseball and NFL fans who love traveling to games together. Netflix binge nights with their dogs Fox and Fin? Even better.
Brittany also runs consulting calls, builds a youth speaker community, and leads community calls for ShareYourStory.com. The value she offers comes directly from her lived experience and her choice to invest in her story.
And no matter what else lands on her plate, she knows Lies My Anxiety Has Told Me will keep doing its work: showing up in someone’s life at exactly the right time, feeling like a conversation with a friend who truly understands what it means to live with anxiety.
