Connecting Seniors
Karen Sander · 37 min
Karen Sander built a sold-out storytelling platform, wrote a book, and travelled the globe — all while living with lifelong crippling anxiety she kept largely hidden from the world.
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Karen Sander grew up in Little Bay with horses, the ocean, and an idyllic childhood, yet even then, she felt different. A freckle-faced redhead in a brown-haired family, she wondered if she was adopted. Her parents pushed her to excel at school, and failure felt unthinkable. By her teens in the 1960s and 70s, generalized anxiety disorder had taken hold. The physical grip was relentless: weight loss, sweating, a racing heart, sleeplessness at dawn, and the exhaustion of holding it together while teaching in the Department of Education for seven years. Mental health was unspeakable in the workplace.
At 37, Karen left teaching and ran away to the film industry, spending a decade traveling the globe teaching children on set. She eventually moved into pharmaceutical sales for 23 years, began medication, and slowly built evidence of her own capability. That became the key: not avoiding the hard work, but accumulating small successes that proved she could do it. Swimming in the ocean with friends became medicine. When anxiety started to slip back, the fear of going through it all again was almost as painful as the anxiety itself. But by then, Karen had learned to listen, truly listen, to others, and she discovered she was no longer alone.
Today, Karen runs The Story Room, a sold-out community storytelling platform on the Northern Beaches that has expanded across Sydney. She wrote a book, travelled the globe, and built a life of connection and meaning, all while managing an unwanted guest that never fully left. Her decades of struggle taught her one crucial thing: we all carry something, and sharing it changes everything.
Every story here belongs to the person who lived it. They said yes to sharing it, and we sat with it carefully before it went up. Nothing here is exaggerated and nothing is used without permission. Read how we handle these stories ↗
Kintsugi Heroes · Registered Australian not-for-profit · kintsugiheroes.com.au ↗