Name: My Age of Anxiety
Rating: 3.4 (120 reviews)
Author: Scott Stossel

What’s in it for me: Find out what it is really like to suffer from clinical anxiety.

Most of us suffer from “normal” anxiety occasionally, such as being nervous about a big event, or giving a presentation in front of an audience.

Some of us also experience a more severe anxiety such as worrying a lot or having a phobia. However, these things don’t usually keep us from leading a “normal” life.

In extreme cases, there is clinical anxiety. Those who suffer from clinical anxiety are scared of things that aren’t intrinsically dangerous (like public speaking) and have extreme reactions to them, such as vomiting or fainting.

In these blinks, you’ll discover:

Theories on the cause of anxiety;
How everyday actions can become almost impossible for those who are clinically anxious;
How anxiety got the author into embarrassing situations, like flooding the Kennedy family’s bathroom.

Clinical anxiety is the most common form of mental illness.

Most us would agree that anxiety is fairly normal. However, few people are aware that clinical anxiety is actually the most common form of mental illness. It is diagnosed even more often than depression, and one out of six people worldwide will be clinically anxious for at least one year in their lifetime.

In addition, anxiety seems to be a characteristic that defies the boundaries of both culture and time.

For instance, in Spanish-speaking South America anxiety is referred to as “ataques de nervios,” Greenland Inuit call it “kayak angst” and Iranians talk about “heart distress.” However it’s labeled, these terms all refer to a common state.

Clinical anxiety not only shows up across countries and cultures, but is also not tied to any particular era and has been discussed in documents throughout history.

For instance, Plato and Hippocrates had their theories about the disease, Spinoza wrote of it, and Sigmund Freud was preoccupied with finding and defining the mechanisms of anxiety.

It is important to note that anxiety is not a weakness of character. In fact, some argue that anxiety is actually the motor of civilization, creativity and inventive genius.

Indeed, many people noted for their success and influence such as Gandhi, Charles Darwin and Barbra Streisand have struggled with anxiety. Along with these well-known and respected personalities, some 40 million Americans have also been diagnosed with the illness.

With such an astounding statistic, it would be absurd to call all of these people “insane.”

Far from being a “crazy” person who cannot succeed in life, the author himself is a successful journalist and editor who can provide for his family and raise children despite his chronic anxiety.

So it is evident that clinical anxiety is a universal illness to which no one is really immune. So what is it like to live with anxiety?

Anxiety is a disease that makes one’s life hard, stressful and embarrassing.

Life with anxiety is a constant battle. Some people compare it to living with diabetes, insofar as the anxious have to handle painful inflictions every day. Like the diabetic who has to constantly monitor blood sugar levels and inject insulin, a clinically anxious person must perpetually watch out for stressful situations and be ever-ready to drug themselves for relief.

Sadly, being anxious is a dramatic limitation to ones everyday life – many anxious people are housebound, often preferring to stay home in order to feel safe and in control.

The cause of anxiety might be determined in childhood.

There are different theories on what causes anxiety. Psychoanalysts, for example, believe anxiety derives from the repression of taboo thoughts that first arise during childhood.

Take, for example, Freud’s Oedipus complex theory. Freud believed that boys sexually desire their mother and envy their father, while girls desire their father and envy their mother.

Anxiety is an evolutionary adaptation and is inherited through genetics.

Although it is not easy to live with, anxiety is not necessarily a deficit or a disadvantage. It is in fact an evolutionary adaptation that can be found in our genes.

According to the “survival of the fittest” theory, we are programmed to be anxious toward dangerous things, since someone who is afraid of a threat such as a snake or a high cliff is more likely to survive than someone who is not.

Therapy can also be valuable in treating anxiety.

We have seen how medication functions in the brain. However, there are also alternative treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT, which we will look at below.

CBT is based on the theory that there are behaviors (like anxious behavior), that can’t be controlled through rational thinking.

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