I’ve had my nose in a number of client manuscripts lately, all of which deal with anxiety. One is the work of a doctor who specializes in the treatment of anxiety, who views the subject from the perspective of a trained psychologist. Another is that of a doctor who not only treats anxiety (as well as chronic pain and depression) using “alternative” methods, but also suffers from the condition herself, has since she was nine or ten. The next is the work of a man who has spent his life trying to understand his own anxiety, to heal himself, so he can finally feel comfortable in his own skin.

I thought these three different authors and their three different approaches will demonstrate that you can take a common topic and come at it with a (valuable) unique skew.

The three different segments I’ll be sharing with you in the weeks ahead I call The Anxiety Series. Because I’m just creative that way. I hope you enjoy.

Now for a segment from Cliff Holtermann’s upcoming book, Driving Myself Uncrazy.

By the time I was middle aged, my life appeared to be fairly “normal.”  I was married with two children, and had a respectable job.  I appeared to be navigating reasonably well in the world in most outward aspects, yet I was still dealing with anxiety and fear, and did not know why. 

I found it difficult to explain what having this fear meant to someone that didn’t have such a fear.  Not that I really tried.  I felt that, being a man; it was not something that I should try to talk about.  I didn’t want to be thought of as weak, or silly—or even mentally imbalanced. 

Having a fear of the unknown meant that things unnerved me—for no reason.  When I looked around, I would notice ordinary things that made me feel unsettled.  When I thought of the future, I would picture failure, disaster.  Rarely did I see things in a positive light.  My mind was engaged in imaginary battles caused by little provocation.

The best way that I can describe having this fear is that it felt like I had a 500-pound gorilla somewhere in my mind.  I knew that it was there; there was no way to deny to myself that it was there.  The thing is, I really didn’t know why it was there.  I just wanted it to go away.  I did my best to ignore it; to occupy my mind with other things—to get immersed in my studies or my job.  But somehow it found a way to make its presence felt.  It translated itself into real life activities.  In my case it revolved largely around a fear of speaking.

This situation persisted for years, and haunted me while I was working in my office in downtown Manhattan.  When I saw someone walking over to introduce a new person to me, I would have a panic attack.  When I knew that I had to go to a meeting the next day or later that same day, I would have a series of panic attacks.  And, oh those painful panic attacks right before I knew that I had to speak at the meeting.  The thing that I most dreaded about being in a meeting was when without warning, the moderator would start the meeting by asking everyone sitting at the table to go around and introduce themselves.  The moments leading up to me were pure torture. 

I was vaguely aware that my mental life had devolved into worrying that the next upcoming event might trigger my anxiety.  My mind even began to conjure up fictitious future events that would provoke anxiety in me.  I could barely exist in the present, because my mind was dealing with future events, real and imagined.  I knew that this fear was disrupting, if not ruining my life.  The last thing that I wanted to do, though, was to fully confront it.  I had no idea what it was capable of doing.  I had no idea if I would push myself into the realm of crazy. 

Everyone has low levels of anxiety throughout our stress-filled days, but it was clear to me that mine was way out of proportion in relation to the triggers to which I was reacting.  In my case, the act of trying to figure out why I was feeling intense anxiety/fear was causing more uncertainty because I couldn’t figure out why I felt the way I felt, which was then reinforcing the anxiety/fear. 

So, I began trying to figure out what was going on with me, to no avail.  I have since learned that once a problem enters our brains, our brains are wired to search to find the correct answer to solve the problem.  How does the brain figure out what is wrong with itself?  In essence, it does that by asking itself questions. 

Human brains are uncomfortable with uncertainty (not knowing the answer).  So, my brain kept trying to solve the problem.  My brain would ask itself a question in an attempt to figure out what was causing the anxiety in order to fix it.  If “I” was unable to answer the question satisfactorily, it would ask another question.  My brain would then continue asking questions, each of which, unfortunately, “I” was unable to answer.  Upon reaching the last question in the series that “I” couldn’t answer, it returned to the first one and started the series of questions over again.  And in doing so it created a mental loop

After experiencing intense anxiety caused by a seemingly innocuous interaction that I had with someone, my brain would ask this series of questions:

Q:  Why am I having a panic attack for no reason? 

A:  I don’t know. 

(Wrong answer…)

Q:  Is there something causing me to feel so much anxiety? 

A:  Not that I am aware of. 

Q:  Then why do I feel this way? 

A:  I don’t know. 

(Wrong answer…)

Q:  Is there something wrong with me? 

A:  No. 

Q:  Then why am I having a panic attack for no reason? 

A:  I don’t know. 

(Wrong answer…)

Q:  Is there something wrong with me? 

A:  Well, maybe there is. 

Q:  What is it? 

A:  I don’t know. 

(Wrong answer…)

Q:  Could I be going crazy? 

A:  It seems like I might be, but no one else is acting as if they think I am.  So, I don’t know. 

(Wrong answer…)

Q:  So, if I’m not crazy, why I am having a panic attack for no reason? 

A:  I don’t know. 

(Wrong answer…)

Q:  Is there something causing me to feel so much anxiety? 

A:  Not that I am aware of…

(and on and on)

This loop played in my brain for many years. 

It first began when I was in college.  The loop was not constant.  Something would trigger a panic attack.  I would try to control it.  It would take all of my energy, and throw me into the metal loop.  For a period of years, the mental loop trapped me and would throw me into a mental frenzy.  I found myself arguing with myself whether or not I was crazy.  I began to disassociate from myself.  I found it painful to look in the mirror at the haunting face looking back.  I became timid looking at other people, half afraid that they would realize that they were interacting with a crazy person.  I had no way to deal with my situation, yet felt that it was essential that my feelings remain hidden from others.  My only strategy to make myself stop thinking about it was to shut myself down. 

So, how do you keep from driving yourself crazy while worrying that you really might be at the edge of being crazy??????  Can you imagine the internal dialogs going on in my brain trying to convince myself that I’m not crazy, while secretly fearing that I might in fact be a little crazy?  It’s not a good place to be, especially not on an ongoing basis.