Anxiety, Ageless

LIAM ANXIOUS ABOUT DINNER

I am reading Scott Stossel's My Age of Anxiety. It is mine also. at all my ages and currently... and his smaller fonted words following, fear, dread and the search for peace of mind expand and promise a revealing story. When I came upon the review of the book, I knew I would have to read it. Here is the link. Worth reading the review because his book is a unique personal journey and one that is ongoing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/books/review/my-age-of-anxiety-by-scott-stossel.html?_r=0

Finally a book that gets me! And many friends agree. It is gets them also. An exploration of the author's anxious life...a history of the study of anxiety as he tries to understand his own. It is science, memoir, history, biography, with doctors, analysts, writers, philosophers...over hundreds of years. Famous surprising sufferers. I am sharing my thoughts on our anxiety with my dear friend in Georgia. Anxiety through FaceTime. Thanks Steve Jobs and Apple.

LIAM ANXIOUS ABOUT HIS WALK

I borrowed the anxiety book from my library, renewed it once, had 50 pages to go, when I had to return it April 4th...no chance for anxiety to seep in though as it came up ready for ebook borrowing April 5th and now I have it installed on my two kindles iPad and iPhone.

LIAM ANXIOUS ABOUT LATTE LICKS

Anxiety caused by

Nature, environment, illness, biology, mother, culture, nationality, modern life, religion...is it?

Not so much written of it in the Middle Ages though they did have plague which would have been major distraction

Anxiety is helped by
drugs, therapy, wine, surgery, diet, rest, work, social media, poverty, wealth..is it? 

This book is not self help. Yet it did help.

I feel better reading it...I like this quote (not from the book) and am not sure whose it is "I approach each day with a mixture of terror and delight" I can sometimes feel both ways within minutes. What a way to live! There is a plus to the anxious life. No external crisis or catastrophe makes me more anxious. This terrible winter had no effect. A blizzard. Cold. Another blizzard. I always feel  dread now everyone else was feeling it. Snow is real, I can see it. Bring it on. Generalized anxiety, fear of loss, and bad dreams...those are different. I cannot shovel them away.
Give me a raw rainy grey day over a balmy warm bright one. No expectations for the first. The second, nothing I can do will ever make me worthy of living it. And in reading My Age of Anxiety I understand more about the why of it.

Thanks Scott Stossel for being brave and tenacious and coming out to the world as the anxious you.

Some fav quotes from Scott Stossel's Age of Anxiety 

Just because I can explain your depression using terms such as "serotonin reuptake inhibition" doesn't mean you don't have a problem with your mother"
                                ---Carl Elliott, The Last Physician
                               Walter Percy and the Moral Life of Medicine (1999)

 for that which is but a flea-biting to one, causeth insufferable torment to another. 
                               ---Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)

ANXIOUS LIAM, PARENTS GOING TO CRABTREE'S

Parents leaving? Liam's flea is biting

Woof , Woof

and an update! my Georgia friend retweeted my Tweet and sent it to the page of the author Scott Stossel and he favorited it! so exciting...here it is