A Self Study — Social Anxiety Disorder ("SAD")
As Seen Through the Lens of "My Age of Anxiety" by Scott Stossel (Knopf 2014)
This piece originally appeared as “My Age of Anxiety, and Scott Stossel’s” on “Old Ones Dream” January 15, 2015, and, updated as follows, as an article in “Magnolia Elegy: Place In the Edisto Fork” published April 14, 2022. I have added two epigraphs to this re-posting.
“We are just beginning to understand psychic pain and as we do maybe we will be kinder to ourselves and others. Hopefully . . .” — Nolly Mackey Cantey
Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don't want it. What seems conceit, bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone. ― Miller Williams
One of the remarkable books in the last year, the national best seller “My Age of Anxiety” (Knopf), was written by Scott Stossel at the suggestion of his “current therapist”. Stossel, who suffers from severe chronic and debilitating anxiety/panic, is described by one reviewer as “… a high-functioning neurotic” which I would describe as understatement. In his forties, he is editor of The Atlantic magazine.
Stossel has been in therapy since he was ten, and under the influence of prescribed “psychopharmaceuticals”. When you read the list of events in his life that were effected catastrophically by debilitating attacks of panic and anxiety, or the “thousands of times … stricken by a pervasive sense of existential dread … beset by nausea, vertigo, shaking …”; then you will wonder how he made it through school and jobs to his present status in life.
Louis Menand, in his “The Prisoner of Stress” review of the book in the January 27, 2014 issue of The New Yorker states that Stossel “… seems to have undergone almost every treatment out there, with the exception of electroconvulsive therapy.” Stossel, in his “My Anxious, Twitchy, Phobic (Somehow Successful) Life" in the January/February 2015 issue of The Atlantic, provides a list of almost twenty categories of therapy he has tried, and the names of almost thirty different medications, and alcohol — then states “Here’s what’s worked: nothing.” He concludes by the end of his book that the bottom line roots of his condition are genetic.
At this stage in his very successful professional life, the contents of his brief case includes alcohol and Xanax, and his well tested pre-performance remedy for public speaking anxiety is a carefully gauged and staged drug and alcohol cocktail that he implements about 4 hours before performing in public and that continues until he is walking on stage.
A Remedy
Stossel found no other remedy for his condition.
The territory that he navigates is familiar. The trail map that he navigates has been mine since I, also, was about 10 years old, with the existential dread but not with such behavioral extremes. But I was not put on drugs and told that something was wrong with me when I was ten. I was pliable. I learned to take the trail of least resistance - that kept me away from the lions and tigers and bears, and I learned to stay away from public speaking, but I learned that I could do it if others depended on me, and I could do it best without Tranxene beforehand.
At a couple of difficult times in my life, I tried the drugs - but I didn’t like the way they made me feel, and they seemed to become their own requirement. I rejected the meds as a crutch — not a lonely or difficult decision — assisted perhaps by my good fortune. I don’t think I would have become editor of a prestigious magazine or a partner in a national accounting firm even so.
Our Nature and Our Redemption
Menand makes the connection between anxiety and depression and the blurry line between them. Does Stossel? If Stossel does connect his nature (genetics) and his condition, does he see the strength and potential for redemption in that connection? Stossel is strong in the science of his condition and he does conclude “maybe” it is a gift.
If the cause of the condition is genetic as Stossel concludes and I have no doubt — if it is truly a result of biology and personality traits; then why cannot a remedy be found within the causes.
Among the types of therapy that Stossel used, he says unsuccessfully, are several that have been really helpful to me, used as part of a regimen that did not include psycho-pharmaceuticals. His list includes the following tools - each helpful:
Stoic philosophy. The Bomb.
“… audiotapes … ordered off a late-night TV infomercial.” This is the only therapy for which I paid money that provided me lasting strength.
Massage therapy — is, in my estimation, essential to any type of therapy including cancer.
Yoga. I have not tried Yoga yet, but from what I have learned from my friends, it is on my list.
Alcohol - assuming that you can go at least 23 hours without using it. As a young adult I was plagued with stomach ulcers until I read that eliminating black pepper and adding two cocktails before supper would solve the problem. No more ulcers and I went back to black pepper in short order.
I no longer have those audiotapes, I gave them away. They were a repetitive exercise in cognitive behavioral therapy based on the theme that; if you were not a talented, sensitive and basically good person then you would not have anxiety, and you should be proud of your talents and your empathetic nature instead of beating yourself up —or words to that effect. Apparently if you can find a way to believe in yourself in those terms then it helps. So with that realization, acquired in a stoic mind set, you have found the remedy within the cause.
Finding the remedy within the cause, I think, is helped by being told the family stories at ten years old - instead of being drugged. Tell the family stories of ancestors that struggled with the same feelings and how that worked out for them and for the ones that loved them. It is sad that adopted children are deprived of that resource.
And no one mentioned that perhaps food matters.
Oversimplification
There is no doubt that I oversimplify Stossel’s condition when I suggest that he would have been better off being left un-medicated in his childhood. His condition was not simple, was extreme in fact, and the decisions to be made by his parents were not simple. And there was/is not much knowledge of alternatives to mainstream (pharmacological) western psychology practice. I know because I am of the same generation as his parents.
Robin Williams, et al.
I originally conceived this as a discussion about Stossel’s book and, of course, me. But I agonized for a time over whether I wanted to expose any more self absorption to my readers. Then Robin Williams added himself to the list of people who have made the ultimate contribution to depression awareness, and rekindled the questions of: is suicide an act of selfish self absorption? (debatable) and, why do such talented people intentionally destroy themselves? I decided that I should give the rest of my kindred gene pool the opportunity to read this story.
“Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t, didn't already have"
— Dewey Bunnell, Tin Man, performed by the band America
“You have plenty of courage, I am sure," answered Oz. "All you need is confidence in yourself. There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Unbelievable, Tom. Thank you for this.