The Anxiety Expert
A Psychiatrist's Story of Panic
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The Anxiety Expert: A Psychiatrist’s Story of Panic
By Marjorie Raskin
Chapter 1. I Fall Up
On the morning of my forty-eighth birthday I sat in bed picturing the endless Monday meetings, the pink phone slips piling in my box, the eager psychiatric residents each with impossible questions. It was a typical Monday morning — ordinarily I’d have seen the kids off, gulped down my coffee and been rushing out the door — but that morning I felt oddly not myself and called in sick.
I leaned against my pillow, my mind hopping from worry to worry — had I mailed the Con Ed bill? Should I reconnect my smoke alarm? Did I need a stronger front door lock? Sick of my thoughts, I walked to the living room and for a distraction picked up Anne Tyler’s Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. I went back to bed, pulled my blue comforter up to my chest, and lost myself reading.
I didn’t realize it was after four until I heard a book-bag thud to the floor and my daughter in the kitchen.
“Happy Birthday,” Alexis said, handing me a vase with four yellow roses. She curled beside me and talked about her day. Suddenly she bounced up and asked if I wanted to come shopping with her. I said yes, but when I started to get up, a lightness floated to my head. I rested until it passed, then hoisted myself on an elbow; the lightness came back. I stayed home, convincing myself I was simply tired, and I told myself the same thing when I wasn’t up to going out for my own birthday dinner.
The next morning I headed out to Jefferson Market planning a feast for my kids. As I entered, I saw a woman who looked familiar. I smiled, but instead of smiling back, her eyes grew wary and deep grooves creased the sides of her mouth. As I watched she seemed to turn into a frightened old lady. I rushed to the meat counter. Standing there, looking through the glass at endless rows of chicken parts, my legs started to buckle. Afraid of falling to the floor, I clutched at the top of the counter. I was resting against it, taking deep breaths, when Richard, the manager, appeared.
“What’s wrong, Doc? You want a chair? A glass of water?”
I forced myself to straighten up and smile. “Just getting over a flu,” I said. “A weak moment.”
Leaning on my cart, I turned quickly down an aisle and out of Richard’s sight. Cans of
Wednesday was even worse. Once outside, I clung to the powdery bark of a Gingko tree, watching taxis tear down the block, their drivers so intent, I felt they wouldn’t notice if I fell right in front of them. I lurched back to my apartment, thought about what to do, then called an analyst I’d heard good things about. He sounded nice, but said he didn’t have time until next week. When I explained I was a psychiatrist having trouble getting to work, he squeezed me in on Friday. That gave me a lift.
By Thursday morning I felt eager to take charge of my life again. I swallowed a Valium and waited for it to kick in. The room smelled of dirty socks; so did I. I took a shower, which I saw as a major achievement. I even blew my hair dry and put on bright red lipstick.
Opening my apartment door, I faced a six-foot hall of large black tiles. The air around me grew thin. My tongue swelled in my mouth. A vague nausea ticked at the back of my throat. As I thought about crossing the threshold, a voice in my head whispered You’ll fall. You’ll scream. You’ll act crazy! But when I hesitated, another voice said Quitter. Loser. Want to be stuck in that apartment forever? I stood swaying on that threshold for what seemed like hours, my heart pounding into my brain.
I yanked the door closed and rested against it. This had to be a mistake. I was a doctor, an associate professor, a good mother who was there for her children. I could always fight my anxiety before, but this was different. Something inside me had sat down and was refusing to budge. I didn’t know what that was, only that it was pressing me against some rock bottom place I’d barely even glimpsed before.
Despite my profession and many attempts at treatment, I’d never really looked at my own life.
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About the Book
Marjorie Raskin takes readers through a lifetime coping with panic attacks that seemed to come from nowhere and shows how she was able, in her fifties, to manage her problems after confronting hidden feeling about being abused as a child in both overt and subtle ways.
Her symptoms were treated primarily by psychotherapy, something rarely described in other books. Marjorie believes in using medication for Panic Disorder, but feels that therapy’s role in helping anxious individuals resolve their underlying problems is too often dismissed, leaving them markedly dissatisfied with themselves and their lives.
This book offers hope, understanding, and direction to individuals who recurrently endure attacks that make them feel about to run, scream, die, or go crazy. It also adds to the understanding of those with less severe anxiety symptoms. Many individual will identify with some of the situations Marjorie describes -bringing up two children as a single parent, working to appear confident in competitive work situations, and re-entering the singles world in her fifties, a Valium in her pocket.
Marjorie’s professional work allows her to naturally incorporate the evolving saga of psychiatry’s attempts to understand and cure panic and anxiety into her own story.
About the Author
Marjorie Raskin began doing psychiatric research while a resident at New York State Psychiatric Institute. After her own Panic Disorder came into full bloom, she started her studies of anxiety and panic at University of California Medical Center. She set up U.C.’s first Anxiety Clinic. Her most important finding was the connection of emotional abuse and neglect in childhood with Panic Disorder in the adult.
She continued her anxiety work after moving back to
She studied writing at The New School and Sarah Lawrence.