Anxiety

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  He compared himself to an old and feeble sheep, and the king to a young, wild bull. Thus yoked, he was to draw the plough of the Church of England, with the prospect of being torn to pieces by the ferocity of the bull.106 He was received with intense enthusiasm at Canterbury by the clergy, the monks, and the people, and was consecrated on the second Sunday of Advent, 1093. He began at once to restore discipline according to the principles of Hildebrand, though with more moderation and gentleness. A short time elapsed before the relations between the king and the prelate became strained. Anselm supported Urban II.; William leaned to the anti-pope Clement III. The question of investiture with the pallium at once became a matter of dispute. The king at first insisted upon Anselm’s receiving it from Clement and then claimed the right to confer it himself. Anselm refused to yield and received it, 1095, from Urban’s legate, who brought the sacred vestment to England in a silver casket. The archbishop gave further offence to the king by the mean way, as was said, in which he performed his feudal obligations.107 William decided to try him in his court. To this indignity Anselm would, of course, not submit. It was the old question whether an English ecclesiastic owed primary allegiance to the pope or to the crown.108 The archbishop secured the king’s reluctant permission, 1097, to go to Rome. But William’s petty spirit pursued the departing prelate by ordering Anselm’s baggage searched at Dover. He seized the revenues of Canterbury, and Anselm’s absence was equivalent to exile. Eadmer reports a remarkable scene before Anselm’s departure.109 At his last interview with William he refused to leave the king’s presence until he had given him his blessing. "As a spiritual father to his son, as Archbishop of Canterbury to the king of England," he said, "I would fain before I go give you God’s blessing." To these words the king made reply that he did not decline the priestly blessing. It was the last time they met. Anselm was most honorably received by the pope, who threatened the king with excommunication, and pronounced an anathema on all laymen who exercised the right of investiture and on all clergymen who submitted to lay-investiture.110 The Red King was shot dead by an arrow,—nobody knows whether by a hunter or by an assassin, Aug. 2, 1100, while hunting in the New Forest. "Cut off without shrift, without repentance, he found a tomb in the Old Minster of Winchester; but the voice of clergy and people, like the voice of one man, pronounced, by a common impulse, the sentence which Rome had feared to pronounce. He received the more unique brand of popular excommunication.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  It entered an acute phase after Judea was directly annexed by the Roman state and thus made liable to Roman fiscal procedures. These proved to be much less popular than the pro-Roman party had anticipated; it has been calculated that in first century Palestine, Roman and Jewish taxes together may have reached as much as 25 per cent (non-progressive) of incomes, in an economy which in some respects and in some areas was not far above the subsistence level. Palestine was thus soaked in politico-religious apocalypticism. Irredentist politics and religious extremism were inextricably mixed. All Palestinian Jews to some extent believed in a Messianic solution. There were, it is true, many different doctrines of the Messiah but the variations were matters of detail and all rested on the unitary belief that foreign oppressors would be driven out and God alone would rule Israel. Thus a man who criticized the Romans was making a religious statement and a man who insisted on the highest degree of ritual purity was playing politics. In the opening decades of the first century AD the example of the Essenes led to the appearance of a number of baptist movements in the Jordan Valley. The whole area, from the Lake of Genasseret down to the Dead Sea itself was alive with holy eccentrics. Many had been to Qumran, and there imbibed the prevailing obsession with ritual purity and the use of holy water as a therapy and cleansing process. It is, in fact, significant that Philo calls the Essene therapeutae : to ordinary observers it was the most obvious and striking aspect of their teaching. We can be almost certain that John the Baptist was, or had been, an Essene monk. He was recruiting not so much for the monastery but for the broader movement of the élite within the élite, carrying the cleansing and purifying process into the world outside, and thus hastening the apocalyptic moment when the war against the Sons of Darkness would begin. The Baptist is thus the link between the general reformist and nonconformist movement in Judaism and Jesus himself. Unfortunately, in terms of actual historical knowledge, he is a very weak link. In some ways he is a completely mysterious figure. His function, in the history of Christianity, was to attach elements of the Essene teaching to a consistent view of Jewish eschatology. John was an impatient man, as well as a wild-looking one: the Messiah was not merely coming – he was here! The apocalypse was rolling fast towards the people, so now was the time to repent and prepare. And then, in due course, Jesus appeared and was identified. This is the first glimpse, admittedly a vivid one, we get of John. There is one other glimpse, equally vivid, some years later, when he fell foul of Herod Antipas and lost his head. The rest is darkness. The second most important person in the history of Christianity remains enigmatic.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I wanted to pretend it was just irritation, maybe the dawning of a mild yeast infection, which could be snuffed out with a bit of Monistat. But this was no yeast infection. It was a goddamn urinary tract infection. I hadn’t had one in years, but the feeling was not one you forget. The dull ache in the pelvis, the urgent need to pee, the burning. After my first three UTIs I had learned the secret at my college infirmary: always pee after sex. Pee immediately, within ten minutes, if possible. But I wasn’t about to pee in front of Garrett. I thought about how I was taught to wipe, as a little girl, after I’d gotten my first UTI. “From now on you’re going to wipe from front to back,” said the pediatrician. “Do you understand?” When Garrett tried to stick his dick into my asshole, and then abandoned the mission for my vagina, I did, for a split second, think, This can’t be good. Back to front. I tried to sleep but it was no use. I knew exactly what I needed: Pyridium to take the pain away and Cipro to kill the bug. I started moaning little things out loud in a deeply self-pitying way, like “Noooooo” and “Why meeeeeeee?” Part of me was reacting to the pain. But another part of me liked being melodramatic, babying myself. I managed to walk Dominic and then summon a car. The closest hospital was in Marina del Rey, not far. “Be good,” I said. “Mommy is very, very sick.” I heard myself talking to the dog, and it reminded me that I existed. Existence always looked like something other than I thought it would. 22.Somehow, at five in the morning, there were three families ahead of me in the ER. Did children only get injured at dawn? One of them was a boy with a soccer uniform on and one sneaker off, crying. I didn’t understand why he was playing soccer at four in the morning. Was he playing in his sleep? His mother and father seemed so concerned about him, comforting him and stroking his hair. I wanted someone to stroke my hair. I thought about texting Annika, who would definitely be awake in Europe, but didn’t want to worry her. I didn’t want her to ask how I got the UTI. Instead I texted Jamie. Hi just seeing what you are doing and how you are? He was an early riser. I saw the dot dot dot of him responding. Then the dots stopped. Nothing. I bet Megan the scientist was in bed with him. Immediately I regretted it. Then I texted Adam the wolf-monkey. I sent him a picture of my hospital bracelet. Look where I am…hospitalized!

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  Clement of Alexandria complained: ‘There are those that do nothing but make the churches resound with a kiss, not having love itself within. This practice, the shameless use of the kiss, which ought to be mystic, has occasioned foul suspicions and evil reports.’ There was a reference to incest. The wilder Christians sects – later branded as heretics – naturally attracted more attention from critics and Roman officials. Writing from Bythinia in Asia Minor, a worried local governor, Pliny the Younger, asked for detailed instruction from the Emperor Trajan (98–117). Christianity, he reported, was spreading from the towns to the countryside. The temples were empty and it was becoming difficult to sell the meat from sacrificed animals. He was under local pressure to execute Christians. What was their crime? Should they be charged with incest and cannibalism, their reputed offences? If they remained contumacious then it was clear they had to be executed, but what if they recanted? Some admitted they had been Christians but denied their faith and cursed Christ. They made offerings to the emperor and the gods. But they also denied that Christians practised enormities. They did not eat murdered children: just food. And they had suspended their secret rites following an edict against religious societies. He had tortured two deaconesses, but found nothing but ‘squalid superstition’. Severity undoubtedly brought people back to the temples. What should he do now? Trajan advised moderation. There should be no general inquisition. Anonymous informers should be ignored. Accusations from responsible folk should be properly investigated. No Christian should be punished if he made sacrifices. This was the line usually followed by Roman governments. If they were strong and secure they were less inclined to yield to prejudice. Undisavowed Christianity remained a capital offence, but government did not, as a rule, force Christians into the choice between avowal and apostasy. It left them alone. One reason why the Church strove for uniformity, and so against heresy, was that non-orthodox practices tended to attract more attention and therefore hostility. ‘Prophesying’, the great offence of the Montanists, was strongly disapproved of by the State. It caused sudden and unpredictable crowd movements, panic and disruption of the economy. We hear of early bishops in the Balkans leading their flocks out of the towns, or away from the fields, in response to spirit instructions. Rome could be severe with such people. Marcus Aurelius, a reasonable man, justified persecuting Christians by arguing that it was dangerous to upset ‘the unstable mind of man by superstitious fear of the divine’. And then he disliked the ‘sheer spirit of opposition’ of Christians. The more obdurate were, of course, members of Christian revivalist groups, ‘speaking with tongues’. The great majority of the early martyrs were Christians of a type which the Church would later classify as heretic. The first stories of martyrs reflect not only Jewish martyrologies, as one might expect, but a form of literature echoing the defiant opposition of Greek rebels against Roman domination.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  It’s not for the weak, sustaining this,” I say shrugging, my voice tight. “OK, and tell me what you’ve been up to. You’re having sex, are you using condoms?” she asks. “Yes, for the most part. I’m not going to lie and tell you I’ve used a condom every time, and now that I’m exclusive with one man, we aren’t using condoms.” She jots down notes in my chart and says she will do a full STD screening just to be on the safe side. I suggest that while she’s at it, she also check for a UTI as I think I may have one. “I’ll run a test, but in the meantime I’m going to start you on an antibiotic so it doesn’t get worse. I’m sure you do have one with the amount of sexual activity you’re having,” she says. She is direct and forthright, which is fine, but is she judging me? As I walk home after the appointment, I call #5. He asks me how it was and I tell him I’m fine minus an infection. I barely have the words out before he announces definitively that the infection is not from him because he doesn’t have any diseases. “Neither do I. It’s an infection. Women get them all the time. I don’t even know for sure if I have one. Anyway, thanks for your concern,” I say sarcastically. A few days later, he calls as I leave the nail salon with freshly painted bright pink fingernails, asking me my plans for the evening since Georgia is with Michael. When I tell him that I am going to dinner with my friend Danny, an old college friend, he sounds dejected. “I’m disappointed. I was going to come downtown and surprise you, take you out,” he says. I thank him, but since I’ve had these plans for a while I don’t offer to change them. “I find it a little odd that you’re having dinner with a man I’ve never heard about and that you didn’t tell me sooner,” he says. It’s not odd at all as I have a lot of friends he doesn’t know about yet, but he continues, “I don’t believe that men and women can be platonic friends because it’s impossible to be attracted to someone as a friend and not eventually be curious about what else could be there.” “Is this one of those moments in which you’re arguing with me for argument’s sake or are you serious?” I say.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “Slower,” I said, to give myself time to get into it. He teased me over my underpants for a second. Then he put his fingers inside and started fingering me. My lips kept getting caught and rubbing against his fingers in an irritated way. I felt like they were puffing up like balloons. I kept trying to ask him questions. I wanted to hear that he wanted me. “What do you think of the lingerie?” “Hot, baby.” “The garters?” “So sexy.” I guess he could feel that I wasn’t super wet, because he got down on his knees in front of the sink where I was spread-eagle, pushed the undies to the side, and started to lick my clit. I moaned some more, not altogether fake, because I enjoyed hearing myself. But fake in the sense that I knew I was suddenly too self-conscious to be aroused. I slid down off the sink and got down on my knees. Then I unzipped his pants and started to suck his dick. His dick was long and skinny. I felt like it could stab me. Usually I very much enjoy dick sucking and I’m pretty intuitive at it. I like to lick it first and tease it—really prepare the dick before I suck. But he was impatient. He grabbed the back of my hair and pushed my head closer to his body, as I’ve seen people do in porn. I gagged a little on his dick, pulled back, then continued, my mouth super wet. He moaned and it was hot. Just hearing the moan come up from the depth of his belly, looking up and seeing that jaw I liked, made me feel wetter. My juices stung my irritated labia. He grabbed the back of my hair and pushed his dick into the back of my throat again, then palmed my forehead away. “Get up here,” he said. My bra and underwear were still on when he hoisted me by the waist back up onto the sink. Then he ripped open a condom wrapper with his teeth and fumbled to put it on. He pulled off my underwear and spread my legs. I gasped when he put his cock in and began to thrust. It felt good, but also too much, like he was hitting a wall in the back of my vagina. Like a muscle ache. My thighs were chafing on the counter. My back banged against the faucet and I kept getting caught on the sink bowl.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She began to pace restlessly up and down the room, as had ever been her wont in moments of emotion. Her face grew ominous, heavy and brooding; the fine line of her mouth was a little marred; her eyes were less clear, less the servants of her spirit than the slaves of her anxious and passionate body; the red scar on her cheek stood out like a wound. Then quite suddenly she had opened the door, and was staring at the dimly lighted staircase. She took a step forward and then stopped; appalled, dumbfounded at herself, at this thing she was doing. And as she stood there as though turned to stone, she remembered another and spacious study, she remembered a lanky colt of a girl whose glance had kept straying towards the windows; she remembered a man who had held out his hand: ‘Stephen, come here. . . . What is honour, my daughter?’ Honour, good God! Was this her honour? Mary, whose nerves had been strained to breaking! A dastardly thing it would be to drag her through the maze of passion, with no word of warning. Was she to know nothing of what lay before her, of the price she would have to pay for such love? She was young and completely ignorant of life; she knew only that she loved, and the young were ardent. She would give all that Stephen might ask of her and more, for the young were not only ardent but generous. And through giving all she would be left defenceless, neither forewarned nor forearmed against a world that would turn like a merciless beast and rend her. It was horrible. No, Mary must not give until she had counted the cost of that gift, until she was restored in body and mind, and was able to form a considered judgment.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She hadn’t any symptoms. Pierre exaggerated. She ate quite enough—she had never been a very large eater. Stephen had better get on with her work and stop upsetting herself over nothing. But try as she might, Stephen could not get on—all the rest of the day her work went badly . After this she would often leave her desk and go wandering off in search of Mary. ‘Darling, where are you?’ ‘Upstairs in my bedroom!’ ‘Well, come down; I want you here in the study.’ And when Mary had settled herself by the fire: ‘Now tell me exactly how you feel—all right?’ And Mary would answer, smiling: ‘Yes, I’m quite all right; I swear I am, Stephen!’ It was not an ideal atmosphere for work, but the book was by now so well advanced that nothing short of a disaster could have stopped it—it was one of those books that intend to get born, and that go on maturing in spite of their authors. Nor was there anything really alarming about the condition of Mary’s health. She did not look very well, that was all; and at times she seemed a little downhearted, so that Stephen must snatch a few hours from her work in order that they might go out together. Perhaps they would lunch at a restaurant; or drive into the country, to the rapture of David; or just wander about the streets arm in arm as they had done when first they had returned to Paris. And Mary, because she would be feeling happy, would revive for these few hours as though by magic. Yet when she must once more find herself lonely, with nowhere to go and no one to talk to, because Stephen was back again at her desk, why then she would wilt, which was not unnatural considering her youth and her situation. 5 On Christmas Eve Brockett arrived, bringing flowers. Mary had gone for a walk with David, so Stephen must leave her desk with a sigh. ‘Come in, Brockett. I say! What wonderful lilac!’ He sat down, lighting a cigarette. ‘Yes, isn’t it fine? I brought it for Mary. How is she?’ Stephen hesitated a moment. ‘Not awfully well . . . I’ve been worried about her.’ Brockett frowned, and stared thoughtfully into the fire. There was something that he wanted to say to Stephen, a warning that he was longing to give, but he did not feel certain how she would take it—no wonder that wretched girl was not fit, forced to lead such a deadly dull existence! If Stephen would let him he wanted to advise, to admonish, to be brutally frank if need be. He had once been brutally frank about her work, but that had been a less delicate matter. He began to fidget with his soft, white hands, drumming on the arms of the chair with his fingers. ‘Stephen, I’ve been meaning to speak about Mary.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She struck me as looking thoroughly depressed the last time I saw her—when was it? Monday. Yes, she struck me as looking thoroughly depressed.’ ‘Oh, but surely you were wrong . . .’ interrupted Stephen. ‘No, I’m perfectly sure I was right,’ he insisted. Then he said: ‘I’m going to take a big risk—I’m going to take the risk of losing your friendship.’ His voice was so genuinely regretful, that Stephen must ask him: ‘Well—what is it, Brockett?’ ‘You, my dear. You’re not playing fair with that girl; the life she’s leading would depress a mother abbess. It’s enough to give anybody the hump, and it’s going to give Mary neurasthenia!’ ‘What on earth do you mean?’ ‘Don’t get ratty and I’ll tell you. Look here, I’m not going to pretend any more. Of course we all know that you two are lovers. You’re gradually becoming a kind of legend—all’s well lost for love, and that sort of thing. . . . But Mary’s too young to become a legend; and so are you, my dear, for that matter. But you’ve got your work, whereas Mary’s got nothing—not a soul does that miserable kid know in Paris. Don’t please interrupt, I’ve not nearly finished; I positively must and will have my say out! You and she have decided to make a ménage—as far as I can see it’s as bad as marriage! But if you were a man it would be rather different; you’d have dozens of friends as a matter of course. Mary might even be going to have an infant. Oh, for God’s sake, Stephen, do stop looking shocked. Mary’s a perfectly normal young woman; she can’t live by love alone, that’s all rot—especially as I shrewdly suspect that when you’re working the diet’s pretty meagre. For heaven’s sake let her go about a bit! Why on earth don’t you take her to Valérie Seymour’s? At Valérie’s place she’d meet lots of people; and I ask you, what harm could it possibly do? You shun your own ilk as though they were the devil! Mary needs friends awfully badly, and she needs a certain amount of amusement. But be a bit careful of the so-called normal.’ And now Brockett’s voice grew aggressive and bitter. ‘I wouldn’t go trying to force them to be friends—I’m not thinking so much of you now as of Mary; she’s young and the young are easily bruised. . . .’ He was perfectly sincere. He was trying to be helpful, spurred on by his curious affection for Stephen. At the moment he felt very friendly and anxious; there was nothing of the cynic left in him—at the moment.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Large, helpless, untidy and intensely forlorn, Jamie would struggle to finish her opera; but quite often these days she would tear up her work, knowing that what she had written was unworthy. When this happened she would sigh and peer round the studio, vaguely conscious that something was not as it had been, vaguely distressed by the dirt of the place to which she herself had helped to contribute—Jamie, who had never before noticed dirt, would feel aggrieved by its noxious presence. Getting up she would wipe the keys of the piano with Barbara’s one clean towel dipped in water. ‘Can’t play,’ she would grumble, ‘these keys are all sticky.’ ‘Oh, Jamie—my towel—go and fetch the duster!’ The quarrel that ensued would start Barbara’s cough, which in turn would start Jamie’s nerves vibrating. Then compassion, together with unreasoning anger and a sudden uprush of sex-frustration, would make her feel well-nigh beside herself—since owing to Barbara’s failing health, these two could be lovers now in name only. And this forced abstinence told on Jamie’s work as well as her nerves, destroying her music, for those who maintain that the North is cold, might just as well tell us that hell is freezing. Yet she did her best, the poor uncouth creature, to subjugate the love of the flesh to the pure and more selfless love of the spirit—the flesh did not have it all its own way with Jamie. That summer she made a great effort to talk, to unburden herself when alone with Stephen; and Stephen tried hard to console and advise, while knowing that she could help very little. All her offers of money to ease the strain were refused point-blank, sometimes almost with rudeness—she felt very anxious indeed about Jamie. Mary in her turn was deeply concerned; her affection for Barbara had never wavered, and she sat for long hours in the garden with the girl who seemed too weak to bathe, and whom walking exhausted. ‘Let us help,’ she pleaded, stroking Barbara’s thin hand, ‘after all, we’re much better off than you are. Aren’t you two like ourselves? Then why mayn’t we help?’ Barbara slowly shook her head: ‘I’m all right—please don’t talk about money to Jamie.’ But Mary could see that she was far from all right; the warm weather was proving of little avail, even care and good food and sunshine and rest seemed unable to ease that incessant coughing. ‘You ought to see a specialist at once,’ she told Barbara rather sharply one morning. But Barbara shook her head yet again: ‘Don’t, Mary—don’t, please . . . you’ll be frightening Jamie.’ 2 After their return to Paris in the autumn, Jamie sometimes joined the nocturnal parties; going rather grimly from bar to bar, and drinking too much of the crème-de-menthe that reminded her of the bull’s eyes at Beedles.

• From Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety (2015)

  In each of these cases, once the stimulus, situation, thought, or memory is attended to and enters working memory, it is interpreted in light of cognitive templates and schemas based on semantic and episodic memory and gives rise to noetic and autonoetic states of consciousness that include implications for the self. During this process the representations of stimuli and situations and of thoughts and memories, by way of cortical connections to the amygdala and/or bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (see Chapter 4 ), activate defensive survival circuits, leading to arousal and other physiological consequences in the brain and body and other aspects of defensive motivational states that sustain attention to the anxiety-provoking stimulus, thought, or memory. Like fear, anxiety often involves defensive circuit activation. But as we’ve just seen, anxiety can arise from the consequences of activity in other survival circuits. Anxiety, again like fear, is not directly the result of the activation of a survival circuit. It is a cognitive interpretation that sometimes, but not always, depends on survival circuit activity in generating autonoetic conscious feelings. Existential anxieties, such as worries about leading a more meaningful life or of the eventuality of death, are not dependent on survival circuits but are lofty concerns that live in autonoetic consciousness. They may have an indirect impact on survival circuit activity but primarily involve abstract concepts related to choices and potential consequences in anticipated future situations, all centered on the conscious self. WRAPPING UP The psychotherapist Mark Epstein says that trauma is an indivisible part of human life. 106 It lacks logic, but it connects the person to the world at a fundamental level. Looking at trauma through the lens of fear and anxiety, its lack of logic can be seen as a consequence of the storage of memory of the event in part through implicit systems that cannot be accessed by consciousness and its linguistic analytic tools, and thus cannot be directly monitored. And the fundamental connection to life Epstein refers to can be seen as arising from the storage of these implicit memories in universal survival circuits that exist to keep the organism alive and well, and that contribute, albeit indirectly, to the assemblage of feelings in each human brain. This nonconscious connection to life is, at a primitive level, a major factor that connects us to all members of our species, and to other species. It makes it possible to relate to people and animals in ways that defy words and logic. We are empathic and anthropomorphic, not necessarily because we share feelings with others, but because nonconscious interactions between our a-noetic brains. Under such conditions, feelings are fostered in us that we naturally presume exists in others, including other species.

• From Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety (2015)

  Table 1.3: Everyday vs. Pathological Fear and Anxiety EVERYDAY ANXIETY ANXIETY DISORDER Worry about paying bills, landing a job, or other important life events Constant and unsubstantiated worry that causes significant distress and interferes with daily life Embarrassment or self-consciousness in an uncomfortable or awkward social situation Avoiding social situations for fear of being judged, embarrassed, or humiliated A case of nerves or sweating before a big test, business presentation, stage performance, or other significant event Seemingly out-of-the-blue panic attacks and the preoccupation with the fear of having another one Worry about an actual dangerous object, place, or situation Irrational worry about and avoidance of an object, place, or situation that poses little or no threat of harm Making sure that you are healthy and living in a safe, hazard-free environment Performing uncontrollable repetitive actions such as excessive cleaning or checking, or touching and arranging Anxiety, sadness, or difficulty sleeping immediately after a traumatic event Recurring nightmares, flashbacks, or emotional numbing related to a traumatic event that occurred several months or years before Based on http://www.adaa.org/understanding-anxiety With the arrival of DSM-III in 1980, anxiety neurosis was divided into two separate states, a partition based on research findings by the psychiatrist Donald Klein. 52 Klein had been studying a new experimental drug, imipramine, to treat hospitalized schizophrenic patients in the hope of reducing their high levels of anxiety. The patients claimed that their anxiety levels were unchanged, but the staff noted a dramatic decrease in the frequency with which these patients would show up at the nurses’ station complaining of physiological symptoms (inability to breathe, racing heart, dizziness) and psychological distress (feeling terrified that they were about to die). These brief bouts of intense fear (or, as they came to be called, panic attacks ) were lessened after several weeks of treatment. Benzodiazepines, drugs like Valium, by contrast, reduced chronic anxiety but did not help with panic attacks. Findings such as these led Klein to distinguish between two broad kinds of anxiety disorders: generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and panic disorder . While Freud anticipated this distinction, because he discussed anxiety as a general condition that sometimes had physiological symptoms similar to those in a panic attack, he did not distinguish these as different subcategories of anxiety neurosis. Let’s look at these two conditions in a bit more detail. Generalized anxiety (worry, nervousness, apprehension, dread) is what most laypeople have in mind when they use the term “anxiety.” People with GAD have prolonged, uncontrollable, and excessive worry and tension about life situations (including family, work, finance, health, romance, and other circumstances) to the point of interfering with normal routines. 53 Panic disorder, by contrast, is typified by brief, intense attacks during which a person is overcome with the feeling that he or she is suffocating or experiencing a heart attack—remember that angh , the Greek root of the English word “anxiety,” referred to physical sensations more than the mental states of worry and dread that occur in GAD.

• From Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety (2015)

  83 ) Scenario 3. Anxiety can be triggered by thoughts and memories as well. We do not need to be in the presence of an external or internal stimulus to be anxious. An episodic memory of a past trauma or of a panic attack in the past is sufficient to activate the defense circuit and produce all of the typical consequences, which then match with stored schemas to give rise to the feeling. Scenario 4. A thought or memory may also produce a different kind of anxiety, what is often called existential dread. Examples are the contemplation of whether one’s life has been meaningful, the inevitability of death, or the difficulty of making decisions that have moral value. These do not necessarily activate defensive systems; they are more or less pure forms of cognitive anxiety. If such contemplations become threatening, though, they can activate defensive circuits and give rise to the more typical form of anxiety associated with body tension and physiological arousal. Anxiety, in short, is a conscious feeling. It can arise in a bottom-up way, driven by activity in defensive circuits or from higher processes that conceptualize worry, either about an uncertain future or about existence itself. In each case, anxiety is, like fear, dependent on cortical processes that enable sensory information and memories, along with consequences of survival circuits activity, if present, to be represented in working memory and available for conscious thought. Anxiety (worry, dread, apprehension, trepidation, angst, and worry) involves a particular kind of conscious thought. It is all about the self. Yes, we worry about our loved ones, but it is because they are part of us. I’m not speaking here of the “blood is thicker than water,” “selfish gene,” or “maternal instinct” varieties of biological explanation. What I’m referring to is the type of bond that requires an episodic, autonoetic self, a self that can be projected into the future, a contemplation of what that future self will be like if bad things happen—not just to it but also to those the self cares about, whether they are biologically related or not, whether they are a person or a pet, whether they are known personally or only as an idol or hero, as these are all psychologically part of our extended self. In the words of William James, “a man’s Self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account. All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down—not necessarily in the same degree for each thing, but in much the same way for all.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘What are we to do about the fellow?’ said one to the other. ‘We’ve landed ourselves in a fine mess on his account, because to turn him away from our house in his present condition would arouse a lot of adverse comment and show us to be seriously lacking in common sense. What would people say if they suddenly saw us evicting a dying man after giving him hospitality in the first place, and taking so much trouble to have him nursed and waited upon, when he couldn’t possibly have done anything to offend us? On the other hand, he has led such a wicked life that he will never be willing to make his confession or receive the sacraments of the Church; and if he dies unconfessed, no church will want to accept his body and he’ll be flung into the moat like a dog.3 But even if he makes his confession, his sins are so many and so appalling that the same thing will happen, because there will be neither friar nor priest who is either willing or able to give him absolution; in which case, since he will not have been absolved, he will be flung into the moat just the same. And when the townspeople see what has happened, they’ll create a commotion, not only because of our profession which they consider iniquitous and never cease to condemn, but also because they long to get their hands on our money, and they will go about shouting: “Away with these Lombard dogs4 that the Church refuses to accept”; and they’ll come running to our lodgings and perhaps, not content with stealing our goods, they’ll take away our lives into the bargain. So we shall be in a pretty fix either way, if this fellow dies.’ Ser Ciappelletto, who as we have said was lying near the place where they were talking, heard everything they were saying about him, for he was sharp of hearing, as invalids invariably are. So he called them in to him, and said: ‘I don’t want you to worry in the slightest on my account, nor to fear that I will cause you to suffer any harm. I heard what you were saying about me and I agree entirely that what you predict will actually come to pass, if matters take the course you anticipate; but they will do nothing of the kind. I have done our good Lord so many injuries whilst I lived, that to do Him another now that I am dying will be neither here nor there. So go and bring me the holiest and ablest friar you can find, if there is such a one, and leave everything to me, for I shall set your affairs and my own neatly in order, so that all will be well and you’ll have nothing to complain of.’

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I am definitely overdressed for the casual crowd and feel ridiculously and conspicuously alone, but I’m following the new rule I made for myself: one drink, a few songs and then it’s fair to call it a night. As my kids used to chant when they were in nursery school: if you don’t try, you don’t know – so I’m trying, and when I return home alone later still feeling empty, perhaps it will provide some consolation that I did, at least, try. What are the chances that at this very moment as I admit defeat, a tall, handsome man will walk in alone? He is heading toward me as if we are in a movie in which the music fades to the background while our hearts draw magnetically toward one another, but at the last minute he veers to the side and takes a stool two seats away that the band member, who is now warming up, has vacated. He is dressed in an untucked white button-down shirt over jeans, with black-framed glasses and no wedding ring. I know that I need to hear him order as evidence of whether or not someone is joining him, so I lean less subtly than I would like to the side while bracing myself against the bar so I don’t fall off my seat, and listen to him order food and one – only one – beer. Encouraged, I feel a bit like a cat who has just spotted her mouse. “Do you know this band?” he leans over to ask after a couple of minutes during which I not all that casually eye him. My eyes flare open – is this really happening? “Yes, a bit,” I say. “What kind of music do they play?” “Well, when I say I know them, I mean I looked them up on Spotify on the way here and listened to one song,” I admit, and then add, “but I like what I heard so I guess you could say I’m an expert.” “So you’re actually the band’s manager?” he asks and we laugh. I deflate as a woman appears between us. No-nonsense, outfitted in rain gear and with cropped grey hair, she asks if the seat between us is free. We both say yes and then I turn back to my can of wine, he to his beer, and we quietly watch the band warm up. Should I have said no and then moved over a seat? Would that have seemed too eager? I am once again wishing there was a manual for how this is done. A few minutes later, he passes by on his way back from the food window and offers me French fries from his basket. I smile and take one and note that he’s eating my ideal dinner – fries and a salad – but then he sits down on his stool, and I am alone again. Is he passing fries to any other women here?

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  We lie quietly for a few minutes, my hand remaining firmly over his heart as it slows to its normal rhythm, and it occurs to me that just being here, being held by a man, may be enough for now. “I don’t know how you like your coffee in the morning,” he says, breaking the silence. I hesitate. I’m enjoying being held but I was not planning to spend the night and his assumption that I will makes me panic. My mind starts racing – what if I’m thinking this is a fun one-night stand but to him it’s the start of something? What if he thinks we’re embarking on a relationship of some sort? He’s such a kind man at a vulnerable moment in his life, and in my own vulnerability I have overlooked where he’s coming from. I’m terrified that I will hurt him. Instead of answering that I like my coffee with a splash of soy vanilla creamer, I decide that just lying here will in fact not be enough for me and I turn to kiss him. His breath is calm again and I roll on top of him and whisper that he should lie still and I will do all the work this time. Having been trained to be quick to avoid interrupting children, I wrap my hand around his penis and push it deep inside of me and then move my hips until I orgasm and he says he can’t because of the limited sensation he’s getting through the condom and we are done. I lie next to him again and he’s quiet and breathing deeply, his cheeks flushed and his mouth falling open. “Johnny,” I whisper. “I’m going home.” “What?” he says, opening his eyes. “No, don’t go. It’s too late for you to drive all the way home.” “I won’t be able to sleep if I stay.” “OK,’ he says with resignation. “Give me a minute to get up to walk you out.” “No, stay here, I insist. You look so comfortable. I can see myself out,” I say. “You’ll text when you get home so I know you made it safely?” he asks. “Yes, I promise,” I say. I give him a quick kiss on his cheek and then I’m back out in the warm drizzle of a summer night at 2am. I text him when I arrive home half-asleep close to 3am, but by then he’s sleeping off our tragicomic night and my text goes unanswered.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  We’ve discussed that we’re not exclusive with each other and I’ve promised you that I won’t sleep with another man without using a condom. But we see each other enough that you should know.” He thanks me for my honesty, but wonders why I am going on this date, why I am active again on my dating apps after months in which I haven’t been. “Because I’m still curious about being with other people. We have great chemistry and I love being with you, but I don’t want to be tied down by any one relationship. And,” I pause here, closing my eyes to brace myself for the vulnerability I’m about to lay out for him, “I have strong feelings for you that only seem to be growing with time and I don’t know what to do with them and I don’t know if they’re reciprocated. And they don’t have to be, I’m not asking for a declaration of your feelings. I don’t even know what I want, but I do know that I’m getting attached to you and it unnerves me, so I have to keep moving.” “Laura, here’s how I think about it: you were on this journey before you and I started dating and you’ve just picked me up along the way. I see it as a caravan in motion. Let’s call it Laura’s Liberation Tour. You’re driving along and you’re seeking something. I’m just one stop on the tour. Keep going. If I try to stop you, you’ll resent me and always wonder what’s out there. So onward your LLT goes,” he says. “But what about you? Can you stick around while my tour continues or is this too much for you?” He hesitates, then says he can stick around. His pause is long enough that I ask if it makes him uncomfortable or if he’s perfectly fine with it. It seems impossible that he is so willing to share me, and if he is indeed so willing to, does he really care about me at all? “I’m definitely jealous, but also intrigued by your power. I understand there’s a risk here, that I might lose you to someone else you meet on your tour. But it’s not right for me to try to stop you.”

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I know it and it’s kind of seedy, not exactly what I imagined for my first (or really any other) tryst. But I know better than to pass up a seemingly perfect opportunity like this, so I smile demurely, nod my head and we start walking up the hill of the main street in town. On every corner, as we wait to cross the street, he kisses me – not just kisses me, but sucks the very breath out of me as if sustaining himself one more block until he can do it again. I pray none of the few passing cars contain people who know me here because I feel powerless to stop the rapture that has been set in motion, whether or not I’m seen. The hotel lobby is brightly and fluorescently lit and I can guess what I look like to the knowing eyes of the schoolmarm receptionist at the front desk as I click against the tiled floor. I want to explain myself, but right now I’m a character in a romance novel and explaining myself is not part of my role. I have always cared so much about how I appear to other people, even if I doubt they’ll ever see me again, but it occurs to me at this moment that I should start caring less and simply live my life; I should care about what I look like to myself, but maybe I don’t need to care so much about what I look like to people who don’t even know my name. Jack and I are silent and palpably tense with anticipation as we ride the elevator and approach his room. A few fumbles with the key card and then we are in this man’s room with a king-size bed and motorcycle helmet on the desk. I excuse myself to use the bathroom, where I lock the door and stare hard at myself in the mirror while giving myself a silent, rushed pep talk: It doesn’t matter what happens here, if you cry or laugh or embarrass yourself, just make sure all your parts are in working order. It’s like the first attempt at a jog after years of being sedentary, a breaking in of new sneakers, knowing you won’t last very long and you’ll still end up with blisters, and anyway, he isn’t a local guy and will never see you again. I nod along with the words in my head – Yes, yes, I can do this, just knock it out and it’ll be over and done with, a post-marriage virgin no more.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  The weight of the situation is too heavy for me, threatening to crush me every time I have to disclose it. This new state of affairs, the one in which I’m a single woman on the prowl, is too big for me to explain too, albeit in a different way. Instead of threatening to topple me as my separation has, this new state is like a lump of clay waiting to be colored and shaped. I am still malleable, not ready or willing to commit to any one mold yet. If I am spotted on dates by people I know, I fear I will be pulled out of the character I’m playing and return to the Laura they know again, not the one I am trying on for size. Inside I know I have the same core values, the same love for my family and friends, the same silly sense of humor, the same love for the color pink and vintage glassware and the NYTimes crossword puzzle, but my life’s circumstances have changed – turned upside down, actually – so being exactly the same person is just no longer possible. * The next morning, I leave the house to meet the guy from Alex’s gym while Hudson is still asleep. The air is heavy and I don’t want to wear anything close to my body, so I opt for the same shorts and tank top from my date with #3, and a pair of flip-flops. I arrive a few minutes early and stand hesitantly on the porch, pondering whether to get a table indoors or out. A man bounds up the steps with a wide grin, glances at me and says confidently, “Laura.” I am confused as this man looks like a boy, clean-cut and wearing cargo shorts and basketball sneakers. He embraces me in a tight, warm hug, immediately putting me at ease. We agree that the air outside is sticky, so we find a table inside against the window. He peppers me with questions about my newly single life, listening attentively while his beautiful aqua blue eyes bore into me. “Dating is surprisingly fun,” I say gaily. “Maybe because it’s still new to me. In fact, this is the first blind date I’ve ever been on in my entire life.” “You’re doing great,” he says laughing, and then his voice becomes more serious when he asks me for how long I have been separated. I confess that it is relatively new, only six months, and that I just recently started dating. “Were you in the process of separating for a long time?” “No,” I say, shaking my head. “It was very sudden.” He nods his head thoughtfully and gives me a knowing look.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  I know not whether your own experience is similar to mine, but my house was once full of servants, and now that there is no one left apart from my maid and myself, I am filled with foreboding and feel as if every hair of my head is standing on end. Wherever I go in the house, wherever I pause to rest, I seem to be haunted by the shades of the departed, whose faces no longer appear as I remember them but with strange and horribly twisted expressions that frighten me out of my senses. ‘Accordingly, whether I am here in church or out in the streets or sitting at home, I always feel ill at ease, the more so because it seems to me that no one possessing private means and a place to retreat to is left here apart from ourselves. But even if such people are still to be found, they draw no distinction, as I have frequently heard and seen for myself, between what is honest and what is dishonest; and provided only that they are prompted by their appetites, they will do whatever affords them the greatest pleasure, whether by day or by night, alone or in company. It is not only of lay people that I speak, but also of those enclosed in monasteries, who, having convinced themselves that such behaviour is suitable for them and is only unbecoming in others, have broken the rules of obedience and given themselves over to carnal pleasures, thereby thinking to escape, and have turned lascivious and dissolute. ‘If this be so (and we plainly perceive that it is), what are we doing here? What are we waiting for? What are we dreaming about? Why do we lag so far behind all the rest of the citizens in providing for our safety? Do we rate ourselves lower than all other women? Or do we suppose that our own lives, unlike those of others, are bound to our bodies by such strong chains that we may ignore all those things which have the power to harm them? In that case we are deluded and mistaken. We have only to recall the names and the condition of the young men and women who have fallen victim to this cruel pestilence, in order to realize clearly the foolishness of such notions. ‘And so, lest by pretending to be above such things or by becoming complacent we should succumb to that which we might possibly avoid if we so desired, I would think it an excellent idea (though I do not know whether you would agree with me) for us all to get away from this city, just as many