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 The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Before leaving the house I destroyed my diary. There were already eight big notebooks, and I was taking only a bag on my back, like when I left home for the labor camp. Besides, books are my only possession and they weigh too much. We should have sailed at five o’clock, but the job of loading the ship seemed interminable and we weighed anchor only at sunset. As soon as we came out of the channel that leads into the harbor of Tunis, Henry was sick and went to lie down. I stayed on deck till we were out at sea, leaning on the rail. I lost sight of the coastline as night descended on the ship. It seemed to ooze from the holds, to fill the hatch, and to stain the blue sky with gray. First one star shone, then a second, then thousands. I grew uneasy gazing at the violet sea which attracted me like a sorceress while it heaved and settled, so I went down to the hold to sleep.

• From The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

  When our team arrives at a school, the teachers’ initial response is often some version of “If I’d wanted to be a social worker, I would have gone to social work school. But I came here to be a teacher.” Many of them have already learned the hard way, however, that they cannot teach if they have a classroom filled with students whose alarm bells are constantly going off. Even the most committed teachers and school systems often come to feel frustrated and ineffective because so many of their kids are too traumatized to learn. Focusing only on improving test scores won’t make any difference if teachers can’t effectively address the behavior problems of these students. The good news is that the basic principles of trauma-focused interventions can be translated into practical day-to-day routines and approaches that can transform the entire culture of a school. Most teachers we work with are intrigued to learn that abused and neglected students are likely to interpret any deviation from routine as danger and that their extreme reactions usually are expressions of traumatic stress. Children who defy the rules are unlikely to be brought to reason by verbal reprimands or even suspension—a practice that has become epidemic in American schools. Teachers’ perspectives begin to change when they realize that these kids’ disturbing behaviors started out as frustrated attempts to communicate distress and as misguided attempts to survive. More than anything else, being able to feel safe with other people defines mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives. The critical challenge in a classroom setting is to foster reciprocity: truly hearing and being heard; really seeing and being seen by other people. We try to teach everyone in a school community—office staff, principals, bus drivers, teachers, and cafeteria workers—to recognize and understand the effects of trauma on children and to focus on the importance of fostering safety, predictability, and being known and seen. We make certain that the children are greeted by name every morning and that teachers make face-to-face contact with each and every one of them. Just as in our workshops, group work, and theater programs, we always start the day with check-ins: taking the time to share what’s on everybody’s mind.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Still, nothing much happened. There was too much confusion, during those first few days of the school year, to allow much attention to be lavished on us, so that I had time to become accustomed to my new surroundings. Without any serious shocks, my sense of alienation was overcome by my curiosity. The school was situated in some old stables of the Bey’s palace which had been purchased advantageously by the Alliance Israélite and subjected to minimal alterations; to me, it all seemed most beautiful. Except on a few Saturday walks, I had never had a chance to see any trees or greenery, and our schoolyard had two tall rows of eucalyptus trees that seemed huge to me and elicited my constant admiration. All the classrooms were small, with narrow windows that were closed with dirty gratings; I soon found them warmly intimate. My schoolmates impressed me less favorably, all of them being too noisy and brutal for my liking. Every morning, before leaving home with my fine satchel slung from my shoulder and my cap pushed down over my eyebrows, I marked time, on our doorstep, with my shoes. I insisted that my mother say, before I leave: “Peace be with you!” Only then did I set forth confidently. But sometimes my mother was still angry from some outburst and would utter a curse: “Go away! May death carry you off!” Then I would immediately feel a shudder go right through me, and all day I would fear some dreadful event. Never have I been able to rid myself of this magic spell of language. Whenever a colleague curses me, “May you perish,” I feel cold at the back of my neck and foresee the horrors of death. Whenever anyone says “Drop dead!” I can already feel myself begin to fail. It is as if language, far from being a transparent tool, really shares some of the nature of the things it designates as well as some of their weight. For my ten o’clock snack, my mother always gave me two pennies and a big piece of bread crust, of the bread that she kneaded herself and took to the Arab oven to bake. With my two pennies, I could buy myself a piece of chocolate or the makings of a sandwich.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I washed my face with cold water, bathed my smarting eyes in my cupped hands, and was out of the house before the first streetcars came by full of sleepy grocers on their way to the central market. As I entered the examination hall, my name was called out, and I felt, as always, my heart beat faster. I took the seat that was marked with my name and made the acquaintance of my neighbors. We are old hands at the game of being students, and to display any emotion now would be absurd, so much so that we even exhibit our disinterest in the tone of our conversation. My neighbor to the left is small and dark, with somber eyes set deep beneath jutting brows. His name is Bounin. Yes, he’s a North African from Constantine, and already a teacher. He is taking the exam now just for sport. The degree might be useful, of course, but he is already too old to be tempted by considerations of vanity. My neighbor to the right is called Ducamps, and he affects an elegant disorder in his dress and manner, with his well cared for hair all rumpled. He is finishing the job of studying if only to have done with it all, and he detests teachers and the whole teaching profession: a fool’s job that reveals the nature of the men who choose it. Ducamps leans back in his chair, stares at us as if taunting us, and forces us to concede his complete detachment. In my turn I explain that I come from Tunis. No, Tunis has not been razed to the ground by the Germans. Have I gone through the whole reading list? No, indeed; not even the most important books, the required readings. What do I intend to do after the exams? I don’t know. Bounin insists, with all of his anxiety: will I choose journalism or research? Frankly, I don’t know, I no longer know. Silence spreads from the back of the hall, hesitates, then soon dominates the anxious aisles. This is the solemn moment when the anonymous supervisors, their faces like masks, their gestures ritualistic, move in a wave along the rows of students, passing out the examination questions at the end of each table. The hands of the students feel these little squares of yellow paper, their eyes inspect them in flight. They have read the questions, and their heads rise again as they smile anxiously, though their words must remain detached. This easy banter is aimed against the future, the university, our own shameful weaknesses, and the watchful gaze of the supervisors. But we can only whisper, for silence has already triumphed. Silence. The huge hall and its hundreds of students no longer seem even to breathe.

• From The Prophetic Imagination (1978)

  and unconscious truths that the prophets voice in God’s name. The Prophetic Imagination is one such instance; ultimately, it is an attempt to create a new future for Christianity as host for divine possibilities in a cultural context that is dominated by unacknowledged anxiety that issues in anti-neighborly resentment, aggression, and worse. Of course, mainstream Christianity has often, unfortunately, contributed to that toxic context, but Brueggemann’s wager is that the prophetic tradition is like a foreign body within that toxicity—inside the church and out—that is capable of eroding it and constructing an alternative. Forty years after its initial publication in 1978, the need is no less urgent, and the promise of this book sounds even more compelling. The work that lies ahead is to imagine and enact that alternative. For that we can be grateful—and amazed! Davis Hankins Appalachian State University Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2018 Thanks to Brent A. Strawn for reading and commenting on an earlier draft of this foreword. 1 . For example, on the role of imagination in interpretation, see Walter Brueggemann, Texts Under Negotiation: The Bible and Postmodern Imagination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); on imagination in the texts, see Walter Brueggemann, David’s Truth in Israel’s Imagination and Memory , 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002). ↵ 2 . Kathleen M. O’Connor, Jeremiah: Pain and Promise (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011). ↵ 3 . See Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century , trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014). ↵ 4 . See, for example, Lawrence Mishel, Elise Gould, and Josh Bivens, “Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts,” Economic Policy Institute, January 6, 2015, https://tinyurl.com/ybnuk95l . ↵ 5 . See Rana Foroohar, Makers and Takers: How Wall Street Destroyed Main Street (New York: Crown Business, 2016). ↵ 6 . Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have a Dream,” in The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. , ed. Clayborne Carson (New York: Warner Books, 1998), 224. ↵ A Note about the 40th Anniversary Edition Fortress Press is pleased to publish this new edition of The Prophetic Imagination to honor its fortieth year in print and to celebrate the legacy of Walter Brueggemann’s many publishing projects with Fortress Press, twenty- eight volumes and counting! We are grateful for this long and enduring relationship, and we are honored to have been one of many conduits for Walter’s voice. Based on the revised edition published in 2001, this volume includes a new foreword by Davis Hankins and Walter Brueggemann’s own “In Retrospect (PI at Forty).” We have updated the cover as a reminder that this groundbreaking volume is ever new and timely, calling forth fresh prophetic imagination in each generation.

• From Laid and Confused: Why We Tolerate Bad Sex and How to Stop (2023)

  Eventually, you’re likely to become more comfortable talking to your sexual partners about sex in daily life. One comfy place to start is with meta-communication—communicating about communication. An example: “I would like to talk to you about something, but I’m feeling kind of nervous about it.” If you’re scared your partner will feel criticized, share that. Vulnerability is not the enemy. Try to initiate uneasy conversations in spaces where you both feel comfortable, like in front of the Puppy Bowl. If you don’t tend to have regular partners where there would be regular opportunities to talk about sex outside of sex, be brave and create those opportunities. Make the most of those awkward fifteen minutes when you bring your date back to your place and just sort of stare at the ground in silence before making out. Recruit inanimate conversation pieces to help you—sometimes I’ll leave a vibrator out on the coffee table before going on a date, so if we return, I can be like, “Oops, how did this get here!!” This is a good segue into, “I love my vibrator,” which is a good segue into using it during partnered sex—something I love, but am not always comfortable asking for during the act. Sharing sexual fantasies outside of sex is a great way to lower the stakes and plant the seeds for future experiences. If you’re still terrified of “kitchen-table sex talks,” i.e., sex talks in casual settings—a term first coined in Dr. Laurie Mintz’s excellent A Tired Woman’s Guide to Passionate Sex—check out mojoupgrade.com. It’s a quiz designed to help couples communicate their fantasies. “We spare you the fear of embarrassment by ensuring that we only show you the questions where you both have indicated a willingness, not those where one or both of you said ‘no.’” Another communication lifeline you can throw yourself in advance of an expected sexual encounter, Magee (the codependency coach) suggests, is setting boundaries ahead of time, even over text—say, “Let’s keep things friendly tonight, and if there’s chemistry, we can do more another time.”10 Or perhaps you’re stressed about something else, like how long it takes you to orgasm. You could say beforehand, or during the make-out stage, “Just so you know, I don’t usually orgasm during sex,” and that might help take some of the pressure off. Working with a sex therapist or coach is another way to practice sexual scripts that you struggle with in the moment.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  But why am I seized by this obscure emotion that is so closely allied to panic? My God, my God, I’m afraid even of my own mother, even my mother has ceased to seem familiar and understandable to me! This must be what a man feels when he awakes at dawn and sees beside him the face of an unknown woman, sealed within her dreams that he can never penetrate, the face of an unknown woman by whose side he has chanced to sleep. She was a stranger to me now, my mother, a part of myself become alien to me and thrust into the heart of a primitive continent. Still, it was she who had given birth to me. What somber ties still bound me to this ghost, and how shall I ever manage to return from the abyss into which she is now dragging me? But here the musicians are slowing down again, the tom-tom is silent, yielding to the shrill bagpipes, insidious in their tone, that seem to trace brief arabesques of sound which my mother follows obediently, her body swaying as if boneless in the slow dance of the charmed serpent. Her disheveled hair falls over her face that is distorted by pain and feebly lit by the embers dying in this fog of smoke; like black serpents beneath a spell, her locks seem to follow her movements. Faithfully, my mother obeys the rhythm, or is it the rhythm that rules her from within? She must have lost, long ago, all awareness of her surroundings. The musicians then begin to accelerate their pace, driven by some mysterious force. Their eyes bulge out of their faces, veins swell in their foreheads, their hideously incised faces grimace like magical masks that suddenly come to life. As for the dancer, she seems to explode, torn apart as her limbs begin to cast themselves wildly all around her.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  The morning after an attack, my father often rose in a bad temper. His illness was a part of his life and he didn’t seem to try to avoid it absolutely. He would sit cross-legged on the bed and, despite the doctor’s continually repeated warnings, begin to chain-smoke those horrible cigarettes that are full of straw and bits of wood and that filled the flat with an acrid, stinking fog. He smoked, then coughed, then spat into the yellow pot that was always at the foot of his bed. Afterwards, he would moan and beg God to help him out of this miserable life. Finally, he would dress in the suffocating fumes of the bedroom and go off for a day of ten uninterrupted hours of work. The younger children had known my father’s illness from birth and were not greatly surprised by his sufferings. If he had an unspectacular attack, once the surprise passed, they would return to their games; and my father took bitter note of this. I could never get used to his illness and each attack further convinced me of my selfishness. At night, I would bury my head in the pillow, trying to stifle the whistling of his anguished chest, his hoarse groans, his appeals to God. I had learned to gauge the gravity of each attack. When he came home on those murderously damp winter evenings and flung himself gasping and with bulging eyes on the bed, I knew the evening would be unpleasant. He would be unable to speak and would wave his hand desperately to my mother who was hurrying to his help. She filled the little fire-yellowed saucer with medicated powder and threw a lighted match into it. My father bent over the smoke, opened his mouth and gasped. At once, he began to cough with all his body and lungs, and the sweat dripped from his face. Sometimes, the cough dragged on and on and never seemed to stop. Caught in the horrible rhythm of his coughs, he became panicky, tried to break out of it, rose suddenly, dropped back onto the bed, and then continued to gasp and cough until, overcome by his anguish, he would thrust his fingers down his own throat. Then, I would pack my notebooks in a briefcase and run from the house, followed a long way down the street by the odor of Legras powder and the sound of my father’s cough. ~ 4. UNCLE JOSEPH’S DEATH ~ Hoping to catch a breath of air, I had opened the door and all the windows of the study hall.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Sometimes, I would pluck up enough courage to face the druggist, or at least I thought I had, but then the presence of customers would prevent me from going in and, however long I waited outside, the shop would never empty. My torture lasted until the day I finally admitted to myself that I would never get to the streets of love alone, nor even to the drugstore. I needed a mediator between my sexual isolation and women. It did not take me long to choose one; of all the more experienced boys, Bissor was the only one who would not cruelly humiliate me. This certainty calmed me for a while and even made me less impatient. One Friday afternoon, I set to work at my uncomfortably high chest of drawers, with its cold slab of marble broken in three places. I could not concentrate and, at first, blamed the objects around me. As usual, I had carefully placed four newspapers under the marble to even it and a cushion on the chair to raise my own level. But no position was comfortable. First, I sat on my left leg, then on the other; then I was uncomfortably warm and removed the cushion. Finally, I recognized the old turmoil within me that I knew so well. Without thinking twice, since the idea was now well rooted within me, I quickly got up and, with trembling hands, stuffed my books and papers into my briefcase. I never left any of my things lying around because of the children who tore up everything. I had often run, in imagination, this errand to Bissor’s house, so my legs now carried me there without any hesitation, while my brain stood still. Bissor was just home from his tiring evening paper round. I knew his schedule. As I had hoped, he made no joke, but simply took on an older brother’s manner for which I was almost grateful. Outside the drugstore he asked me for the price of the rubber. As I seemed to intend to wait for him, he took me gently by the arm and said: “No, you must get used to doing this yourself.” In a clear voice, perhaps slightly histrionic, or at any rate so it seemed to me, he asked for a prophylactic — surely it was not necessary to speak so loud.

• From Blue Nights (2011)

  In point of fact the beach on which we lived, our personal “some Kind of an Island,” did have “Only three Houses on it,” or, more correctly, it had only three houses that were occupied year-round. One of these three houses was owned by Dick Moore, a cinematographer who, when he was not on a location, lived there with his two daughters, Marina and Tita. It was Tita Moore who started the club with Quintana that entailed posting “Mom’s Sayings” in our garage. Tita and Quintana also had an entrepreneurial enterprise, “the soap factory,” the business mission of which was to melt down and reshape all remaining bars of the gardenia-scented I. Magnin soap I used to order by the box and sell the result to passers-by on the beach. Since both ends of this beach were submerged by the tide, no more than two or three passers-by would actually materialize during the soap factory’s operating hours, enabling me to buy back my own I. Magnin soap, reconfigured from pristine ivory ovals into gray blobs. I have no memory of the other “Families” in these houses, but in our own I would have said that there were not “2, 1, 2, people” but “3 people.” Possibly Quintana saw our personal “some Kind of an Island” differently. Possibly she had reason to. Brush your teeth, brush your hair, shush I’m working. Once when we were living in the beach house we came home to find that she had placed a call to what was known familiarly on our stretch of the coast as “Camarillo.” Camarillo was at that time a state psychiatric facility twenty-some miles north of us in Ventura County, the hospital in which Charlie Parker once detoxed and then memorialized in “Relaxin’ at Camarillo,” the institution sometimes said to have provided inspiration to the Eagles for “Hotel California.” She had called Camarillo, she advised us, to find out what she needed to do if she was going crazy. She was five years old. On another occasion we came home to the beach house and found that she had placed a call to Twentieth Century–Fox. She had called Twentieth Century–Fox, she explained, to find out what she needed to do to be a star. Again, she was five years old, maybe six. Tita Moore is dead now, she died before Quintana did. Dick Moore is dead now too, he died last year. Marina called me recently. I do not remember what Marina and I talked about but I know we did not talk about the club with “Mom’s Sayings” in the garage and I know we did not talk about the soap factory and I know we did not talk about how the ends of the beach got submerged by the tide. I say this because I do not believe that either Marina or I could have managed such a conversation. Relax, said the night man— We are programmed to receive— You can check out any time you like—

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  How would you want me to respond? But this option was not available for Ernest. Having based his therapeutic approach squarely on authentic engagement, he couldn’t abandon it now and turn back to convention. Nothing to do now but hold on to his integrity and dive into the cold pool of truth. “Physically, you’re attractive in every way—pretty face, wonderful glossy hair, terrific figure—” “By ‘figure,’ you mean my breasts?” interrupted Myrna, arching her back ever so slightly. “Well, yes, everything—your carriage—grooming—slim—everything. ” “Sometimes it seems you stare at my breasts—or at my blouse buttons.” Myrna felt a flush of pity and added, “A lot of men do.” “If I do, I’m not aware of it,” said Ernest. Too flustered to do what he knew he should—encourage her to express in depth her feelings about her appearance, including her breasts—he tried to scramble back to safe ground. “But, as I said, I do think of you as an attractive woman.” “Does that mean you might come on to me—I mean in this hypothetical situation?” “Well, I’m not in the singles world—been in a relationship for a while—but if I project myself back to that era, I’d say you’d pass all my physical checkpoints. But some of the other things we’ve been discussing would give me pause.” “Such as?” “Such as what’s happening right here, right now, Myrna. Listen hard to what I’m going to say. You’re collecting and hoarding. You’re accumulating information from me, but you’re not giving anything back! I believe you’re trying to relate to me differently now, but I’m not experiencing it as engagement. I don’t feel yet that you’re relating to me as a person—it’s more like you regard me as a data bank from which you make withdrawals.” “You mean I’m not relating because of my whining?” “No, that’s not what I said. Now, Myrna, our time is up today, and we’ve got to stop, but when you play the tape of this session I’d like you to listen carefully to what I just said to you a minute ago about how you’re relating to me. I think it’s the most important thing I’ve ever said to you.” After the session Myrna wasted no time putting in the cassette and following Ernest’s instructions. Starting with “ I’d say you’d pass all my physical checkpoints, ” she listened intently. “But some of the other things we’ve been discussing would give me pause. . . . Listen hard to what I’m going to say. You’re collecting and hoarding. You’re accumulating information . . . but you’re not giving anything back! . . . I don’t feel yet that you’re relating to me as a person—it’s more like you regard me as a data bank from which you make withdrawals. . . .

• From White Oleander (1999)

  Now I knew why she accepted. I only wondered how he knew exactly the right thing to propose, the one thing she would never turn down. Had he hidden in the oleanders outside our apartment? Interviewed her friends? Bribed somebody? THE NIGHT crackled as my mother and I waited for him in the forecourt of the museum. Everything had turned to static electricity in the heat. I combed my hair to watch the sparks fly from the ends. Forced to wait, my mother made small, jerky movements with her arms, her hands. “Late. How despicable. I should have known. He’s probably off rutting in some field with the other goats. Remind me never to make plans with quadrupeds.” She still had on her work clothes, though she’d had time to change. It was a sign, to indicate to him that it wasn’t a real date, that it meant nothing. All around us, women in bright summer silks and a shifting bouquet of expensive perfumes eyed her critically. Men admired her, smiled, stared. She stared back, blue eyes burning, until they grew awkward and turned away. “Men,” she said. “No matter how unappealing, each of them imagines he is somehow worthy.” I saw Barry across the plaza, his bulk jolting on his short legs. He grinned, flashing the gap between his teeth. “Sorry, but traffic was murder.” My mother turned away from the apology. Only peons made excuses for themselves, she taught me. Never apologize, never explain. THE GAMELAN orchestra was twenty small slim men kneeling before elaborately carved sets of chimes and gongs and drums. The drum began, joined by one of the lower sets of chimes. Then more entered the growing mass of sound. Rhythms began to emerge, expand, complex as lianas. My mother said the gamelan created in the listener a brain wave beyond all alphas and betas and thetas, a brain wave that paralyzed the normal channels of thought and forced new ones to grow outside them, in the untouched regions of the mind, like parallel blood vessels that form to accommodate a damaged heart. I closed my eyes to watch tiny dancers like jeweled birds cross the dark screen of my eyelids. They took me away, spoke to me in languages that had no words for strange mothers with ice-blue eyes and apartments with ugly sparkles on the front and dead leaves in the pool. Afterward, the audience folded its plush velvet chairs and pressed to the exits, but my mother didn’t move. She sat in her chair, her eyes closed. She liked to be the last one to leave. She despised crowds, and their opinions as they left a performance, or worse, discussed the wait for the bathroom or where do you want to eat? It spoiled her mood. She was still in that other world, she would stay there as long as she possibly could, the parallel channels twining and tunneling through her cortex like coral. “It’s over,” Barry said.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  Dad didn’t want anyone but my mother to tell him the news. In case it was bad, she was the only person he felt comfortable sharing the moment with. He greeted me with a huge, anesthesia-laced grin when I was finally allowed to see him. We laughed. We cried. Above all, we were grateful. Dad thanked his amazing surgeon for saving his life. And then he told us about a dream he had. “It was the craziest experience. I was in an epic sword fight,” he said. “Guess what, Dad?” I replied. “You won.” PEOPLE AREN’T PROJECTSPost surgery, you’d think my anxiety would have eased up a bit, especially after the fantastic news. But it actually got worse. Rather than find comfort (or at least a respite) in the successful outcome, I let perpetual worry about Dad relapsing worm its way into my brain. So, naturally, I numbed that feeling by planning, strategizing, and trying to take control. Don’t get me wrong—strategizing and planning are extremely helpful, especially in life-threatening situations. I wouldn’t be here writing this book if I didn’t have these skills. In many ways, I can thank my anxiety for helping save my life. But when my anxiety becomes acute and pervasive, it not only affects my physical well-being; it clouds my ability to make sound decisions. According to research, our brains think and plan more effectively when we’re not anxious, which makes perfect sense. Have you ever tried to make an important decision or solve a challenging problem while freaking out? The outcome can be “interesting,” to say the least. To make matters worse, I wasn’t aware of how my behavior was putting undue stress and pressure on others—especially my parents. My focus remained on “fixing” Dad. I was too busy calling in all my troops. Top integrative doctors weighed in. Out-of-the-box adjunct treatments were recommended. Dietitians built specific meal plans designed to rebuild Dad’s body. Books were purchased, supplements were ordered, acupuncture appointments were scheduled. Medical marijuana was approved (or as Dad called it, “grass,” a term no one has used since 1969). Mom and I went into overdrive to secure everything. There was just one problem: Dad wasn’t up for any of it. The debilitating treatments and side effects he was already experiencing were all he could handle. But he didn’t want to seem ungrateful or to let anyone down, so he’d act like he was interested in what we had to offer him. Then, when it came time to actually go to the acupuncturist or eat the carefully curated diet, he’d decline, saying, “Not right now.”

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  When we’re hurting, we often hear the line “Please let me know how I can help.” While it’s a genuine and heartfelt overture, we’re likely in no condition to provide friends and family with our daily/weekly schedule and details of our lives, even if we could use the help. This is where I suggest assigning one close friend (you know, the superorganized, bossy type) to field all the offers for help and organize and assign them into doable tasks. Whether it’s walking a pet, picking up a prescription, grabbing groceries, driving kids to activities, dropping off meals, or even setting up an Amazon wish list, this person in command can be an invaluable resource for you. You may feel awkward about receiving this kind of support, but chances are, they are happy to be able to do some actual good. Take a deep breath and say yes. If you’re like so many of us, you may need to get over feeling like you’re a burden to someone. Put yourself in their shoes. If the situation were reversed, you’d be right there offering practical or emotional support—gladly. Trust that those offering really do want to help. Just like you would want to help them. Think of it this way: Giving feels good. Don’t rob the person of that feeling because accepting help is out of your comfort zone. There are also going to be moments (lots of them) when you have no frickin’ idea what you need, because you’re overwhelmed. For such occasions, here are a few go-tos: “I’m not sure right now, but I could use a hug,” and “I’m not sure right now, but could you ask me later in the week?” Then take a few moments to calmly reflect. It could be something as easy as “The next time you go to the store, would you mind grabbing some soup? I’m so not up to cooking right now.” One way or another, trust that support will find you when you need it most. COCKTAIL PARTY RESPONSESAfter a major life shake-up, going out and engaging in social situations can be tricky. We’re already raw, and the prospect of having our wounds exposed is like getting an anxiety colonic. When I feel the need for protection, I make sure to have a few cocktail party responses in my back pocket, just in case someone asks me what is going on in my life. “I haven’t seen you in ages, what’s new?” What I want to say: “My dad’s dead, my dog’s dead, I feel dead!” What I actually say: “It’s been a rough few years, but I’m really looking forward to the holidays. Do you have any special plans?” When I don’t want to talk, I ask questions instead. It’s a stealthy way to take the focus off me and direct it toward the other person. Because, sometimes we’d rather eat way too many passed hors d’oeuvres than open a can of anguish—and that’s OK.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  A client asked to scan his body from head to toe might convey an uncanny absence of pelvic sensations. Of course, such an absence gives the therapist an idea of what the client is avoiding. Working with the Five Elements of SIBAM The SIBAM model includes the neurophysiologic, behavioral and somatic aspects of an individual’s experience, whether traumatic or triumphant. When there is a successful outcome, or a corrective experience occurs during therapy, the elements of SIBAM form a fluid, continuous and coherent response that is appropriate to the immediate situation. When individuals suffer from unresolved trauma, these various aspects of traumatic association and disassociation continue in fixed, now-maladaptive patterns that are distortions of current reality. An example of this fixity follows: A woman loves nature, parks, meadows and grassy knolls; however, every time she smells new-mown grass she feels nauseated, anxious and dizzy. Her belief (M) is that grass is something to be avoided. The olfactory and visual image (I) is associated with, or coupled to, the sensations of nausea and dizziness (S) coming from her visceral and vestibular systems. This positive feedback loop, with negative consequences, is an enigma. Part of the event is disassociated from her awareness: she has no idea why this happens; she just knows that she has a strong dislike (M) of grass. As this woman explores her sensations and images, seeing and smelling cut grass in her mind’s eye, she takes time to explore her bodily sensations in detail. As she does, she has a new sensation of being spun in the air and held at the wrists and legs. Next she gets a tactile image of her bullying brother giving her an airplane spin on the front lawn of her childhood house when she was four or five years old. She feels scared (old A), but as she trembles and breathes, she realizes that she is no longer in danger. She now orients (B) by looking around at the peaceful office and then turning her head toward the open face of her therapist. Feeling intact with this newfound safety, she settles a bit. She experiences a spontaneous breath (new B), feeling secure in her belly (new S) now. Then she notices some tightness around her wrists (old S) and the impulse to pry her wrists loose (new S). Now, she feels a wave of anger (new A) building up inside as she yells “Stop!” using the motor muscles of her vocal cords (new B). She settles again and feels (new I) the tactile pleasure of lying on the soft new- mown grass in the warmth of the springtime sunshine.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  In near-darkness we were brutally jostled against each other at every bump in the road, while the vibration of the truck made the soles of our feet tingle and made me sick at my stomach. I reached our destination in such a state of exhaustion that I fell asleep at once, barely glancing at the impersonal dormitory in which I had been assigned a bed. I was ten years old, as I’ve said, and an only son. I indeed had my sister Kalla, but in our families the son, especially an only son, is truly a privileged being. For a long while, I actually expected to hear God speak to me personally, and my heart often beat faster if I thought that I could distinguish a voice speaking in the rustling of tree leaves. Always encouraged and confirmed in my awareness of superiority, I was convinced that an extraordinary destiny awaited me. In the summer camp, this feeling of being unique was badly shattered the very first day. We were awakened too early, when our limbs were still numb, by the gruff voice of a soldier. I was terrified not to find myself in my accustomed bed and my gaze sought in vain the green bars of our window, which seemed to retreat prodigiously to the far end of a vastly expanded room. Our wall that was distempered blue and always seemed so familiar and soft had become ugly beneath a coat of coarse brown paint. Without being at all ill-natured, the soldier was shouting at us that we were a bunch of lazy kids and that we would have to make our own beds and be ready in a quarter of an hour if we wanted him to give us any breakfast. After that, he left the room and I began to recall the dreadful trip, discovering that I had become an anonymous little boy, far from his parents, in this shivering dawn, among a crowd of other little boys, all as roughly awakened as I. The soldier hadn’t even scolded me as an individual. I had to make my bed, like all the others, and lost my head when I saw the huge bundle of sheets and blankets. At what end should I begin? I never had imagined that I would one day have to make my own bed for that was a woman’s job. Almost weeping, I asked my neighbor for help. He was a Mohammedan kid, and just as helpless as I. The paradise that we had expected was turning out to be a boarding school for foundlings and wards of the nation. We were expected, besides, to sweep the dormitories, to help in the kitchen, and to keep our own kit in order.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  The deserted high school was suffocating, paralyzed by the motionless June heat. Blinding white light gushed in from everywhere like a motionless whirlwind, poured through the torn canvas shades with every thread now stiff and dry. Yellow, red, and green flashed from the pages of my book and tortured my tired eyes. I was waiting for the results of the written examinations and every hour was an agonizing battle against the heat and the heaviness of my head. Since the candidates had now been granted the exceptional privilege of using the study hall, I had fled from the gossip of my family at home to spend all my spare time in the school building. From the other end of the long corridor, I heard the approach of soldierly footsteps resounding in the hot air and easily identified as those of Monsieur Creschi, the Corsican janitor who had once been a top sergeant in the colonial infantry. His approach seemed interminable, till suddenly he appeared in the doorway, a silhouette haloed by a blaze of light. A little boy was waiting for me in the lobby, he said. A little boy? I was in too deep a torpor to feel any curiosity. To hell with all little boys! I could hardly hear Monsieur Creschi, who panted, groaned, and patted his damp forehead. Regretfully, I stood up and pulled the back of my wet and sticky shirt, soaking with sweat, away from my skin. I found my youngest brother, Birou, in the lobby. He was upset and full of the importance of his errand: Uncle Joseph was dead, my mother wanted me home at once, my father was waiting for me. Birou’s excitement amused me. “Do you know Uncle Joseph?” I asked invidiously. “Oh, yes!” he said. “I saw him at cousin Louisa’s wedding.” “What was he like?” “He’s big and strong. He’s nice and has a mustache.” “You’re mixing him up with Uncle Binhas. Uncle Joseph is the oldest, the one who sells shoes. Besides, he’s not big, he’s small.” “Oh, I thought the big one was the oldest. So he’s not dead.” Although we lived in the same city, we seldom had any contact with my father’s family. I saw Uncle Joseph no more than once or twice a year. To assert a difference from the rest of the tribe in the Passage, my father was always proclaiming the dignity of the Benillouche family and the reserved but real tenderness they felt for each other.

• From White Oleander (1999)

  She pretended she didn’t notice, but slowly applied Tropic Tan to the tops of her breasts, stroked down her arms, while the workmen grabbed their crotches and called out suggestions in Spanish. The metal chaise was half- collapsed beneath her, we were lulled by the sound of the rusty sprinkler watering the lawn of crabgrass and dandelions. “You’re going to get skin cancer,” I said. She rolled her bottom lip out. “We’re dead long time, kiddo.” She liked to say these American words, knowing how they sounded in her mouth. She lifted her Russian Margarita, drank. “Nazdaroviye.” It meant to your health, but she didn’t care about that. She lit a black cigarette, let the smoke rise in arabesques. I was sitting on an old lawn chair in the shade of the big oleander, sketching Rena as she soaked up the blistering UV rays. She sprayed herself with a small bottle filled with ice water, and the men watching over the chain-link fence shuddered. You could see the shape of her nipples through the knitted fabric. She smiled to herself. This is what she loved, to make a few plumber’s grunts come in their pants. A sale, a Russian Margarita, a quickie in the bathroom with Sergei, that was as far into the future as she cared to look. I admired her confidence. Skin cancer, lung cancer, men, furniture, junk, something would always come along. It was good for me to be around her now. I could not afford to think about the future. I had only two months until graduation, and then a short fall off the edge of the world. At night, I dreamed of my mother, she was always leaving. I dreamed I missed a ride out to New York for art school, I lost an invitation to a party with Paul Trout. I stayed up and looked through my stack of twelve-year-old ArtNewses I’d found on trash day, studied the photographs of the women artists, their tangled hair, gray, long brown, stringy blond. Amy Ayres, Sandal McInnes, Nicholette Reis. I wanted to be them. Amy, with her curly gray hair and her wrinkled T-shirt, posing in front of her huge abstract of curved cones and cylinders. Amy, how can I be you? I read your article, but I can’t find the clue. Your middle-class parents, your sick father. Your art teacher in high school created a scholarship for you. At Marshall I didn’t even have art. I gazed down at my drawing of Rena, dotted with water from the sprinkler. Really, I didn’t even like drawings. When I went to the museum, I looked at paintings, sculptures, anything but lines on a piece of paper.

• From The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

  While the smoke detector is usually pretty good at picking up danger clues, trauma increases the risk of misinterpreting whether a particular situation is dangerous or safe. You can get along with other people only if you can accurately gauge whether their intentions are benign or dangerous. Even a slight misreading can lead to painful misunderstandings in relationships at home and at work. Functioning effectively in a complex work environment or a household filled with rambunctious kids requires the ability to quickly assess how people are feeling and continuously adjusting your behavior accordingly. Faulty alarm systems lead to blowups or shutdowns in response to innocuous comments or facial expressions. Controlling the Stress Response: The WatchtowerIf the amygdala is the smoke detector in the brain, think of the frontal lobes—and specifically the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC),[12] located directly above our eyes—as the watchtower, offering a view of the scene from on high. Is that smoke you smell the sign that your house is on fire and you need to get out, fast—or is it coming from the steak you put over too high a flame? The amygdala doesn’t make such judgments; it just gets you ready to fight back or escape, even before the frontal lobes get a chance to weigh in with their assessment. As long as you are not too upset, your frontal lobes can restore your balance by helping you realize that you are responding to a false alarm and abort the stress response. Ordinarily the executive capacities of the prefrontal cortex enable people to observe what is going on, predict what will happen if they take a certain action, and make a conscious choice. Being able to hover calmly and objectively over our thoughts, feelings, and emotions (an ability I’ll call mindfulness throughout this book) and then take our time to respond allows the executive brain to inhibit, organize, and modulate the hardwired automatic reactions preprogrammed into the emotional brain. This capacity is crucial for preserving our relationships with our fellow human beings. As long as our frontal lobes are working properly, we’re unlikely to lose our temper every time a waiter is late with our order or an insurance company agent puts us on hold. (Our watchtower also tells us that other people’s anger and threats are a function of their emotional state.) When that system breaks down, we become like conditioned animals: The moment we detect danger we automatically go into fight-or-flight mode.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I did not have to do it for long; suddenly, the world flooded my life and dragged me in its wake with so much violence that I hardly knew what was happening to me. We had become accustomed to the idea of war; for a long time it had been a far-off and inoffensive affair, but then suddenly it was present, exploding between our walls. In the first days after the declaration of war, a few Italian planes flew so high above the city that they could not be seen, and they dropped some light bombs at random on the countryside. Although the first bursts of antiaircraft gunfire frightened us, the apparent inefficiency of the aggressor soon allayed our fears. Jokes were made about the poor Italians who were more afraid of our antiaircraft fire than we were of their bombs! For a while, we continued to use the trenches in the middle of the street, and I got into the habit of taking with me a book on psychology. Before long we were using them as refuse dumps, and the children took possession of them for their games. Besides, this war meant nothing to us, nor any other war, for that matter. Not since any man or community could remember had we ever been involved in an armed conflict; those were European games and disasters, and we bore the consequences of them because our fate was linked with that of Europe, but neither our minds nor our hearts were preoccupied. When the Italians finally stopped their timid flying expeditions, the war ceased to have anything to do with our everyday life. Even the pogrom which today seems to me so significant was only an accident, a part of our way of life. And then, all of a sudden, one day we found ourselves right in the middle of the tragedy. When I think how little I foresaw at the time what was about to come and actually did come, how politically ignorant I was, I cannot understand why I still suffer such confused remorse, so much repressed self-criticism and dissatisfaction with myself. Perhaps because I might have acted more wisely, perhaps because the acute self-awareness that I have since contracted like a disease does not allow me now to recognize the young man that I was at that time. My whole conduct was based on impulse. I lived through that period like any mediocre imbecile, stunned by hunger and exhaustion, believing any piece of gossip and reacting exactly like all the others.