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 How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Sometimes deconstructing perfectionism can feel like putting socks on a rooster—frustrating, needless, uncontrollable. Our usual perfectionistic strategies of pushing, following the Inner Rulebook, and checking the boxes suddenly break down. Paradoxically, it’s the problem we seem least able to solve. But a telling study out of Trinity Western University in British Columbia tracked several hundred participants aged sixty-five and older for several years. It found that those high in perfectionism were more likely to die over the study period, while those high in conscientiousness were less likely to die. Strangely, that’s a finding filled with hope. It means we’re closer than we think. All our architecture of conscientiousness is already fully built and highly functional. When we peel away perfectionism to reveal the heart of conscientiousness underneath, our lives not only get better, happier, and more satisfying, they may even get longer. Therefore, in the pages ahead, we’ll keep what works and rethink what doesn’t. Luckily, there’s a lot that works; we don’t have to Ctrl + Alt + Delete anything about ourselves. We’ll harness our dream team of traits: conscientiousness, grit, commitment to excellence. We’ll keep our strong work ethic and attention to detail. In addition to using our existing powers, we’ll also gain some new powers: rest without guilt, enjoyment without a goal, flexibility without anxiety, success (and failure) without overevaluation, forgiveness for mistakes (both others’ and our own), and a kinder, gentler regard for ourselves. We’ll grant ourselves some kindness instead of the inner nun with a ruler, some grace instead of the internal cattle prod. We’re going to take this whole enterprise called life, and ourselves, both very seriously and a lot less seriously. We’ll definitely mess up along the way, but paradoxically, taking that in stride will move us forward. Most people read psychology books because they want to get their act together. But you are not most people. Your act, in fact, might be a little too together. Those of us with perfectionism have self-control that’s gotten a little out of control. Believe me, I’m right there with you. I’m on the same journey as you. This is not a finger-wagging self-improvement book that says you’re doing things wrong—you do that to yourself already. Instead, consider it permission. Permission to discover what your life might look like when you let yourself breathe. When you stop pushing so hard. When you focus on what makes life meaningful rather than your performance. You’ll still be perfectionistic, but it will work for you, not against you. Officially, this is called adaptive perfectionism, but really it just means perfectionism that buys you more than it costs you. * * *

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  My problem was love; his was lechery. I then turned to Buddhist meditation to deconstruct my suffering—to accept it as a karmic consequence of my past lives and present life, to tolerate it without blaming anyone, even to welcome it as part of life’s natural cycle. I tried to look at my own contribution to my unhappiness. I would meditate on the suffering of others, and attempt to lay the groundwork for less suffering of my own the next time he left town. I would try to remember that the pain of my loss and attachment is an illusory phenomenon. I thought about how simple life might be if one removed sexuality from the equation. Between the search, the conquest, the fucking itself, the residual emotions, and the desire for repetition, my sex life was almost a full-time job: without it, I could save a great deal of time and energy. A very great deal. For what? Compassion for all rather than obsession with one? But after months and months of all this “spiritual” work, I still wanted A-Man in my ass—as frequently and as predictably as possible. I was, it appeared, incurable. There I was—searching, searching, searching for the solution to my pain to no avail. Then she found me. HER One day, walking into the locker room at the gym, I saw the quiet brunette, the one I assumed A-Man fucked on occasion. I said my usual warm hello, but instead of her usual warm smile back, I was greeted with an icy stare and sulky silence. The next time I saw A-Man, I recounted the exchange. Did he know why she might have snarled at me? Well, yes, he did know. Apparently she had recently confronted him, demanding to be told if he was fucking anyone besides her. (Surely, I thought smugly to myself, she already knew the answer to that particular question.) He said that he asked her if she was certain she wanted an answer, and she insisted that she did. So he said yes. But she didn’t stop there. She wanted to know who. So he told her about me. Apparently this was a total surprise to her. She had known we were friends, but I guess she didn’t know the whole of it. Or the half of it. Or the back half of it. Well, he told me, she couldn’t stop crying. He clearly didn’t feel good about this, but he also knew that he’d only told her what she’d insisted on hearing. Was she sorry, I wondered, that she’d asked?

• From Wild (2012)

  When I was done, I sat on the floor, sweaty from my exertions, and stared peaceably at my pack. And then I remembered one last thing: water. I’d chosen to begin my hike where I had simply because from there I estimated it would take me about a hundred days to walk to Ashland, Oregon—the place I’d originally planned to end my hike because I’d heard good things about the town and thought I might like to stay there to live. Months ago, I’d traced my finger southward down the map, adding up the miles and the days, and stopped at Tehachapi Pass, where the PCT crosses Highway 58 in the northwest corner of the Mojave Desert, not far from the town of Mojave. What I hadn’t realized until a couple of weeks before was that I was beginning my hike on one of the driest sections of the trail, a section where even the fastest, fittest, and most seasoned hikers couldn’t always get from one water source to another each day. For me, it would be impossible. It would take me two days to reach the first water source seventeen miles into my hike, I guessed, so I would have to carry enough to get me through. I filled my 32-ounce bottles in the bathroom sink and put them in my pack’s mesh side pockets. I dug out my dromedary bag from the place I’d crammed it in my pack’s main compartment and filled up all 2.6 gallons of it. Water, I later learned, weighs 8.3 pounds a gallon. I don’t know how much my pack weighed on that first day, but I do know the water alone was 24.5 pounds. And it was an unwieldy 24.5 pounds. The dromedary bag was like a giant flattish water balloon, sloshing and buckling and slipping out of my hands and flipping itself onto the floor as I attempted to secure it to my pack. The bag was rimmed with webbing straps; with great effort I wove the bungee cords through them, next to the camera bag and sandals and the insulated cup and candle lantern, until I grew so frustrated that I pulled out the insulated cup and threw it across the room. Finally, when everything I was going to carry was in the place that I needed to carry it, a hush came over me. I was ready to begin. I put on my watch, looped my sunglasses around my neck by their pink neoprene holder, donned my hat, and looked at my pack. It was at once enormous and compact, mildly adorable and intimidatingly self-contained. It had an animate quality; in its company, I didn’t feel entirely alone. Standing, it came up to my waist. I gripped it and bent to lift it. It wouldn’t budge.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  ‘Of course you will refuse. You will not go?’ Justine spoke so sharply that I understood that her gaze followed mine. She stood over me in the misty early morning light, and between sentences cocked an ear towards the heavily-breathing wraith of Hamid behind the door. ‘You are not to tempt providence. Will you? Answer me.’ And as if to make persuasion certain she slipped off her skirt and shoes and fell softly into bed beside me — warm hair and mouth, and the treacherous nervous movements of a body which folded against one as if hurt, as if tender from unhealed wounds. It seemed to me then — and the compulsion had nothing of bravado in it — it seemed to me then that I could no longer deprive Nessim of the satisfaction he sought of me, or indeed the situation of its issue. There was, too, underneath it all a vein of relief which made me feel almost gay until I saw the grave sad expression of my companion-in-arms. She lay, staring out of those wonderfully expressive dark eyes, as if from a high window in her own memory. She was looking, I knew, into the eyes of Melissa — into the troubled candid eyes of one who, with every day of increasing danger, moved nearer and nearer to us. After all, the one most to be wounded by the issue Nessim might be contemplating was Melissa — who else? I thought back along the iron chain of kisses which Justine had forged, steadily back into memory, hand over fist, like a mariner going down an anchor-chain into the darkest depths of some great stagnant harbour, memory.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I didn’t stop to thank her, but hurried away - shouldering my way through the crush of people, stumbling and cursing and sweating with panic and haste. I passed the Shafts stall again - did not turn my head, this time, to see whether Diana was still at it, with her new boy - but only walked steadily onwards, searching for a glimpse of Florence’s jacket or glittering hair, or Cyril’s sash. At last I left the thickest crowd behind, and found myself in the western half of the park, near the boating-lake. Here, heedless of the speeches and the debates that were taking place within the tents and around the stalls, boys and girls sat in boats, or swam, shrieking and splashing and larking about. Here, too, there were a number of benches; and on one of them - I almost cried out to see it! - sat Florence, with Cyril a little way before her, dipping his hands and the frill of his skirt into the water of the lake. I stood for a moment to get my breath back, to pull off my hat and wipe at my damp brow and temples; then I walked slowly over. Cyril saw me first, and waved and shouted. At his cry Florence looked up and met my gaze, and gave a gulp. She had taken the daisy from her lapel, and was turning it between her fingers. I sat beside her, and placed my arm along the back of the bench so that my hand just brushed her shoulder. ‘I thought,’ I said breathlessly, ‘that I had lost you ...’ She gazed at Cyril. ‘I watched you talking with Kitty.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You said - you said she would never come back.’ She looked desperately sad. ‘I’m sorry, Flo. I’m so sorry! I know it ain’t fair, that she did, and Lilian will never ...’ She turned her head. ‘She really came to - ask you back to her?’ I nodded. Then, ‘Would you care,’ I asked quietly, ‘if I went?’ ‘If you went?’ She swallowed. ‘I thought you’d gone already. I saw a look upon your face ...’ ‘And did you care?’ I said again. She gazed at the flower between her fingers. ‘I made up my mind to leave the park and go home. There seemed nothing to stay for - not even Eleanor Marx! Then I got as far as here and thought, “What would I do at home, with you not there ... ?”’ She gave the daisy another twist, and two or three of its petals fell and clung to the wool of her skirt. I looked once about the field, then turned to face her again, and began to speak to her, low and earnestly, as if I were arguing for my life. ‘Flo,’ I said, ‘you were right, what you said before, about that address I gave with Ralph.

• From Wild (2012)

  I descended in a mild panic until the snow turned back into mist and the mist to clear views of the muted greens and browns of the mountains that surrounded me near and far, their alternately sloping and jagged profiles a stark contrast to the pale sky. As I walked, the only sound was that of my boots crunching against the gravelly trail and the squeaky creak of my pack that was slowly driving me insane. I stopped and took my pack off and swabbed its frame with my lip balm in the place where I thought the squeak might live, but when I hiked on I realized that it had made no difference. I said a few words out loud to distract myself. It had been only a little more than forty-eight hours since I’d said goodbye to the men who’d given me a ride to the trail, but it felt like it had been a week and my voice sounded strange all by itself in the air. It seemed to me that I’d run into another hiker soon. I was surprised I hadn’t seen anyone yet, though my solitude came in handy an hour later, when suddenly I had the urge to do what I called in my mind use the bathroom, though out here using the bathroom meant maintaining an unsupported squat so I could shit in a hole of my own making. It was for this reason I’d brought the stainless-steel trowel that was looped through my backpack’s waistband in its own black nylon sheath with U-Dig-It printed on the front. I didn’t dig it, but it was the backpacker way, so there was nothing else to do. I hiked until I found what seemed a reasonable spot to venture a few steps off the trail. I took my pack off, pulled my trowel from its sheath, and darted behind a sage bush to dig. The ground was a rocky, reddish beige and seemingly solid. Digging a hole in it was like attempting to penetrate a granite kitchen counter sprinkled with sand and pebbles. Only a jackhammer could’ve done the job. Or a man, I thought furiously, stabbing at the dirt with the tip of my trowel until I thought my wrists would break. I chipped and chipped uselessly, my body shimmering into a crampy cold sweat. I finally had to stand up just so I wouldn’t shit my pants. I had no choice but to pull them off—by then I’d abandoned underwear because they only exacerbated my raw hips situation—and simply squat down and go. I was so weak with relief when I was done that I almost toppled over into the pile of my own hot dung. Afterwards, I limped around gathering rocks and built a small crap cairn, burying the evidence before hiking on.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  The defense attorney walks nervously before the bench and looks around. The Inner Critic is sitting in the witness stand like it owns the place. Wow, the defense attorney thinks, the view is different from up here after waiting on the sidelines for so long. She coughs nervously but then squares her shoulders and gathers her courage. SPECIFY, SPECIFY, SPECIFY The defense attorney looks at the Inner Critic, who grins obnoxiously back at her. It’s been up here a long time and it’s comfortable, thank you very much. But she knows the power of what she’s about to do. She clears her throat and says, “First question: What’s the worst that can happen?” The Inner Critic laughs. “Seriously? That’s the best you can do? What’s the worst that can happen?” “Yes.” “What is that, a rhetorical question?” the Critic scoffs. “No, no,” says the defense attorney. “It’s a genuine question to be answered. What specifically is the worst that can happen?” “That’s easy: everyone will think I’m weird.” “No, see, that’s what I mean,” she says. “Everyone will think I’m weird—that’s so vague. That could mean anybody. Who specifically will think that?” The Inner Critic looks confused. It’s never thought about things this way. “I don’t know. Everybody.” “No, not everybody,” says the defense attorney. “Name names.” This is the first tool for that shiny new toolbox: specify. Just like the mantra of real estate is location, location, location, the mantra of overcoming anxiety is specify, specify, specify. Why? Anxiety is often vague: Everybody will think I’m weird! Something bad will happen! People will judge me! I will do something stupid! Anxiety would make a great horoscope writer. It’s hazy enough that we can read just about anything into its predictions. Watch for the red flags of imprecision—“always,” “never,” “everybody,” “nobody.” Anxiety can also be vague when it’s less of a fully formed thought and more of a reptilian-level reflex—a lurch in the stomach, a jolt of adrenaline, the impulse to keep on driving past your cousin’s wedding reception site. The Inner Critic sends you a strong feeling, and that feeling feels like a fact. Because we feel inadequate, it must be true. Because we feel like a loser, we must be one. Because we feel the heat, we must be turning an Elmo shade of red, and what’s more, everyone must be judging us for it. If your Critic is more of a feeling, in order to specify, specify, specify, try this: ask what that lurch in the stomach would say if it could talk. What would the urge to skip out on the wedding reception tell you if it was translated into words? Think of yourself as a cartoon character and ask what the thought bubble coming out of your head would say. Once the thought is verbal, it has a form, which means we can challenge it.

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  People who leave communist cults tend to lean to the left. Naturally, there are exceptions to this as well. Typically I see former cult members for a shorter time than other psychotherapy clients. The former tend to learn the social-psychological dynamics of cult involvement rather quickly. Usually ex-members can sort out their own beliefs within six months, see the pros and cons of their group experience, and plan how they want to live in the world. If former members continue with psychotherapy, they often use it to cope with feelings of anxiety and depression that accompany this major life change, as well as the triggers they experience in their daily lives as a result of clinical or subclinical forms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Former cult members comprise some of the brightest and most interesting clients with whom I have worked. They have helped me examine my role and authority as a therapist, as well as enriching my understanding of people-incontext. Witnessing their struggle and growth has been a gift. [image file=img/img0028.jpg] This chapter provides information about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for medical, mental health, and other helping professionals so they can better serve clients who are current or former cult members. This information may also help cult survivors understand that the trauma they experienced during their cult involvement might have lingering aftereffects that make daily life and recovery more difficult. Traumatic events occur on a continuum, from events that one can normally expect to sudden and dramatic ones that evoke fear and terror. The death of a loved one, for instance, may be traumatic, but it is within the normal realm of events that people usually face without medical assistance. Witnessing assault or murder, on the other hand; may produce symptoms that require professional intervention. It is important to note that trauma does not signify only severe occurrences, such as murder or mayhem. In fact, living in a highly restrictive and controlled environment-even without overt violence-may be traumatic. PTSD is a specific set of problematical reactions resulting from traumatic experience(s); it is a serious diagnosis and should not be presumed without consulting a licensed mental health practitioner. Medical experts working with troubled Vietnam War veterans were the first to understand and name the disorder. Today it is widely acknowledged that PTSD symptoms are not limited to combat veterans or prisoners of war, but may result from a variety of instances of extreme stress or trauma. These include sexual assault, physical attack, murder, a hostage situation, kidnapping, torture, natural disaster, a serious accident, incarceration, or terrorist attack. Sociologist Laurie Wermuth notes: "PTSD takes it toll on health by overreacting the body's alarm system; stress chemicals flood the bloodstream, triggering changes in tissues and organs. Over time, too much of this stress reaction causes increased wear and tear on the body and in particular contributes to plaque buildup on the walls of the arteries."' A variety of adverse physiological and psychological effects may ensue.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Loneliness is thought to be as fundamental a drive as hunger or thirst: the feeling tells us we are lacking something vital for survival and exhorts us to search out connection. Unchecked, loneliness makes us feel desperate and unsafe. It kills our sleep quality, our mood, our optimism, and our self-esteem. Chronic loneliness has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, even mortality. The take home: Social connection is vital. Our very lives, it turns out, depend on it. Anxiety can’t kill you. But loneliness can. Now, if you’re less socially connected than you’d like to be that’s an intimidating thought. Conquering social anxiety may seem overwhelming or impossible. But let me assure you, you have a lot going for you. How do I know? As decades of research stack up, it’s clear that social anxiety is a package deal. It comes bundled with powerful skills. With social anxiety come traits and tendencies that will serve you well in a culturally diverse twenty-first-century world (and won’t disappear, even if your fear and awkwardness do). Indeed, the research—as well as my experience working with many shy and socially anxious individuals—demonstrates we are often: • Careful thinkers—we consider what we’re going to say • Conscientious, with a robust inner guide and strong work ethic • Gifted at remembering faces • Deeply empathetic • “Prosocial,” meaning positive to others, helpful, and altruistic • Considerate of the rights, needs, and feelings of others How does this manifest in our lives and the world? Those of us who experience social anxiety often: • Omit needless words—in a world full of shouting and mugging for attention, we rise above the “more is better” approach to speech • Work hard to ensure others feel comfortable • Look and listen closely—a near-lost art in today’s look-at-me culture • Hold high standards, which lead to exemplary work • Respect other cultures and backgrounds—we are the diplomats and ambassadors of the world Sound familiar? Many people who experience social anxiety also rack up these strengths. Even if you’re one of the 21 percent of capital-S Socially Anxious folks for whom anxiety manifests as sarcasm and criticism, I know that underneath all your prickles you likely have many of these qualities, too. Like a puffer fish, you’re prickly only because you’re scared. Check out that list again. These are twenty-first-century skills for an increasingly interconnected and global society. Many of us socially anxious souls navigate a multicultural world with sensitivity and care. Indeed, those who don’t care what others think squander potential relationships by disregarding the rights and feelings of others. You may already do many of the things on the list naturally, and with some practice you can do them while simultaneously feeling comfortable in your own skin.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Each of the four core fears from chapter 1—our anxiety, our appearance, our character, our social skills—lends itself to a different self-concealment strategy. If we’re anxious about appearing anxious—say, blushing—we might cover our face and neck in makeup or wear turtlenecks. If we’re anxious about our appearance, we might not talk to people we find attractive. If we’re anxious about our social competence, we might carefully rehearse our stories for Friday night’s party until we think they pass muster. Finally, if we’re anxious about our personality, we may ask a million questions to deflect attention away from ourselves. How was that new restaurant? What did you order? I remember you were going to take your mom there when she was in town. How’s she doing? And your sister? Really? Tell me more. (Stage whisper: Just don’t make me talk about myself.) HOW THE INNER CRITIC DRIVES AWAY YOUR BEST SELF In 1999, Dr. David Clark, a pioneering psychologist and professor at Oxford, dreamed up a creative way to demonstrate how the Inner Critic operates. The study participants were individuals from opposite ends of the social anxiety continuum—the highest quartile, who would have overthought a cart full of milk and bananas, and the lowest quartile, who could have wheeled around a cart full of bat guano with a cherry on top without blinking an eye. These men and women were shown a variety of words, one at a time, that described personality. Some were positive, like “relaxed,” “poised,” “witty,” and “confident.” Others were negative, like “awkward,” “foolish,” “annoying,” and “pathetic.” Then half the participants were told they would now have to give a two-minute speech on camera. To make things worse, they were also told the speech was specifically an assessment of their social skills and public-speaking ability and that later some “expert psychologists” would watch the video and rate them. To top it off, the poor participants wouldn’t be given the topic of the speech until thirty seconds before it was to begin. The other half of the participants? They got to just sit and hang. No speech, no worries. Since only half the participants had to give a speech, there were now four groups: high anxious anticipating a high-pressure speech (Eek!), high anxious who didn’t have to give a speech (Whew!), low anxious anticipating a speech (Sure, no problem), and low anxious who didn’t have to give a speech (Man, this study is easy money—can I sign up for another one?).

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Indeed, there are levels. Social anxiety falls along a wide range. The first and most common occurrence along the social anxiety spectrum is socially awkward moments. Even the smoothest among us feel awkward or embarrassed at least sometimes. These are the moments we say, “You, too!” when the waiter says, “Enjoy your meal.” Or we accidentally end up with a handful of breast while hugging a woman. Or we say a heartfelt good-bye to a friend, only to realize we’re both walking the same direction. I’ve done all three of these things more than once. These moments may be cringe worthy, but they’re inescapable, plus they make for a good story and a laugh later. The next level is what is often called shy. I call this everyday social anxiety. If you felt a spark of recognition at the word “shy,” How to Be Yourself is for you. So many of us can relate: we stick tight to our partner or best friend at parties; we eat lunch at our desk; we don’t raise our hand even if we know the answer. We all have the thing we hate doing: making small talk, sharing an elevator with the boss, or asking someone to continue his cell phone conversation outside the movie theater. Left to our own devices or with a few familiar people, we feel totally fine, but our heart pounds when all eyes in the conference room focus on us, we suddenly lose the ability to calculate the tip while our friends finish their drinks and watch, we get sweaty and flustered when we attempt to parallel park outside a crowded sidewalk cafe. We worry we’ll come off as inappropriate or incompetent, and then get frustrated at our own worry: This is stupid! Why can’t I be more confident? What’s wrong with me?

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  Guy smiles. “I’m sure I know more about you than you want me to know,” he says. He pauses and then adds, “I hope you enjoyed your summer vacation in Italy.” How does he know that? I start getting anxious and annoyed. Who is this guy? Why is he here? People usually start therapy curious to learn more about themselves than about their therapists—at least initially. Having said that, most of my patients do come to their first session already knowing at least a little about me. They google me and can easily find a picture, my age, my birthplace, and my professional affiliations. Some dig deeper and discover something about my personal life, my musical background, or the obituary of Lew, my life partner. In our digital age, the classical psychoanalytic idea of neutrality is challenged. Whereas in the past our goal as therapists was to stay objective and make sure our patients couldn’t know anything about us—not even from our office decoration—nowadays we work with the information people inevitably have about us, and we search for the unique meaning this has for each patient. The preliminary information patients have on their therapists contributes to a fantasy about who their therapists are and what therapy is going to be like. Most patients, however, limit their search so they don’t learn more than they want to know or can handle. I assume that those who have a negative reaction to my online profile wouldn’t contact me, and I’m sure some patients might know more about my personal life than they tell me, or even more than I let myself realize. Most patients, though, do not disclose their online research, especially not in the first session, and they come with a wish, as well as a dread, of being known by me. Guy introduces a different dynamic. I’m aware that he needs me to feel that he has invaded my private life. “Are you worried?” he asks. “I’m not sure, but you don’t seem happy that I did this research about you.” “Did you think I would be happy?” I ask. He shrugs. “I am not a stalker or something, I hope you know,” he says. “I just needed to find out. These days, who knows, strange people are everywhere. I wanted to make sure you are not some lunatic. And I kind of like that your father was born in Iran. It’s pretty interesting.” I look at him and wonder: Why would he want to make me so uncomfortable? My professional self should know the answer, but I feel paralyzed, unable to think clearly. I remind myself that Guy surely wants and needs me to feel the way I feel: unsafe, even frightened. He needs to make me feel at least as intimidated as he feels when he walks into my office, perhaps as alarmed as he has been every day of his life.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  She stood up to the director and said it wasn’t fair for her to play Jasmine because she was a new student and the role should go to the kids who had been there longer. “She wasn’t scared,” Naomi said again, and I knew that she couldn’t recognize Isabella’s fear that was hidden in that act of rejecting the lead role. In thinking about her own life, comparing herself to Isabella, Naomi could only see her friend’s boldness. She felt paralyzed, unable to own her life. It is not always clear who gets the lead role in Naomi’s life. Sometimes it feels as though she gave that role to her mother, sometimes to Isabella, as she silently accepts the supporting role. When speaking of her childhood, Naomi describes her parents as a perfect couple and her mother as good, charming, beautiful, and caring. It often feels as though she is left to witness her parents’ love from the outside. She admires her mother and her parents’ relationship. Naomi finds a way to play out that childhood dynamic with Isabella, whom she idealizes. Naomi had decided to start therapy because she felt unhappy but didn’t have any idea why. During our first session she described how she grew up in a loving and stable family and told me about Isabella, who—unlike Naomi—was raised by a single mother in a volatile household. She told me that Isabella was the one who constantly searched for answers, while she, Naomi, didn’t even have any questions. Now she was looking for something but she didn’t know what. Even in Naomi’s own treatment, at times Isabella became more important than Naomi. In my writing of Naomi’s story, once again, Isabella’s story often takes over. This recurrent enactment brings us into the heart of Naomi’s hidden struggle with knowing and being known, with feelings of inferiority and competition. Naomi and I wonder whom and what we actually know and what is used as a way to hide. “I DIDN’T SLEEP last night,” Naomi opens the next session. She looks distressed. “Isabella called me late and in a very matter of a fact way said she wanted me to come over as soon as I could. She said that she needed to tell me a secret.” Naomi pauses and turns to me. “We were always so close and I didn’t think we had any secrets. It worries me. What is it that she wants to tell me?” My thoughts are racing as we sit together in silence for a long minute. “I’m meeting her tomorrow,” Naomi says, trying to allay her fears. “It will be okay. I feel honored that Isabella wants to share her secret with me.”

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  ‘Holding a candle in your hand, I mean, you can throw the shadow of the retinal blood-vessels on the wall. It isn’t silent enough. It’s never dead still in there: never quiet enough for the trismegistus to be fed. All night long you can hear the rush of blood in the cerebral arteries. The loins of thinking. It starts you going back along the cogs of historical action, cause and effect. You can’t rest ever, you can’t give over and begin to scry. You climb through the physical body, softly parting the muscle-schemes to admit you — muscle striped and unstriped; you examine the coil ignition of the guts in the abdomen, the sweetbreads, the liver choked with refuse like a sink-filter, the bag of urine, the red unbuckled belt of the intestines, the soft horny corridor of the oesophagus, the glottis with its mucilage softer than the pouch of a kangaroo. What do I mean? You are searching for a coordinating scheme, the syntax of a Will which might stabilize everything and take the tragedy out of it. The sweat breaks out on your face, a cold panic as you feel the soft contraction and expansion of the viscera busy about their job, regardless of the man watching them who is yourself. A whole city of processes, a factory for the production of excrement, my goodness, a daily sacrifice. An offering to the toilet for every one you make to the altar. Where do they meet? Where is the correspondence? Outside in the darkness by the railway bridge the lover of this man waits for him with the same indescribable maggotry going on in her body and blood; wine swilling the conduits, the pylorus disgorging like a sucker, the incommensurable bacteriological world multiplying in every drop of semen, spittle, sputum, musk. He takes a spinal column in his arms, the ducts flooded with ammonia, the meninges exuding their pollen, the cornea glowing in its little crucible.…’ He begins now that shocking boyish laughter, throwing back his head until the moonlight plays upon his perfect white teeth under the trimmed moustache. It was on such a night that our footsteps led us to Balthazar’s door, and seeing his light on, we knocked. The same night, on the old horn gramophone (with an emotion so deep that it was almost horror) I heard some amateur’s recording of the old poet reciting the lines which begin: Ideal voices and much beloved Of those who died, of those who are Now lost for us like the very dead; Sometimes within a dream they speak Or in the ticking brain a thought revives them.…

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  Broken from the divine harmony of herself she fell, says the tragic philosopher, and became the manifestation of matter; and the whole universe of her city, of the world, was formed out of her agony and remorse. The tragic seed from which her thoughts and actions grew was the seed of a pessimistic gnosticism. That this identification was a true one I know — for much later when, with so many misgivings, she invited me to join the little circle which gathered every month about Balthazar, it was always what he had to say about gnosticism which most interested her. I remember her asking one night, so anxiously, so pleadingly if she had interpreted his thinking rightly: ‘I mean, that God neither created us nor wished us to be created, but that we are the work of an inferior deity, a Demiurge, who wrongly believed himself to be God? Heavens, how probable it seems; and this overweening hubris has been handed on down to our children.’ And stopping me as we walked by the expedient of standing in front of me and catching hold of the lapels of my coat she gazed earnestly into my eyes and said: ‘What do you believe? You never say anything. At the most you sometimes laugh.’ I did not know how to reply for all ideas seem equally good to me; the fact of their existence proves that someone is creating. Does it matter whether they are objectively right or wrong? They could never remain so for long. ‘But it matters’ she cried with a touching emphasis. ‘It matters deeply my darling, deeply.’ We are the children of our landscape; it dictates behaviour and even thought in the measure to which we are responsive to it. I can think of no better identification. ‘Your doubt, for example, which contains so much anxiety and such a thirst for an absolute truth, is so different from the scepticism of the Greek, from the mental play of the Mediterranean mind with its deliberate resort to sophistry as part of the game of thought; for you thought is a weapon, a theology.’ ‘But how else can action be judged?’ ‘It cannot be judged comprehensively until thought itself can be judged, for our thoughts themselves are acts. It is an attempt to make partial judgements upon either that leads to misgivings.’

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  This example describes how one former member defused her triggers: Julie H., a former member of a psychotherapy cult whose leader claimed special powers and abilities, believed that each time she saw the leader's first name it meant that he was thinking of her, watching her. Because his name, though unusual, was also the name of a coffee and a bank, she saw it often enough to remind her of him and the power she still believed he had over her. Intellectually she knew it was ridiculous, but on an emotional level, she was unable to shrug off the feelings that he still knew all about her and what she was doing. Julie's new therapist continued to remind her that her former leader's mind-reading tricks were just that: tricks. The leader would gain information about someone in the group from another member, and then present it in a session as though he were psychic or extremely intuitive. In that way, he was able to convince Julie that she was thinking things that were not even in her mind or imagination. He taught her to distrust her own thoughts and believe that he knew her better than she knew herself. By focusing on (and discussing with her new therapist or a trusted friend) the numerous times the leader had misinterpreted and misunderstood her, Julie was able to reduce the power of the name trigger. Another antidote to triggers is to be aware of when they are likely to occur. Research indicates that triggering happens most frequently when you are anxious, stressed, fatigued, or ill; and secondarily when you're distracted, lonely, or uncertain. Suggestions for Reorienting YourselfPatrick Ryan and Joseph Kelly (whose personal account is in Chapter 14) are exit counselors with personal as well as professional experience with Easternbased groups and practices. They have given many workshops on coping with triggers and trance states, and suggest the following coping strategies6: Maintain a Routine• Make changes slowly, whether physical, emotional, nutritional, or geographical. • Monitor your health with nutrition and medical checkups. Avoid using drugs and alcohol, or anything, to excess. • Reduce dissociation, anxiety, and insomnia through daily exercise. • Avoid sensory overload. Avoid crowds or large spaces without boundaries (shopping malls, video arcades, etc.). • Drive consciously, without music. Orient Yourself to Reality• Establish time and place landmarks, such as calendars, appointment books, and clocks. • Make lists of activities in advance; update the lists daily or weekly. Difficult tasks and large projects should be kept on separate lists. • Before going on errands, review the list of planned activities, purchases, and projects. Check off items as they are completed. • Keep current with the news. Headline news and other news shows (such as CNN and MSNBC, talk radio, and PBS stations) are helpful, particularly if you have memory/concentration difficulties, because the news segments are repeated throughout the day. Improve Your Reading Ability and Concentration• Try to read one complete news article daily to increase comprehension.

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  • Develop reading stamina with the aid of a timer, progressively increasing your reading periods. Conquer Sleep Interruptions• Leave talk radio or television news stations (not music) on all night. • If unable to sleep, get a little chilled (for example, stand outside for a minute or two) and then go back to bed. This should help you fall asleep more soundly. Most of all, don't push yourself. Dissociation is a habit that takes time to break. Keep a LogAnother useful tool is a "triggers log" you create to help reorient your reactions to triggers.? This log will enable you to confront the triggers head on and defuse them. Use the log to record: • Each trigger and its message • Your responses to each trigger • The underlying message and its consequences • Your challenge to each message • Your redefinition of each message • Your plan to move forward For example, let's take Julie's reaction to her former leader's name. Every time she saw the name, she believed, even if for a moment, that he was watching her. She felt sudden anxiety and shame; that was her immediate response to the trigger. The underlying message was that the leader could read minds. Then consider the consequences. In Julie's case, the short-term consequences were feeling guilt, shame, and fear. She felt that she must be doing something bad and that the leader was laughing at her stupidity and ineptness, which was a common occurrence for her in the cult. The next action is to challenge the trigger and its accompanying message. Do some research, if necessary. What are the facts? Does the rest of society believe this message to be true? Find out if there is evidence to refute or support this message. When Julie examined the message that her leader could read minds, she remembered how often he had actually been wrong about her. And on those occasions when he had been right, Julie was able to see that her own body language could have revealed something to him. Also, she recalled a friend in the cult who could easily have given information about her to the leader. Use your imagination to look at the actual situation. Think about those times when your cult or leader was wrong about something. Remember the suspicions and doubts you harbored. Julie can now laugh at the thought of her leader spending twenty-four hours a day peering into all his clients' activities, past and present. Finally, turn the old message into a new one and move forward with your life. Defuse the negative associations and replace them with something positive and realistic. Examine and redefine your feelings about this message. Julie did this by acknowledging that in some ways it was comforting to believe that someone "on high" was able to watch over her, correct her faults, and lead her to a happier, healthier life.

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  New in town, lost a job, recently divorced, a friend or family member just died, need a career change, feel a little blue? The unstable and anxious feelings experienced at such times make a person vulnerable, whether that person is twenty or seventy years old. If a vulnerable person happens to cross paths with a cult advertisement or personal recruiter putting forth even a mildly interesting offer, then that ad will likely pay for itself and that recruiter will stand a good chance of making her mark. According to Michael Langone, "Conversion to cults is not truly a matter of choice. Vulnerabilities do not merely `lead' individuals to a particular group. The group manipulates these vulnerabilities and deceives prospects in order to persuade them to join and, ultimately, renounce their old lives."4 While we are at it, let's shatter another myth: people who join cults are not stupid, weird, crazy, weak-willed, or neurotic. Most cult members are of aboveaverage intelligence, well adjusted, adaptable, and perhaps a bit idealistic. In relatively few cases is there a history of a pre-existing mental disorder. Anyone is capable of being recruited (or seduced) into a cult if his personal and situational circumstances are right. Currently there are so many cults formed around so many different types of beliefs that it is impossible for a person to truthfully claim that he would never be vulnerable to a cult's appeal. Cult recruitment is not mysterious. It is as simple and commonplace as the seduction and persuasion processes used by lovers and advertisers. However, depending on the degree of deception and manipulation involved, the resultant attachments can be even more powerful. Cult RecruitmentSocial psychologist Robert Cialdini outlined six principles generally used in the process of influencing another person.5 If we consider cult recruitment as a form of influence-and in some cases, undue influence-then Cialdini's principles help us better understand the successful use of persuasion techniques. Each of the principles, explained below, involves everyday tendencies of human behavior that can be used to elicit compliance. Reciprocation, or the act of give and take, creates a sense of obligation. In cults personal disclosure is often made reciprocal; that is, you are expected to reveal things about yourself and others to the group, just as others reveal things to you. This exchange makes you feel beholden to the group; the reciprocity creates a social bond wherein you will say yes to things when you ordinarily would not. Consistency in actions brings about commitment. Once you give (or give in), you will give (or give in) again. This sets the stage for increasing compliance. Actions that are public-that is, performed in front of others and supposedly not coerced-tend to reinforce the conditions necessary for lasting commitment. Given this, we can understand the commitment-reinforcing value of "testifying," "witnessing," or other types of public criticisms or confessions. Authority more or less guarantees credibility. If an expert says it, it must be true. This principle causes people to stop thinking and start reacting.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  Melissa was pouring with sweat, and her hair was glued to her temples; as we broke the circle of her tormentors she sank back into an expressionless quivering silence, with this permanently engraved shriek on her face. It would have been wise to try and find out where she had been and what she had been eating and drinking, but a glance at the maudlin, jabbering group around me showed that it would be impossible to get any sense out of them. Nevertheless, seizing the boy nearest me I started to interrogate him when the hag from Golfo’s, who was herself in a state of hysterics, and was only restrained by a naval stoker (who had her pinioned from behind), began to shout in a hoarse chewed voice. ‘Spanish fly. He gave it to her.’ And darting out of the arms of her captor like a rat she seized her handbag and fetched one of the sailors a resounding crack over the head. The bag must have been full of nails for he went down swimming and came up with fragments of shattered crockery in his hair. She now began to sob in a voice which wore a beard and call for the police. Three sailors converged upon her with blunt fingers extended advising, exhorting, imploring her to desist. Nobody wanted a brush with the naval police. But neither did anyone relish a crack from that Promethean handbag, bulging with french letters and belladonna bottles. She retreated carefully step by step. (Meanwhile I took Melissa’s pulse, and ripping off her blouse listened to her heart. I began to be alarmed for her, and indeed for Pursewarden who had taken up a strategic position behind an armchair and was making eloquent gestures at everyone.) By now the fun had started, for the sailors had the roaring girl cornered — but unfortunately against the decorative Sheraton cupboard which housed Pombal’s cherished collection of pottery. Reaching behind her for support her hands encountered an almost inexhaustible supply of ammunition, and letting go her handbag with a hoarse cry of triumph she began to throw china with a single-mindedness and accuracy I have never seen equalled. The air was all at once full of Egyptian and Greek tear-bottles, Ushabti, and Sèvres. It could not be long now before there came the familiar and much-dreaded banging of hob-nailed boots against the door-lintels, as lights were beginning to go on all round us in the building. Pursewarden’s alarm was very marked indeed; as a resident and moreover a famous one he could hardly afford the sort of scandal which the Egyptian press might make out of an affray like this. He was relieved when I motioned to him and started to wrap the by now almost insensible figure of Melissa in the soft Bukhara rug. Together we staggered with her down the corridor and into the blessed privacy of my box-room where, like Cleopatra, we unrolled her and placed her on the bed.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  He lives in his little sloping attic like an anchorite. ‘An anchorite!’ that is another favourite phrase; he will pop his cheek vulgarly with his finger as he utters it, allowing his rolling eye to insinuate all the feminine indulgences he permits himself in secret. This is for Clea’s benefit, however; in the presence of ‘a perfect lady’ he feels obliged to assume a protective colouring which he sheds the moment she leaves. The truth is somewhat sadder. ‘I’ve done quite a bit of scout-mastering’ he admits to me sotto voce ‘with the Hackney Troop. That was after I was invalided out. But I had to keep out of England, old boy. The strain was too much for me. Every week I expected to see a headline in the News of the World, “Another youthful victim of scoutmaster’s dirty wish.” Down in Hackney things didn’t matter so much. My kids were experts in woodcraft. Proper young Etonians I used to call them. The scoutmaster before me got twenty years. It’s enough to make one have Doubts. These things made you think. Somehow I couldn’t settle down in Hackney. Mind you, I’m a bit past everything now, but I do like to have my peace of mind — just in case. And somehow in England one doesn’t feel free any more. Look at the way they are pulling up clergymen, respected churchmen and so on. I used to lie awake worrying. Finally I came abroad as a private tooter — Toby Mannering, his father was an M.P., wanted an excuse to travel. They said he had to have a tooter. He wanted to go into the Navy. That’s how I fetched up here. I saw at once it was nice and free-and-easy here. Got a job right off with the Vice Squad under Nimrod Pasha. And here I am, dear boy. And no complaints do you see? Looking from east to west over this fertile Delta what do I see? Mile upon mile of angelic little black bottoms.’