How To Live Without Anxiety

A novel to learn to overcome anxiety

By mid-morning on Sunday the landline had rung. He was called by that kind woman who the night before had helped him in the parking lot to get rid of the crime and who – at that very moment he had just found out – was a psychologist. He did not know that there were psychologists who accompanied the ambulances. Were they from Social Security? Didn’t psychologists cut back, with the crisis?

A follow-up call. Her name was Eugenia Llort and I wanted to know how she was doing. Then he had given her his phone number. He had thanked her for the call while thinking he didn’t need a psychologist at all. He had not suffered any damage, he did not need psychological help, he had never needed it: his psychic wounds, those of a normal and ordinary man, were externalized on stage.

In addition, going to a psychologist would have meant analysis, and he did not want to look at his navel: the interesting ones were the others. Never before in history has so much importance been given to the self: what I like, my friends, what I think, what I feel. On stage you have to let go of the ego. If not, you are playing yourself.

What is an anxiety attack like?

After lunch he had taken the Railroads to go downtown to work, to the Romea Theater, and it was precisely while he was going down the Rambla that that thing had assaulted him. A strong tightness in the chest. Palpitations It was hard for him to breathe. Was he having a heart attack? Was he dying?

I had never experienced anything like it. The feeling was unreality. The vision of what was around him – the pedestrians, the flower stalls, the kiosks – all blurred like a wet watercolor.

He did not remember how many minutes he had sat on the ground in the middle of the crowd. When she had seen herself with the strength to get up, she had gone to a booth to call the psychologist, although it is true that while calling her she was thinking that she should go to the ER, that it had not been anything psychological.

In a little while they had found themselves in Canaletas. A taller woman than he remembered from the night before. His was an untamed beauty; the dark, direct eyes. But he seemed to want to compensate for that intimidating physique with a shy, allusive air. He had told her about the feeling of unreality, of wet watercolor. He was an actor and, after less than two hours, he had to act, he couldn’t leave the show, he was used to working with the flu, with a fever, with toothache. In Barcelona there were no substitute actors.

“Don’t worry,” she said. I will accompany you to the Romea Theater. As if that were the medicine that could alleviate it: that they accompany it. Let her accompany him.

As they strolled down the Ramblas, he had explained in a pedagogical tone of voice that he had not suffered a heart attack or had been about to die. Yes, it was logical that he had been scared; But an anxiety attack was not serious. The important thing was that he did what he planned, that he did not stop doing anything out of fear.

And it was there, right on the corner of Hospital Street, that he realized that he was indeed afraid. Fear of fear. Fear of suffering again what was like nothing.

The antidote is to flow with life and accept that it often has its own plans. Stop controlling and live in the present.

How is it that he had hit so hard? He thought as he continued walking, little by little. How come there were men for whom anxiety attacks were routine? That they let them pass and that later they continued the activity they had in hand. Men didn’t talk much about anxiety attacks. Rather, they were drowned in alcohol. The Iberian male, of course, did not suffer from them. It was women, female actresses, who lived with anxiety attacks like someone who lives with a chronic disease.

Now that he thought about it, he knew nothing of anxiety. Was it a disease? Or perhaps it was the preamble, the preview of the disease? Until now I believed that anxiety was the knot in the stomach when the curtain rose. It was the others, the histrionic actors, unbalanced. Now the unbalanced one was him. He was dizzy, perhaps from his shortness of breath. or maybe not enough oxygen was getting to the brain.

The psychologist must have noticed his swaying step, because she took him by the hand. She had asked his permission before : either she was very polite or she didn’t want to scare him. “I’ll take your hand, okay?” So they had entered the Romea, hand in hand, as if he were convalescing and unable to fend for himself. Luckily, there were no spectators yet. They went to the bar, he asked for a water, but was unable to take a sip. His attitude was one of perplexity.

How bad was this? How fragile was he? Where was your steadfastness in the face of adversity? The steadfastness of the man who didn’t lose his temper before a premiere when the entire company was hysterical?

This is the point from which La terapeuta (Planeta, 2014), a fiction by Gaspar Hernández about the power of human relationships to overcome something very real: anxiety.

7 lessons on anxiety from the therapist

Fear of the economic situation, of losing your job, of not being able to pay the apartment …

• We are all anxious, to a lesser or greater degree. Anxiety is good, as long as it is needed. Thanks to the anxiety mechanisms, we see the car approaching and it does not run over us.
• The problem arises when anxiety shoots up and blocks us. So we have unwarranted, unreal fears.
• There are more women than men with anxiety. The system wants them to be perfect mothers, workers, lovers … Anxiety is guaranteed.
• Fear of the future causes a lot of anxiety.
• Anguish is related to the past, and anxiety to the future. Thinking ahead, not stopping speculating with it, leads to anxiety.
• Underlying many cases of anxiety is the idea that life should be the way we want it to be. There is a need for control of life; and controlling people are often anxious.
• What is the antidote? Flow with life. Accept that it often has its own plans. Stop controlling. And connect with the present moment.