the 2019 toa book award - champion

Little Panic by Amanda Stern (November 2018)

I think in some years the eventual winner of the TOA Book Award becomes obvious as soon as I post the reading review. It feels to me like the drama of which book I will eventually anoint 'Book of the Year' is lost whenever my praise is a little too gushing, my insights a little too enthusiastic, or the topic a little too obviously the sort I would keep close to the vest. I thought my posts earlier in the year about Little Panic hit those three considerations and I assume careful readers are therefore not surprised by today's post. Still, it would be unfair to the awards process to just leave things here, so let's take a closer look at how I think about this book just over a year after I read it.

The most interesting thing about Little Panic is how it intersected with a period of time when I elevated my understanding of mental health. I seem to think about this almost every day as I interact with strangers, acquaintances, and those closest to me. It's no coincidence that I've felt this change just as it seems like people around me started discovering new words, phrases, and sentences for articulating their own mental health experiences. Undoubtedly, this has led many to open up to me in ways that would not have been imaginable just a few years ago. These conversations have in turn helped me see and meet others where they are and given me greater patience and empathy regardless of whether someone is in recovery, treatment, or still undiagnosed. In my rare moments of pure honesty, these conversations have helped me see these things in myself and changed the way I reflect on my own life.

It is difficult to pinpoint the role of Little Panic in this shift. On one hand, it’s merely an account of personal experience. The importance of such writing shouldn’t be minimized (especially by me) but the reality is that recounting personal experience alone does not make for an uncommon book. What stood out to me was how I felt this book took it a step further by linking personal experience with the recent history of how society has generally responded to people sharing Stern's struggles. I thought the added context of this approach allowed the book to help me better understand mental health in general and anxiety disorder in particular by not just inviting me to walk in Stern's shoes but also pointing out where I had previously made footprints as I walked alongside the other people portrayed in the book.  It's one thing for an author to describe her anxiety as she tried to understand questions on a test - it's a whole other level when I can also see myself reflected in the proctor. The way Stern holds up mirrors to so much of society helped me recognize the many ways we all continue to fail suffering people and left me with some valuable insights into the small ways I can help chip in to reverse this trend.

The main idea I’ve taken from this book is the way uncertainty stokes and amplifies anxiety. I'm not entirely sure why this is but it rings true from my experience. In fact, I've found that this understanding has helped me recognize the way my mind and body respond to the various uncertainties that pop up during my daily activities. For one reason or another, uncertainty seems to lead most of us to expect the worst and over time I bet our minds wire themselves to associate uncertainty with an eventual bad outcome. It's not always easy to find uses for this knowledge but I have had some opportunities in my volunteer work to reduce uncertainty for our most anxious residents. It's the kind of effect that's hard to measure but I doubt anyone will convince me anytime soon that increasing uncertainty is a good idea for anyone, anxious hospice resident or not.

I've also thought quite a bit about what an education system built on the unquestioned premise of constant testing teaches students about self-worth. A student will feel good about getting an 'A' on any exam but rare is the exam that grades a student on self-worth. Testing in general seems intent on helping students find new ways to hate themselves through the proxy of some easily blamed subject. Of course, the educational system is not going to undo its methods anytime soon so I've had to think a little more about what might work within its confines. One idea I've had is that testing methods could benefit from an overhaul, perhaps by considering how to use examinations to find a student's strengths rather than highlighting shortcomings. I think we've all met enough 'book smart' people to know that top grades don't necessarily mean intelligence, they just mean a student doesn't have any obvious weaknesses within a certain set of learned concepts. If students studied ways to accept themselves, they might be better positioned to make healthy decisions when they start feeling pressured to conform within a report card's boundaries or fit one of society's cookie-cutter definitions.

The way I saw 2019 undoubtedly changed for me once I started seeing events through a lens of anxiety. I understand myself much better today than I did a year ago thanks to how I recognize my own anxiety in the face of uncertainty. I feel that, slowly, I’m understanding others and finding ways of relating to them that would once have been foreign to me. I marvel at what I learn when I get someone to open up and I wonder what the next such conversation will bring. In the meantime, I look out for uncertainty and try to come up with ways I can reduce it, for myself and for others. There was much more to this change than merely reading one book but I don’t feel I can overstate the role of Little Panic in this transformation. Like has been the case with the other books I’ve named Book of the Year, it was the book I needed to read when I didn’t know I needed to read it. I’m happy to acknowledge it, officially, with the Most Irrelevant Prize in World Literature, and wish you the best of luck in finding the next book you don't know you need to read.

leftovers - little panic (library return)

Given that average life expectancy is somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 days, I suppose it's almost guaranteed that I'll find myself involved in a few "no chance it'll happen" moments before my time here is up. We just live too long, you know? I'll put it this way - if something has a 0.00004% chance of happening on a given day, then that means there's a pretty good chance it'll happen at least once over the course of an average lifetime.

These stray thoughts cross my mind when I realize that very well designed systems have minimized the odds of a problem to what the non-math folks would describe as "no chance it'll happen". One such example is returning a book to the library. I’ve returned close to a thousand books since graduating college and each time the system has worked perfectly – I bring the book to the library, leave the item someplace ‘official’ like a bin or a counter-top, and a day later the book is closed out of my account. This system worked perfectly every single time I participated in it over the last decade. And yet, during certain idle moments, I’d wonder about that day in the future. What if the book fell out of the bin? What if someone snatched it from the counter-top before the librarian? What if the power briefly went out just as the book was being scanned? What if the scanning system went haywire and marked a different book as returned? Regardless of the exact detail, the end result would be the same – I’d be stuck having to find some way to return a book I’d already returned.

Naturally, this long-feared situation finally happened just a few months ago after I finished Amanda Stern’s Little Panic. I returned the book to the library on my lunch break and went about my life for a few days without giving the matter a second thought. When I logged into my account to request a few new books, I found Little Panic staring back at me. I'd returned it a week ago and it was due in seventeen days. How fitting, I suppose, that the book in question was Little Panic, for my reaction was the same uncomfortable mixture of anxiety and confusion that Stern writes so masterfully about in her book. I wasted significant time and energy over the next couple of days having this pointless problem weighing down my mind before I finally acknowledged that the only thing to do was to go to the library, explain the situation, and ask for help.

I went to the library the next day and explained the situation. After a couple seconds of deliberation, the man at the desk announced I was ‘all set’ and sent me on my way. All set? What the heck does that mean, I wondered? I never did get a good answer. Maybe he knew from experience that these books have a habit of turning up, eventually, or maybe he just didn’t care about doing more because closing the book from my account was the easiest resolution. It’s possible he’s still deep in the stacks somewhere, looking for the lost copy of Little Panic. I guess there’s no way for me to know for sure. I just hope the question of this book isn’t weighing down some corner of his mind and bringing needless anxiety into his life because this is like most problems I've spent time worrying about - in the end, I've learned that it was never worth worrying about it at all.

Endnotes / the cutting room floor...

0. Turned out, the math didn't work on this one...

My original draft included the ATM as another example. Someday, this modern marvel of banking efficiency is going to go haywire and start spitting extra money into my greedy palms, right? Like, what could the odds of that happening on a given day be? There's no chance of this happening today, or tomorrow, or on any specific day. If I go to the ATM around three times a month, I should like my odds that this will have to happen someday while I'm making a transaction, right?

When I did the math, I realized that I'd fallen for a basic trap - I considered the odds of something happening on a given day equivalent to the odds it might happen to me. That's not really the same thing (and especially in the context of this post) and since I didn't really need another example, I buried it here instead.

The broad point is more important - nothing designed by humans maintains its perfect record forever. The ATM system, no matter how well designed, is still designed by humans - it's going to fail sometime. It just probably won't involve me standing in front of one, trying to catch the cash flying out of the broken thing...

reading review - little panic (children, anxiety, and connection)

The final aspect of Little Panic that I want to highlight in my review concerns childhood anxiety and the book’s thoughts about how to help children manage their feelings. I found these ideas particularly important because like many adults I tend to avoid concerning myself with the inner life of child. Stern points out that such inattention heightens the risk of my inadvertently increasing a child’s anxiety through my own unthinking actions.

One particular action this book made me aware of was the danger of refuting a child’s feelings or experiences. This is especially true in situations where a child senses danger. A child who worries despite being in the park on a sunny day might not have a perfect grasp of risk but this is no reason to simply refute the worry and attempt to move on past the fear. Although there is no specific blueprint for these moments, it’s always important to remember that children (and most adults) find that uncertainty leads to increased anxiety. This is especially true if there is uncertainty about negative outcomes. A good starting point might be to talk through the various scenarios that are worrying the child and helping to work out the different implications of the various outcomes.

I was also intrigued by the comment that people generally resent those who do everything for them. This resentment exists even if there are good intentions. Adults who help a child confront the fear of loss by protecting the child from all of life’s difficult events are risking a certain backlash. I think this is especially likely when a child’s natural desire for autonomy and independence take him or her beyond the confines of a well-meaning adult’s protective boundaries.

A similar thought to the prior comment was how anxiety about the possibility of loss places great strain on relationships. A potential result of this strain is a conflation of loving with attachment. I thought this observation pointed to a particular contradiction, again related to a child’s natural development process. When a child begins to seek an appropriate level of independence, I suspect there will be some difficulty in the beginning if the child expressed love through attachment because the emerging urge to explore autonomy will run counter to a lifelong understanding of how love and attachment are two sides of the same coin.

There are no specific prescriptions for how an adult should help a child navigate the difficulties of growing up. A good concept to keep in mind is that for almost everyone the best ally against any challenge is a strong network of connections from which to draw strength and support. Families are a key component of this and generally the first place where a child learns how to build connection. Over time, these connections can come from any authority figure in a child’s life. The inherent vulnerability in a child can sometimes obscure the importance of connection and bias an adult toward protecting rather than connecting. It’s important to remember that certain difficult moments in life are inevitable and helping children learn the ways to navigate these tragedies by leaning on those with whom they enjoy their strongest connections is a crucial aspect of development.

reading review - little panic (assumptions)

One topic I thought Little Panic explored very well was the role assumptions play when people harm their relationships with each other. These assumptions can take many forms. One common way is to assign labels to another that do not apply to the person in question. An incorrect label is a good way to shut down the communication channels in a relationship for a number of reasons.

First, those who apply labels are no longer accepting of the real people in front of them, instead insisting that others become the type of person they prefer (or know how) to deal with. They might also read too much into someone else’s behavior and reach incorrect conclusions about how another person feels toward them. This kind of guesswork is silly because there are simply far too many reasons for why anything happens - any person trying to guess these reasons is a futile exercise. Instead of creating labels and then explaining observed behavior in the context of the label, people should openly observe what happens in front of them and ask questions about the things they do not understand.

Second, people receiving labels generally struggle to contort themselves within the boundaries or definitions imposed by the label. It’s a sure way to suppress honest self-expression because the task of living up to a label requires concealment of certain contradicting character traits or personal preferences. Over time, as outsiders see only the decoy, a person will feel that the truth about who they are is contained within the unknown or undiscovered parts of the self. This will eventually force the communication path in a relationship to a superficial level at best with the risk of it eventually giving way under the pressure of maintaining a false persona.

As I reflected on how Little Panic thought about assumptions, I thought that the unifying message was how people who only want what’s best for themselves are generally bad news for others. The simple assumption is an admittedly benign expression of this theme but I do feel it fits very well into the overarching idea. When we make assumptions, we tend to create explanations about others that are convenient for our circumstances, preferences, or aspirations. Even when we make benevolent assumptions and try to think about what is best for someone else, we are really only thinking about what is best for someone else within the limitations of our own understanding about the other person. In most cases, I think it’s preferable to remain open to experience and ask questions to broaden our understanding.

reading review - little panic (expressing hurt)

A small but significant aspect of Little Panic addresses how to best express hurt. It’s difficult enough to tell people who mean well that they have hurt you. The challenge grows because people have a tendency to self-center in the face of another’s pain. They might talk about their own pain or loss rather than acknowledge yours, for example, or perhaps they will start relating your emotions in ways that explain how you might feel about them instead of accepting that your emotions can be independent of how you feel about others.

Ultimately, the best approach in these kinds of situations is to be the person you needed when you were younger and explain your hurt in a way you would have liked someone else to have explained their hurt to you. I liked one way this book described such an approach. First, explain your positive intent, and then describe what happened that hurt you. The last step is to confirm understanding. This final step is vital because otherwise it’s impossible to extend the same level of trust again.

reading review - little panic (testing)

I thought Amanda Stern did a masterful job of conveying how testing can be a significant source of anxiety. Little Panic is filled with many examples from her life describing how these tests can be especially damaging for those who equate performance with acceptability. Tests also pose a massive challenge for those who fear falling short of expectations. One behavior sometimes seen among the most anxious of these test-takers is intellectual self-sabotage – the underlying thinking here is that others will eventually expect less of them on a given test.

The big problem with evaluation in general and most types of testing in particular is that they focus on what someone doesn’t know rather than considering what someone can do. A variant of the same problem is that most tests measure recall and application of retained information within a defined time period at the expense of all forms of ingenuity. After all, how can a test measure something from outside the test? Accepted testing methods leave slow, careful, or creative people anxious about how they are being assessed and each test reinforces a deepening cycle of self-doubt. If the authority figures test only to measure someone’s inadequacies, then each additional assessment is further suggestion to those crippled by insecurity that eventually their inadequacies will be uncovered through testing.

The perspective I can understand as I look back on my own years of schooling and testing is how most large-scale systems are designed to serve the average person. In the context of education, this average student learns just enough from books, lectures, and assignments to comfortably graduate after some number of years. This method leaves little room for the student who learns through experience or feeling. The system is sure to leave capable but inexperienced students questioning their own value within the grip of a testing process that was never designed for their success.

One up: There were a set of test questions in Little Panic that I thought demonstrated the challenge tests pose for certain types of people. The following examples are taken from this set, a variety of “what’s wrong with this picture?” questions. In parentheses, I’ve included Amanda’s answer for each scenario.

-A bald man is combing his hair. (He’s using a comb but he has no hair.)

-A girl’s hair is blowing to the left while the leaves on the tree she is standing next to blow to the right. (Not wearing a warm enough jacket and she shouldn’t be out alone without a grown-up.)

-A man walking alongside a dog is leaving footprints but the dog isn’t. (The dog should be on a leash.)

-A stroller with three wheels instead of four. (There’s no baby, and also no mom.)

I can imagine that no more than one of those four answers would be considered ‘correct’. And yet, what is wrong with any of the answers?

One down: I thought deeply about the observation regarding people who believe in the chance of impossible solutions. Little Panic points out that these people might make less effort in certain situations because their belief disconnects personal effort from the eventual resolution. I concluded that this spoke to many frustrations I’ve experienced over the years when enlisting certain types of people to help me solve problems.

Just saying: I liked the idea that when a student struggles to learn, instead of assuming a learning disability there should be greater consideration given to the possibility that the teacher is ‘teaching disabled’.

i read little panic so you don't have to

Little Panic by Amanda Stern (November 2018)

Little Panic was my most memorable reading experience in 2018. In particular, I’ve never been blown away by the first one hundred and fifty or so pages of a book. I understood before opening Amanda Stern’s work that I was in for something a little different than my standard reading experience but the force of her recollections about searing experiences with anxiety produced in me a rare mixture of powerful responses – empathy, understanding, and to a small but not insignificant degree, kinship.

This book was as hard to write about as it was at certain times to read. My goal was to convey some of my own emotions by selectively highlighting some of Stern's insights while also imparting some practical lessons for you, my cherished TOA readers, to keep in mind for when we all rise to the challenge of helping someone’s mental health. Frankly, this is an outcome I’m poorly equipped to achieve with my current set of skills and experiences. I hope the process of challenging myself through writing prepares me to someday rise to the occasion when my presence can help someone in a moment of need.

In terms of how I’ve put together my thoughts on Little Panic – over the next couple of weeks I’ll post four reflections. These cover themes I noticed as I reviewed my notes on the book – the effect of testing, how to express hurt, the impact of assumptions, and the role connection plays in healing. These general concepts taken together form Little Panic’s broader unifying concept – the cost of conforming to an outside expectation is always a portion of the self.