In which our not-so-fearless news editor describes her efforts to become more carefree.

AUGUST 1. Reading Ned Hallowell's book on worry today, I found myself thinking of a picture taken years ago on a family trip to the mountains. My sister Sally, at five years old a year younger than me, stands at what looks to me even now as a perilous few inches from a precipice. She is beaming, dizzy with the danger or the altitude. And me? I'm off to the side, brow furrowed, arm reaching past the edge of the picture to hold my mother's hand.

At age six, I was already an inveterate worrier, and so l approached with some skepticism my latest assignment for PT: enrolling in Hallowell's "comprehensive program for controlling worry." Could a book change behavior so entrenched in temperament and habit? I agreed to try, and to keep a journal of my efforts.

Tonight presented me with my first opportunity to follow Hallowell's advice. My sister—she of the mountain's edge—was coming for dinner, and she was late. Never mind that there is no recorded instance of her being on time for anything: worry, as Hallowell reminds us, easily leaps the bounds of what's reasonable and rational. He calls worry "a disease of the imagination," and tonight my imagination was flush with fever, envisioning all the misfortunes that might have befallen Sally between her door and mine. Feeling the acid seep of a "toxic worry," I put myself in Hallowell's hands: clearly, what I needed was a dose of what he calls "constructive thinking." "Sally is always late," I reminded myself, and part of me listened attentively—and most of me kept on worrying. My body wasn't fooled for a minute: my hands were still clammy, my stomach still jumpy, my heart still throbbing with worry and with the conviction that some of us were born to be anxious.

And others not: just then Sally strolled through the door. "Hi," she said, as unconcerned as ever. "What's for dinner?"

AUGUST 14. Although my first attempt at following Hallowell's instructions was a failure (later I worried I wasn't trying hard enough), I looked forward to applying them to another iffy situation: flying to Chicago and back to report on the annual convention of the American Psychological Association. It's not that I dislike flying: it's the takeoffs and landings that worry me.

Strapped into a seat near the emergency exit, I watched with rapt attention as the stewardess lifted and bent her arms in rote pantomime, and studied intently the laminated card that explained how to leap off the wing of the plane or slide down an inflatable chute, should the occasion arise. Unlikely as these events seemed (my imagination favored more apocalyptic scenarios), mentally preparing for them did make me feel better—what Hallowell calls "getting the facts."

My other weapon against worry was my traveling companion, Marian Jones, otherwise known as the book editor of this magazine. Having learned from Hallowell that one has to ask for comfort outright, I called upon Marian to assure me at various times that the pilot was not asleep, that a bomb was not on board, and that the plane was simply banking to the left, not going down for the final time. Connectedness, says Hallowell, is everything, and when the landing gear connected with the runway I was the happiest passenger aboard.

AUGUST 18. Conference covered, I was on my way back to New York, this time without Marian, who had stayed to catch the last day of the meeting. Never worry alone, says Hallowell, but (as I thought while heading down the runway) we're always alone when we worry. When worry has my ear, it's hard to hear anyone else, and their reassurances only deepen my grim conviction that something is about to go wrong. That's the arrogance, the presumption of worry: that you can anticipate future disasters and, by an act of mental exertion, avert them. It's what Hallowell calls "the secret pleasure of worry," and it may be one I'm not ready to surrender. After all, worry has its uses: it pays my bills on time, keeps batteries in my smoke detector, gets my stories in by deadline (mostly). At that moment, I was sure it was keeping the plane in the air. Safe at the airport, I congratulated myself on a smooth landing.

AUGUST 24. Number 34 of Hallowell's "Fifty Tips on the Management of Worry" is "Take a vacation," and in this case I was happy to oblige. My unconscious packed my worries for the trip, however, as I discovered this morning upon awakening. I'd had a dream about work—something about a double issue of PT that was already late—and its undertow of anxiety had a stronger pull than the ocean I'd come to relax by. There's no vacation from worry, I thought, since it has set up long-term residence in my body: setting in my muscles, working on my neurons. Well, perhaps what begins in the body must be addressed there. Remembering Hallowell's praise for the mood-altering effect of exercise I pulled my running shoes from the depths of my duffel.

Forty-five minutes later, I was sweaty, sun-burnt, and exultant. My worry was laying low for now, and putting on my swimsuit, I headed for the beach—heedless of deadlines or the ocean's head-high waves. I didn't even wear a beach tag.

AUGUST 30. Tomorrow is Labor Day, and as vacation ends and fall begins I already feel weary. Worry is work, and I wonder if I'll ever be done with it. These days, dangers seem to be created as fast as they can be eradicated: a new virus for every vaccination, a carcinogen for every cure. Is it worry that's toxic, or the world we live in? And home is no haven from anxiety. I was raised on worry, fed a steady diet of possible disasters. My mother worries too much, as did her mother; worry's been passed on to me like an old debt, a cracked heirloom nobody wants, and some misplaced loyalty won't let me give it away. A patient of Hallowell's told him "I think me worrying is an much a part of me as my skin." I think so too; if I should shed that skin, what reckless or undefended person would emerge?

But if so weak a thing as will can keep worry in check, then I'm determined to do it. Not to change my essential orientation toward the world: Hallowell doesn't promise that, and I still think such change is impossible. He writes, instead, of controlling worry, managing it, "using it wisely." What I want, and what his book might yet help me get, is one part of worry without the other: the clear-eyed gaze at the world, without the defensive stance; the acute sensitivity to the unfamiliar, without the predictable drill of alarm. Knowing full well I might fall, I want to get to the edge and look out.

Weaving A Web Of Life: A Talk With Edward Hallowell, M.D.

Psychology Today: You're known as the man who helped bring attention deficit disorder to national attention. Why have you turned now to the subject of worry?

Edward Hallowell: Because I'm such a worrier. I attribute my worrying to my chaotic childhood. I tell people I'm from the WASP triad of alcoholism, mental illness, and politeness. I had an alcoholic mother and a psychotic father, and as much as I love my parents dearly, they provided me with no stability. It seems a minor miracle that I've done as well as I have. And I really attribute it to the power of connectedness. I've seen that, time and again, personal happiness depends on the richness and depth of our connections. The connected person is much stronger and able to deal with adversity than the disconnected person.

There's been a lot of research recently looking at anxiety and social connectedness. But how does one go about getting connected?

Number one is the family you're born into; it's our biological connectedness. Many people these days have very little contact with grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles. They tend to feel less secure.

How do you stay connected if you've got a chaotic family, as in your case?

You can replace [the family connection] with a strong set of friends, which also can be a security network. People today have a host of acquaintances, but don't have someone they can pour their heart and soul out to. A friend in the old-fashioned sense can be very sustaining. A related kind of connectedness is to institutions and organizations, and this is really threatened these days. The world of Dilbert is the world of the disconnected employee, the employee who feels cynical, exploited, about to be downsized at any moment.

You also talk about connection to information and ideas. But can't the world of ideas isolate you from people?

It can, but done properly it has just the opposite effect: It throws you into the world of other minds. It's important to develop a comfortable relationship with information and ideas.

Historical connectedness is also important. If you have no awareness of the past, you're cutting yourself off from something significant. I named my daughter after my great-great-great great-grandmother, who fought to free slaves and supported women's rights. That name will deepen her sense of where she came from—a strong woman from another century.

And finally, there is connectedness to what is beyond knowledge—God, your sense of the transcendent. Those six spheres of connectedness—to family, friends, the past, information, institutions, and the transcendent—give you a psychological armor that can sustain you through life.

Even if you put all the connectedness into place, isn't there a vulnerability you're going to carry with you from a difficult childhood?

Absolutely. I will never be able to have the bedrock security that someone who had a different kind of childhood would have. But I can come very close. Yes I'll always be a little bit haunted by what was missing in my childhood. But no matter where you're coming from, you can get to a better place with these simple techniques. One of the real bits of good news from the neurosciences is that as much as you can burn the brain, you can heal it, too.

You "come out" as a practicing Christian in your book, which is a risk for someone of such renown in the psychiatric community.

It's a risk that I take knowing that some people will dismiss me, but I think it's worth it. When I wrote "Driven to Distraction," some people said, "You can't say you have attention deficit disorder. You'll be dismissed as some kind of a nut." I said, "How can I tell people not to be ashamed of it if I can't even say I have it myself?" I feel the same way about writing about God. How can I say to people. "You ought to develop a spiritual life," if I don't dare acknowledge my own? I think doctors, and certainly psychiatrists, have not known what to do with spirituality. As a result they've just ignored it, which to me is a huge mistake. It's a very powerful part of the mind, and at least as powerful a part of one's life as sexuality. In my case, a relationship with God is another source of connection. And ultimately, it makes sense of my life in ways that nothing else can. But that's just me.

Psychology Today Magazine, Nov/Dec 1997
Last Reviewed 5 Sep 2007
Article ID: 815

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