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Little Panic: Dispatches from an Anxious Life
In the vein of bestselling memoirs about mental illness like Andrew Solomon's Noonday Demon, Sarah Hepola's Blackout, and Daniel Smith's Monkey Mind comes a gorgeously immersive, immediately relatable, and brilliantly funny memoir about living life on the razor's edge of panic.
The world never made any sense to Amanda Stern--how could she trust time to keep flowing, the sun to rise, gravity to hold her feet to the ground, or even her own body to work the way it was supposed to? Deep down, she knows that there's something horribly wrong with her, some defect that her siblings and friends don't have to cope with.
Growing up in the 1970s and '80s in New York, Stern experiences the magic and madness of life through the filter of unrelenting panic. Plagued with fear that her friends and family will be taken from her if she's not watching--that her mother will die, or forget she has children and just move away--Stern treats every parting as her last. Shuttled between a barefoot bohemian life with her mother in Greenwich Village, and a sanitized, stricter world of affluence uptown with her father, Stern has little she can depend on. And when Etan Patz disappears down the block from their MacDougal Street home, she can't help but believe that all her worst fears are about to come true.
Tenderly delivered and expertly structured, Stern's memoir is a document of the transformation of New York City and a deep, personal, and comedic account of the trials and errors of seeing life through a very unusual lens.
The world never made any sense to Amanda Stern--how could she trust time to keep flowing, the sun to rise, gravity to hold her feet to the ground, or even her own body to work the way it was supposed to? Deep down, she knows that there's something horribly wrong with her, some defect that her siblings and friends don't have to cope with.
Growing up in the 1970s and '80s in New York, Stern experiences the magic and madness of life through the filter of unrelenting panic. Plagued with fear that her friends and family will be taken from her if she's not watching--that her mother will die, or forget she has children and just move away--Stern treats every parting as her last. Shuttled between a barefoot bohemian life with her mother in Greenwich Village, and a sanitized, stricter world of affluence uptown with her father, Stern has little she can depend on. And when Etan Patz disappears down the block from their MacDougal Street home, she can't help but believe that all her worst fears are about to come true.
Tenderly delivered and expertly structured, Stern's memoir is a document of the transformation of New York City and a deep, personal, and comedic account of the trials and errors of seeing life through a very unusual lens.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published June 19, 2018
243 people are currently reading
8060 people want to read
About the author
Amanda Stern
2 books102 followersAmanda Stern is the author of the memoir Little Panic, the novel The Long Haul, and eleven books for children written under pseudonyms. In 2003, she founded the Happy Ending Music and Reading Series which she ran until 2016, at Joe’s Pub and later at Symphony Space. She currently writes the psychology and mental health newsletter "How to Live" at https://amandastern.bulletin.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 178 reviews
September 30, 2019
Just wow - what a beautifully written book and so incredibly helpful and validating for those of us with anxiety and for those of us with kiddos who are suffering
May 14, 2018
Wow, after finishing this book I feel like I need to take a deep breath. As someone who suffers from an anxiety disorder, I found much of what Amanda feels/thinks/experiences mimics my own life. Her story in many ways isn't my own, but so much resonated. Amanda spent years of her life in the depths of panic while doctors searched for the wrong answers. Finally, at the age of 25, she gains a name for what plagues her. It's not a cure, but there's strength in a name. Amanda tells her story alternating from past to present, illuminating all of the ways in which her panic shaped her life. A must read for anyone hoping to better understand what it's like inside an anxious mind.
January 31, 2018
Wow! Not a brilliant literary word, but the first word that flowed from my hand as I started to write this review. Little Panic is a brilliant, articulate, honest, and heartbreaking memoir about living with crippling anxiety. As detailed in her book, Stern exhibited symptoms of an anxiety disorder from a very young age, but was constantly tested and told she had a learning disability.
Chapters in this book segue smoothly between her youth, and life as an adult; this ably demonstrates the lasting impact of generalized anxiety disorder left undiagnosed and untreated for far too many years.
As a psychologist, I wanted to scream at every mental health professional and educator who missed what Stern depicts as very clear symptoms. Perhaps the clarity comes from Stern’s growth and insight, as she does share that she did everything she could not to disclose her symptoms for fear of others thinking she was dumb and/or crazy. Yet it really wasn’t until Stern was an adult that anybody even suggested an anxiety disorder. The people in Stern’s life were too busy trying to “fix” her to really look at who she was. As a mother, I understand the impulse to protect one’s child, to make things better and easier, to want your child to fit in, and keep unhappy events from a child who is overly sensitive, even when the manner in which this is accomplished is misguided. As somebody who has a family member living with an anxiety disorder, this book performed open heart surgery without anesthesia.
I find Stern’s ability to tell a story impressive. She weaves the cultural events of her life growing up in Greenwich Village into her narrative, showing how they actually exacerbated her anxiety. Ultimately, one of the themes she explores is “normalcy.” What is normal? Is a child who learns differently actually disabled? And does labeling cause even more damage, especially when it turns out that the perceived difference isn’t one of intelligence or ability, but more one of learning style?
It is impossible to read, put down, and walk away from Little Panic.
Disclosure: I requested and received this book as part of the Goodreads Giveaway program.
Chapters in this book segue smoothly between her youth, and life as an adult; this ably demonstrates the lasting impact of generalized anxiety disorder left undiagnosed and untreated for far too many years.
As a psychologist, I wanted to scream at every mental health professional and educator who missed what Stern depicts as very clear symptoms. Perhaps the clarity comes from Stern’s growth and insight, as she does share that she did everything she could not to disclose her symptoms for fear of others thinking she was dumb and/or crazy. Yet it really wasn’t until Stern was an adult that anybody even suggested an anxiety disorder. The people in Stern’s life were too busy trying to “fix” her to really look at who she was. As a mother, I understand the impulse to protect one’s child, to make things better and easier, to want your child to fit in, and keep unhappy events from a child who is overly sensitive, even when the manner in which this is accomplished is misguided. As somebody who has a family member living with an anxiety disorder, this book performed open heart surgery without anesthesia.
I find Stern’s ability to tell a story impressive. She weaves the cultural events of her life growing up in Greenwich Village into her narrative, showing how they actually exacerbated her anxiety. Ultimately, one of the themes she explores is “normalcy.” What is normal? Is a child who learns differently actually disabled? And does labeling cause even more damage, especially when it turns out that the perceived difference isn’t one of intelligence or ability, but more one of learning style?
It is impossible to read, put down, and walk away from Little Panic.
Disclosure: I requested and received this book as part of the Goodreads Giveaway program.
September 25, 2018
Thanks to the author for the ARC of this book!
Warning: We about to get deep up in here.
Growing up, I went through a phase where I had to ask my mom every single night, “Are you going to die tonight?” And she’d say, “Nope, I’m not going to die tonight.” Only after I got this reassurance could I go to sleep. I felt like my asking the question somehow kept her alive. I used to be so afraid that my parents were going to get divorced, even though they got along great, that one time I threw up all over my bed. When I went to overnight trips, I would be so afraid my parents would die while I was gone. I literally couldn’t think of anything worse. When my mom left the house to run errands, I used to sit by the window and wait for her to get home, convinced if I stopped keeping watch, something would happen to her. I worried and worried and worried, because if you worried about something, then it probably wouldn’t happen, because people said most of the things we worry about don’t come true. I didn’t want to be caught off guard by a tragedy I hadn’t prepared for. My little brain told me that worry kept the tragedies from happening.
All that to say, reading about Stern’s childhood experiences with anxiety was a little uncanny. My anxiety wasn’t exactly the same as hers, but she would mention something that she’d do or feel as a kid, and I’d be like, “That isn’t normal? All kids don’t do that? Because I totally did/felt that.” It was eye opening to realize how much of my fears and choices were a result of anxiety/OCD. I’m so incredibly thankful to God that I was able to treat mine early on and had such a wise and loving family who helped me to do things even when I was afraid so that my situation didn’t escalate the way hers did.
Overall, a well-written and interesting read that will help you have more compassion for yourself or someone in your life with anxiety. At times, the metaphors and poetic language were a bit confusing/much for me, but that’s just a stylistic preference.
I love the point of the last chapter: if you have anxiety, extend others grace, because many of their actions are coming from a place of anxiety, too.
Also, can someone please tell me that Taylor guy is in prison or something?
Warning: We about to get deep up in here.
Growing up, I went through a phase where I had to ask my mom every single night, “Are you going to die tonight?” And she’d say, “Nope, I’m not going to die tonight.” Only after I got this reassurance could I go to sleep. I felt like my asking the question somehow kept her alive. I used to be so afraid that my parents were going to get divorced, even though they got along great, that one time I threw up all over my bed. When I went to overnight trips, I would be so afraid my parents would die while I was gone. I literally couldn’t think of anything worse. When my mom left the house to run errands, I used to sit by the window and wait for her to get home, convinced if I stopped keeping watch, something would happen to her. I worried and worried and worried, because if you worried about something, then it probably wouldn’t happen, because people said most of the things we worry about don’t come true. I didn’t want to be caught off guard by a tragedy I hadn’t prepared for. My little brain told me that worry kept the tragedies from happening.
All that to say, reading about Stern’s childhood experiences with anxiety was a little uncanny. My anxiety wasn’t exactly the same as hers, but she would mention something that she’d do or feel as a kid, and I’d be like, “That isn’t normal? All kids don’t do that? Because I totally did/felt that.” It was eye opening to realize how much of my fears and choices were a result of anxiety/OCD. I’m so incredibly thankful to God that I was able to treat mine early on and had such a wise and loving family who helped me to do things even when I was afraid so that my situation didn’t escalate the way hers did.
Overall, a well-written and interesting read that will help you have more compassion for yourself or someone in your life with anxiety. At times, the metaphors and poetic language were a bit confusing/much for me, but that’s just a stylistic preference.
I love the point of the last chapter: if you have anxiety, extend others grace, because many of their actions are coming from a place of anxiety, too.
Also, can someone please tell me that Taylor guy is in prison or something?
September 10, 2019
Wha a brave and honest book. Amanda Stern writes about what it is like to be like a child like no one else. I gained a whole new level of compassion. I learned that her Happy Ending Reading Series, where I once took a risk and rode a unicycle, was Amanda's secret garden. I learned about a secret garden in the Village that I wish that I could go to. I feel so sad about Frankie and her childhood house on MacDougal St being sold, a house that I never went into. This book made me feel like I was there.
July 15, 2018
As someone who deals with severe anxiety and was not able to put a name on it for most of their childhood, this book broke me. Reading Amanda’s story of a cry for safety and to be understood was something I felt deeply in every page, and could relate to with her breathtaking vulnerability. Her early years are spent trying to find her safe person, someone to give her name to all of these consuming thoughts, while her adult years are spent trying to find someone to accept it. Those of us who suffer from severe anxiety are often told we’re just being negative or too worried, but as Amanda shows in this book, anxiety is something so deep in our core and being that the idea of switching it off like a light when we’re engulfed by it is so far fetched. Anyone who has anxiety or loves someone with it should pick up this book because the truth and beauty of someone wrestling with it is felt on every page.
January 18, 2019
Amanda Stern bares her soul in Little Panic to tell the life of living with panic disorder. I admire anyone who does this. Would be highly therapeutic. Parts were really good but a lot was grating on my nerves. The first half of the book was causing me anxiety. It was bouncing between timelines and repeated a lot. The book was much too long and wordy.
June 25, 2018
Memoirs of anxiety are exhausting to read.
July 18, 2019
Wow. I just finished listening to the audio version of this book, and I immediately ordered the print version because there is so much I want to go back to and reread. Having lived with anxiety for my whole life, there is so much here that is highly relatable. But what really got me was the sense of hope in the end and acceptance that anxiety will always be a part of the author's life, but there's help and ways to cope with the constant companion that anxiety can be. It's also a reminder that all the things anxiety can make us worry about happening might actually happening, but we can survive those things.
This can be an intense read for those who have struggled with anxiety, but it also is deeply affirming and a reminder that you are not alone in living with the challenges of an anxious mind. For those who love someone with anxiety, this book is a window into what it is like to deal with it.
I am thankful that Amanda Stern put this story out into the world. I needed to read something like this right now. This is a beautifully written book.
This can be an intense read for those who have struggled with anxiety, but it also is deeply affirming and a reminder that you are not alone in living with the challenges of an anxious mind. For those who love someone with anxiety, this book is a window into what it is like to deal with it.
I am thankful that Amanda Stern put this story out into the world. I needed to read something like this right now. This is a beautifully written book.
July 14, 2018
Couldn't put this down. Brilliant, heartbreaking, riveting portrayal of growing up in NYC with an undiagnosed panic disorder. I was completely immersed in Amanda's world. Her descriptions of being a child struggling to understand and interact with the world around her were incredibly evocative, as were her descriptions of life growing up in the Village during the 70's/80's. Strongly recommended to anyone who has ever dealt with anxiety or known someone who has, and to anyone else, because it's a really great read.
November 6, 2018
This was the most accurate portrayal of anxiety I've read. I loved how she was able to capture her childhood anxiety. Her writing is so beautiful. It seems insane that it took her that long to be diagnosed. I would have liked to hear more about her journey from diagnosis to where she is now
May 1, 2019
I’ve never read a book that so perfectly explains what goes on in the mind of someone who suffers from anxiety disorder. Amanda gets it. She gets it and she wrestles it to the ground every damn day. She survives. She thrives. This quote moved me so much: “the landscape is always changing. Behind every new store is an old one, behind every person is an entire lineage, and inside all of us are choices we make again and again until we decide to make better ones.” I want to be like that.
September 6, 2018
Parts of this book were so, so good and others were awfully dull. I, like the author, had my best friend in 5th grade die suddenly. We have that in common and it is a huge theme throughout the book. This made me feel connected to the book. Many thoughts Stern explores, I myself, have explored. However, it's the woeful, self-wallowing feel of Little Panic that just rubbed me the wrong way. In the end despite the very good parts, I still thought it was just okay. One reviewer wrote that they too have anxiety (as do I) and read a lot of books about the disorder (as do I), however, reading an entire book about one person's anxious view of the world and the events around her was not enjoyable or cathartic in anyway and I have to say I agree. #smallrantover I did enjoy it though. Partly. Also, who is doing cocaine on the reg at 16?! And detoxs alone for a week without anyone finding out while confined to their bedroom. Some of this seemed a little far-fetched. #littlepanic #bookworm #bookish #bookstagram
March 27, 2018
A STUNNING, evocative story about the meaning of living with an undiagnosed panic disorder, LITTLE PANIC grips and discomfits in the best way. Stern's honesty is compelling, her humor always spot on. She is a consummate New Yorker from the last moments when New York was still gritty and still had that thing called a soul and kids ran around unfettered by adult supervision. At turns moving, sad, funny and always entertaining, the book shifts seamlessly between adulthood and childhood. These layers convey a woman who is still an eight year old and a child who is wise beyond her years, sometimes dangerously so. (Sometimes the teacher in me wanted to dive into the book and save her!) Ultimately, the book is an examination of life and loss from two perspectives that show how-- and where-- panic nestles in the crevices of experience and what it means to look back and forth and make sense of it all. LOVED this book!
September 12, 2018
As soon as I began this book, I started looking over my shoulder. Never before have I read a description of some of the fears that have haunted me since childhood. Like Amanda, I was afraid to sleep away from my parents; like Amanda, I was ostracized and internalized it into proof of my own deep unworthiness; like Amanda, the bad things people promised me wouldn’t happen *did happen* and it left me thinking that I was the only responsible person around.
While this story didn’t directly mirror my own, parts were so spot-on that I had to take notes. And the ultimate conclusion—that those closest to her could not see her anxiety because they had their own, even if it looked different than hers—is the most compassionate realization I can imagine, especially given how many years Amanda went without a diagnosis.
This book may not mean anything to you if you have never been a worrier, or an anxious person, but if you have? There’s so much love in here.
While this story didn’t directly mirror my own, parts were so spot-on that I had to take notes. And the ultimate conclusion—that those closest to her could not see her anxiety because they had their own, even if it looked different than hers—is the most compassionate realization I can imagine, especially given how many years Amanda went without a diagnosis.
This book may not mean anything to you if you have never been a worrier, or an anxious person, but if you have? There’s so much love in here.
August 15, 2018
This is a must read for anyone who suffers with anxiety! It is brave, brilliant, and honest. I could relate in so many ways that my dog got tired of me screaming "Me too!". This book should have been written by the the psychiatric community years ago, thankfully Amanda Stern has finally written the book we have been craving. She is so correct that age, understanding, self-acceptance all lead to greater compassion and empathy for those people (and animals) around us. Brava Ms. Stern!!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
September 13, 2018
I absolutely loved this book. If you, or someone you love, lives with anxiety - this is a MUST READ. It's incredibly enjoyable and reads like a novel, but it's the best description I have ever read of what it's like to live in my mind and my body. I felt like Amanda articulated feelings I have had for ages but could never quite explain. In short, while reading this, I felt understood. I am so glad I bought this book, and I know I will read it many more times.
May 20, 2018
Stern does a fabulous job of putting the reader inside the head of someone who struggles with anxiety. I felt her confusion and pain and so wished I could tell those around her to pay more attention. How do you get to 25 without someone realizing that you have a condition that can be helped?
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June 25, 2018I'm not going to rate this book, because if I don't give it 5 stars, I'm afraid the author may have a panic attack if she reads this. It's a difficult book to read because she's been through such hell.
October 5, 2018
Meh...as someone who has lived with panic disorder for almost 17 years and has had anxiety since I was young also I found the book enjoyable but it wasn’t just a knock my socks off kind of book. Quite a bit of repetition made the book too long and took away from the humor.
May 22, 2018
Little Panic is a memoir of panic and anxiety. I have generalized anxiety disorder and this book was like a therapy session. It’s always nice to know you’re not alone in the world of anxiety.
June 28, 2018
BOOK OF THE YEAR!!
August 31, 2018
An insightful and incredibly vulnerable look into Amanda's life. Very appreciative that authors like Amanda are willing to share their stories to help those who suffer similarly from anxiety.
November 10, 2018
Courageous, honest, resonant, and a total page-turner.
August 17, 2018
I’m an anxious person, and though I’ve never had a full blown panic attack, much of what Stern recounts from her childhood sounds familiar. The anxious, dreadful thoughts that run through little Amanda’s mind made my heart break.
Amazing that this girl, who lived in a nice house with a family who loved her, would bob along in panic-filled waters for years, undiagnosed and untreated.
How she turned her life around is truly inspirational.
Stern mentions the disappearance of Etan Patz, a kid from the neighborhood, as an anchoring event in her young life. Confirmation that bad things do happen. Like the Lindbergh kidnapping, this event must have resonated with many anxious kids and their parents. Stern talks about it a lot in the book and I wondered at times if it was excessive, but looking back, I think not.
Amazing that this girl, who lived in a nice house with a family who loved her, would bob along in panic-filled waters for years, undiagnosed and untreated.
How she turned her life around is truly inspirational.
Stern mentions the disappearance of Etan Patz, a kid from the neighborhood, as an anchoring event in her young life. Confirmation that bad things do happen. Like the Lindbergh kidnapping, this event must have resonated with many anxious kids and their parents. Stern talks about it a lot in the book and I wondered at times if it was excessive, but looking back, I think not.
February 10, 2019
Absolutely amazing ... one of the best memoirs I have read on mental illness . It made me cry it made me laugh .. Anyone who has suffered with anxiety will relate to this book .
May 18, 2024
An interesting, well written and detailed memior. I really enjoyed this one, but I felt like it was a little bit long. However, it was easy to read and understand, I sympathized and resonated with a lot of the pieces of Stern's life that she shared in this book.
4 stars.
4 stars.
April 26, 2022
As someone who struggles with anxiety and who has two teenagers who struggle with anxiety I saw all three of us in Amanda Stern's Little Panic: Dispatches from an Anxious Life. I loved this book for a myriad of reasons but mostly because for the first time ever I had language that could describe what I and possibly my kids feel and a really good description of how we have navigated the world to get where we are today. Stern speaks of her struggle with seeing and experiencing the world differently from everyone else around her and, to be honest, it is a little heartbreaking to read. Even though Stern grew up in the 80's when there was much more focus on a child's physical health instead of their mental health, it's hard to read about her struggles and the neglect of her family to do anything about them.
Stern writes the memoir from the first person point of view and, while I always find this style of writing to be powerful, it is extrememly powerful as she tells her story, first told from the point of view of her as a young child. She at first writes about her separation anxiety from her mom: "None of my friends have to watch their mom all the time to make sure she doesn’t die or disappear." She only knows safe (when she's with her mom) and unsafe (when she's not with her mom), something that carries with her throughout teenagehood and beyond.
As she grows, her anxiety grows and morphs and shadows her ability to learn. She is taken to specialist after specialist and evaluated multiple times but no one would ever give her a diagnosis: "The tests didn’t care about my experience of the world; no one asked me questions they didn’t already have answers to. There was a way I was supposed to be, and I didn’t match."
Nor does anyone ever tell her "what is wrong" with her so she thinks she has a learning disability and is broken and stupid: "Something is wrong inside me; I’ve always known that, but I don’t want anyone to ever see that I’m not the same as they are. If they find out, I’ll feel humiliated and want to leave the world."
It's not until she is diagnosed with a panic disorder, social anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder at the age of 25 that she can see her life with new eyes. She realizes that her mom, dad, and other relatives all had anxiety too but it looked different in them.
What I loved most about this book was the way Stern describes the world through her anxiety/worries/panic as a child and teenager. It wasn't until my kids were diagnosed with anxiety that I began to realize that how they described what they were feeling in their bodies was akin to how I had felt for a very long time. Stern describes this feeling like this: "Even when there is nothing to feel afraid of, I feel a fear, like something very terrible is about to happen. My chest and stomach fill with butterflies, a heat presses up under my skin, and my body vibrates like someone’s drawing a chaotic black-and-white scribble and won’t stop."
She writes about her struggles of being different and how the world unfortunately sees and treats those who are different: "The message to people who learn differently, who are poor test takers, or who display any physical, emotional, or intellectual variance, is that we’re not who we should be, and who we are isn’t right ... This terrible truth binds us all: fear that there’s a single, unattainable, correct way to be human. We rely on measures that disregard human characteristics such as empathy and emotion to tell us who we are. Unconsciously, we consider these results our worth, and we shrink or expand our self-image to fit inside these notions, but we are not our results, just as we are not who other people imagine us to be, and yet we are placed and displaced according to these returns. We spend our lives unwittingly applying this system of measurement ourselves, raising our children on it, and teaching them to pass it down."
Reading this book has given me a window not only into myself but into that of my children. It has made me question whether they are living in a hidden world of their own making because of how society (still!!) treats people who are different.
Thank you Ms. Stern for writing this book!
Stern writes the memoir from the first person point of view and, while I always find this style of writing to be powerful, it is extrememly powerful as she tells her story, first told from the point of view of her as a young child. She at first writes about her separation anxiety from her mom: "None of my friends have to watch their mom all the time to make sure she doesn’t die or disappear." She only knows safe (when she's with her mom) and unsafe (when she's not with her mom), something that carries with her throughout teenagehood and beyond.
As she grows, her anxiety grows and morphs and shadows her ability to learn. She is taken to specialist after specialist and evaluated multiple times but no one would ever give her a diagnosis: "The tests didn’t care about my experience of the world; no one asked me questions they didn’t already have answers to. There was a way I was supposed to be, and I didn’t match."
Nor does anyone ever tell her "what is wrong" with her so she thinks she has a learning disability and is broken and stupid: "Something is wrong inside me; I’ve always known that, but I don’t want anyone to ever see that I’m not the same as they are. If they find out, I’ll feel humiliated and want to leave the world."
It's not until she is diagnosed with a panic disorder, social anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder at the age of 25 that she can see her life with new eyes. She realizes that her mom, dad, and other relatives all had anxiety too but it looked different in them.
What I loved most about this book was the way Stern describes the world through her anxiety/worries/panic as a child and teenager. It wasn't until my kids were diagnosed with anxiety that I began to realize that how they described what they were feeling in their bodies was akin to how I had felt for a very long time. Stern describes this feeling like this: "Even when there is nothing to feel afraid of, I feel a fear, like something very terrible is about to happen. My chest and stomach fill with butterflies, a heat presses up under my skin, and my body vibrates like someone’s drawing a chaotic black-and-white scribble and won’t stop."
She writes about her struggles of being different and how the world unfortunately sees and treats those who are different: "The message to people who learn differently, who are poor test takers, or who display any physical, emotional, or intellectual variance, is that we’re not who we should be, and who we are isn’t right ... This terrible truth binds us all: fear that there’s a single, unattainable, correct way to be human. We rely on measures that disregard human characteristics such as empathy and emotion to tell us who we are. Unconsciously, we consider these results our worth, and we shrink or expand our self-image to fit inside these notions, but we are not our results, just as we are not who other people imagine us to be, and yet we are placed and displaced according to these returns. We spend our lives unwittingly applying this system of measurement ourselves, raising our children on it, and teaching them to pass it down."
Reading this book has given me a window not only into myself but into that of my children. It has made me question whether they are living in a hidden world of their own making because of how society (still!!) treats people who are different.
Thank you Ms. Stern for writing this book!
December 3, 2018
I sort of knew before reading this book that it was going to be amazing. Something just spoke to me from the cover. I was even more amazed by reading it. As someone who suffers from mild anxiety this book just sang to me. I used to sit on the stairs for hours when I was little, watching my mum and dad in the living room, worrying that they were going to die and leave me, worrying that my brother might die and leave me, worry that we would never be able to find each other in the universe if any of us died. I feared being kidnapped, I worried about animals, the Earth, a lot of stuff. Even as an adult working in the lead up to Christmas, I would only feel "safe" once I had wrapped everyone's present and labelled it so that if I died coming or going to work, people would still be able to get their presents! And when I would come home from work on Christmas Eve, I would shut the door and feel like I'd made it!! When you have these feelings and their reasons are unknown, you feel like a bit of a nutter and you assume that no-one else feels the same. Obviously as you get older, you realise there are countless individuals out there who are all suffering the same. I love that Amanda Stern puts a name to it and describes it so fluently. I can only implore anyone with anxiety (or without anxiety that wants to understand the situation better) to read this book. It is a true gift.
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March 7, 20221.5 stars.
- Anxiety and panic attacks are horrible.
- Even then, no one other than the author’s closest friends and therapist should be subject to the neverending self-wallowing streams of consciousness in this book, at least not in this quantity. Things became tedious after the first 10%.
Subjective impressions (how the book came across; I don't know the realities behind the memoir):
- Teenage Amanda reminds me of Evan Hansen: the manipulativeness, the ever-more-elaborate lies.
- Everything was about her and her emotions, with little consideration for the impact her actions had on the people around her. I did feel for little Amanda, but at some point the self-centeredness started to rub me the wrong way. She never quite grew out of it, despite a life that seemed privileged.
- Anxiety and panic attacks are horrible.
- Even then, no one other than the author’s closest friends and therapist should be subject to the neverending self-wallowing streams of consciousness in this book, at least not in this quantity. Things became tedious after the first 10%.
Subjective impressions (how the book came across; I don't know the realities behind the memoir):
- Teenage Amanda reminds me of Evan Hansen: the manipulativeness, the ever-more-elaborate lies.
- Everything was about her and her emotions, with little consideration for the impact her actions had on the people around her. I did feel for little Amanda, but at some point the self-centeredness started to rub me the wrong way. She never quite grew out of it, despite a life that seemed privileged.
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