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.
