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uglyoldcreep 's review for:
DNF. The book generalizes anxiety and sort of does a kitchen sink approach about ways of managing it. Then with that kitchen sink, throws around some pretty dodgy ideas.
For example, when talking about gratitude journaling, she claims that you can’t be both anxious and grateful at once. As an anxious person who also knows many anxious people, I don’t know any that aren’t grateful when life throws them a bone, especially when they’re used to feeling like everything is going terribly.
Another, which I found hilarious, was suggesting that you speak to a child when you’re anxious. The thought process behind this is that having to change your cadence and subject matter can help you get out of your head. However, I couldn’t help but think of the passage as I stood in line at the store and heard a child saying, “Mom! Moom! Mommy! If we got this, we could put it on a cat! Mom! Can we get a cat?! Mooooom!”
Along with this, I feel like the author mixes some of her issues with OCD into the same pot as her anxiety, and that causes some descriptions to land poorly. Like, she describes anxiety as the sense of things needing to be done when nothing needs to be done. That we have some void that needs to be filled. That’s certainly a kind of anxiety, but that’s handled differently than what I normally experience, which isn’t so much the sense that nothing needs to be done and I feel like something needs to happen, but that I have an ongoing reel of catastrophic scenarios I’m expecting to happen, which is different.
All around, I can’t recommend this. It’s getting her experience and applying it broadly in ways that don’t really guide the reader. And sure, she’s clear upfront that this is more of a memoir, but there aren’t many stories or real memories that are relatable.
For example, when talking about gratitude journaling, she claims that you can’t be both anxious and grateful at once. As an anxious person who also knows many anxious people, I don’t know any that aren’t grateful when life throws them a bone, especially when they’re used to feeling like everything is going terribly.
Another, which I found hilarious, was suggesting that you speak to a child when you’re anxious. The thought process behind this is that having to change your cadence and subject matter can help you get out of your head. However, I couldn’t help but think of the passage as I stood in line at the store and heard a child saying, “Mom! Moom! Mommy! If we got this, we could put it on a cat! Mom! Can we get a cat?! Mooooom!”
Along with this, I feel like the author mixes some of her issues with OCD into the same pot as her anxiety, and that causes some descriptions to land poorly. Like, she describes anxiety as the sense of things needing to be done when nothing needs to be done. That we have some void that needs to be filled. That’s certainly a kind of anxiety, but that’s handled differently than what I normally experience, which isn’t so much the sense that nothing needs to be done and I feel like something needs to happen, but that I have an ongoing reel of catastrophic scenarios I’m expecting to happen, which is different.
All around, I can’t recommend this. It’s getting her experience and applying it broadly in ways that don’t really guide the reader. And sure, she’s clear upfront that this is more of a memoir, but there aren’t many stories or real memories that are relatable.