The Anxious Achiever

1 Anxious Ambition

Many people can trace their earliest experiences with anxiety back to childhood, and that’s definitely true for me. I had agoraphobia when I was three. I wouldn’t leave the house; I clung to my mom. Hypervigilance, a state of extreme high alertness, began in my turbulent childhood and is something I still manage today. But what led me to finally get help was a massive, terrifying panic attack when I was nineteen. I was diagnosed with cyclothymic disorder (and later with bipolar II) and generalized anxiety disorder and was fortunate enough to receive treatment, mainly in the form of psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and antidepressants.

Still, over the next several years I cycled between anxiety ...