The Monkey Mind Chronicles » Personal

Introducing the Therapy Log

Daniel Smith — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:10:19 +0000

I recently went back into therapy, and I’ve decided to track my progress — and lack of progress — in a series of videos. Below is the first in that series.

Anxious disclaimer: this video is longer than it probably ought to be. Future installments will be shorter.

The “Tales from the Amygdala” Project

Daniel Smith — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:04:23 +0000

Today marks the formal beginning of a new video project here at The Monkey Mind Chronicles. It’s a project I’m calling “Tales from the Amygdala,” after the putative seat of fear in the human brain. (Alternative title: The “It Might Not Get Better” Project. But I’d like to stay optimistic.)

The idea is to post an original video — every Monday, if possible — from people who have struggled or are still struggling with anxiety and panic. The videos should be on the short side, two-to-four minutes or so, and the guiding prompt is simple: What makes you anxious? If you have an anxiety-horror-show story (you know, like the time you were so nervous you vomited on your history professor) please tell that. If not, then just say what anxiety means to you personally. What role has it played in your life? How have you coped? How would you define your relationship with your anxiety?

Today we have a great video submitted by the standup comic and writer Jason Good, whose hilarious and original blog I commend to everyone. And now, without further ado, enjoy basking in Jason’s insanity:

Please submit links to all videos (uploaded to Youtube, Vimeo, etc.) to dansmonkeymind@gmail.com. And here’s another great video, from the standup comic and soldier Benari Poulten.

The voice in my head

Daniel Smith — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:31:14 +0000

Heathre Contant, our very talented and clearly very strange engineer on the n+1 podcast, edited an audio file of me (this is from a forthcoming interview with editor and author Keith Gessen about the publishing industry) to produce what sounds uncannily like the voice that plays in my head beginning at around 5am and continuing until breakfast.

Telling the World

Daniel Smith — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 21:04:13 +0000

Monkey Mind comes out in about seven months, and as the final changes get implemented (a word my editor has banned me from using due to some horrible prejudice), and I continue to drive the copy editors, proofreaders, and sub-editors mad with all my niggling worries about commas and semi-colons and line breaks and the like, one worry does not seem to have me bolting up at night in a cold white panic. This is the worry of what people keep calling “exposure,” as in: “Dan, aren’t you worried about all the … exposure?”

What they mean to ask is whether I’m nervous about people knowing the towering extent of my anxiety. Strangely, I’m not. I’m worried about people knowing the towering extent of my inability to write as well as I’d like. I’ve been trying to get my editor to include the following blurb on the hardcover:

“Now the world shall know the full scope of my ineptitude. If I could, I’d buy ever last copy of this book and bury them in my backyard. But I don’t have a backyard, cause I’ve made a lot of mistakes in life.” —Daniel Smith

She won’t do it.

The so-called revelations don’t bother me much, though. I’m not entirely certain why this is. It could be that the act of revealing one’s vices and disturbances has become so common in our time — so almost reflexive — that there’s simply nothing to be nervous about. If Paris Hilton can record herself fellating a guy in night vision, why should I be concerned about telling people I’m anxious? Where’s the shame when there’s no such thing as shame anymore?

And if there should be shame in self-revelation, why should there be shame in self-revelation about anxiety, of all things? Anxiety is universal. It might have a pathological tinge to it now, but it’s an evolutionary fact. No anxiety, no vigilance; no vigilance and the lion in the bushes catches you unawares, tears your head off, and rips the meat right off your ribs. All hail anxiety!

Also, I hope that whatever self-revelations exist in the book don’t exist for their own sake. That is, I hope they’re included because they say something significant about how our minds work and don’t work, about how our minds can become these feral, unhinged things.

Still, there’s a bridge too far, in my mind. I’ll write a book about anxiety, but I refuse to wear this shirt. I don’t want everyone to know.