Anxiety and Panic Survey

Hey friends. So if you listen to my podcast, Death Of 1000 Cuts, follow me on social media or know me in real life, you’ll probably know that I manage pretty bad anxiety and panic disorders. I’m working on a potential book about my experiences, and about my trying to finally kick my anxiety in the goolies before I hit 40. I’d really like to get well, and there are scientists and therapists and laypeople and religious practitioners all over the world working on this very problem, so I feel like the answers must be out there, providing I’m prepared to make some changes.

Part of what I want to do is find out how other folks’ experiences match up to my own. Not just people currently with anxiety and panic, but people who’ve had it at some part of their lives, and people who are mostly calm too. I’m very conscious that, although I can speak authoritatively on my own experiences, there’s a vast range of lives and ways in which fear can present out there, and lots of people who don’t live in grinding fear or fitful terror. I would really, really love to get the beginnings of some insight into how life is for you, fear-wise.

I’ve made a short survey and I would be so grateful if you could spend a few minutes filling it in. It’s completely anonymous – it doesn’t ask for your name and as far as I know it doesn’t even take IP addresses, even if I knew how to exploit those. It’s also completely unscientific – I won’t be using any of the data to make sweeping generalisations about the state of anxiety and panic, because clearly there’s huge selection bias, the question design is untested and I have no training in either clinical psychology or statistics that would allow me to parse such data. Think of it more as a big online suggestion box I’m using to connect with my fellow humans to get a sense of how we’re all feeling. It’s possible some answers might find their way into the book, if it one day exists, but also they might not.

There are some important caveats and qualifiers in the intro, mainly about taking care of yourself – if you’re feeling in a rough way at the moment, and you think answering a few questions about your anxiety might send your mood spiralling, your wellbeing is far more important than my pissant survey so please leave it for another day! Also, any signal boosts and shares greatly received.