Soothe Your Nerves The Black Woman's Guide to Understanding and Overcoming Anxiety, Panic and Fear

INTRODUCTION:Bad Nerves or What? Lately, every time I go to church, I miss church. I'minthe building; I just rarely make it to the sanctuary. When I do, the choir has sung and the sermon's half over. Every Sunday for the past year I've left the house with my husband and preschooler determined to participate in an entire service. It hasn't happened. Instead, somewhere between children's church and the sanctuary, I am stopped by somebody who reallyneeds to talk.And it's not just at church. These days it seems everywhere I go, someone wants to speak with me. At the grocery store, at funerals, at the library, even at the carousel in the mall, someone is always stopping me. When I go into my office, it's the same thing. My e-mail and voice mail are filled with messages from women whoneed to talk.What do these women want to talk to me about? What is so important that they lay in wait for me on a Sunday morning, seek me out in public places, and e-mail me halfway across the country? Anxiety and fear, only that's not what they call it. "Nerves," they say, or "This situation is working my last nerve" or "My nerves are bad." Because I am a psychologist who specializes in anxiety among African-American women, they believe talking or writing to me will make it better. What they fail to realize, and what I gently point out, is that talking to me in the hallway for a few minutes during church, snatching a few minutes with me in the cereal aisle, or receiving an e-mail reply from me is not sufficient. Overcoming anxiety and fear involves a daily plan of action.As these women share their stories, I am reminded of the first Black woman I ever met with bad nerves. Her name was Mrs. Golden Williams, and she was the lead soprano in the Prince of Peace AME Church choir. When I was a teenager, Prince of Peace was famous for its choir. Many of the members had sung professionally, and the choir director had sung with the Fisk Jubilee Singers. People actually came to church on time so that they wouldn't miss the choir. There were a number of great singers in that choir, but Mrs. Williams was the best. She had a five-octave range and sounded to me a lot like Minnie Riperton. Her signature song was "It Is Well with My Soul." I used to get goose bumps every time she sang the last line. One Sunday, Mrs. Williams wasn't in the choir. She missed the next three Sundays, showed up, sang "It Is Well with My Soul," and, to my knowledge, never came to church or sang in the choir again.Twelve Sundays later, after sitting through Mrs. Bancroft's pale rendition of the song, I asked my friend Jackie, who at fifteen knew all the church's business, what happened to Mrs. Williams. "Angie," Jackie said, "Mrs. Williams has bad nerves."Not long after Jackie told me this, I witnessed Mrs. Williams's bad nerves for myself. I was in the grocery store with my father when I noticed a familiar figure in the produce section. It was Mrs. Williams, but she looked odd. She was breathing funny and clutching her chest. She ran up to my father and begged him to help her. He walked her to the front of the store and arranged for one of the bag boys to drive her home. When he returned, he shook his head and said, "It's her nerves."It wasn't until years later, when I was training to be a psychologist, that I realized Mrs. Williams's bad nerves had another name: anxiety. Knowing what I know now about anxiety, I believe Mrs. Williams became so afraid of getting nervous that she stopped going places. She stopped singing, and the congregation lost a voice that had been soothing to their souls. She stopped shopping and had meals delivered to her home. Eventually, she stopped going anywhere and just stayed home. Until the day she died, Mrs. Williams never went farther than her own backyard.Over the course of fifteen years of research on anxiety among African Americans, I've met, talked, counseled, and listened tNeal-Barnett, Angela M. is the author of 'Soothe Your Nerves The Black Woman's Guide to Understanding and Overcoming Anxiety, Panic and Fear' with ISBN 9780743225380 and ISBN 0743225384.