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Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety

3.18 of 5 stars 3.18 · rating details · 1,920 ratings · 346 reviews

In the insightful narrative tradition of Oliver Sacks,Monkey Mindis an uplifting,smart, and very funny memoir oflife with anxiety—America’s most common psychological complaint. We all think we know what being anxious feels like: It is the instinct that made us run from wolves in the prehistoric age and pushes us to perform in the modern one. But for 40 million American adu...more

ebook, 224 pages

Published July 3rd 2012 by Simon & Schuster

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Mar 20, 2013 Emma rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir, non-fiction, rape, anxiety

Woah, this was SO not what I was expecting! Do you see that blurb?

Anxiety once paralyzed Daniel Smith over a roast beef sandwich, convincing him that a choice between ketchup and barbeque sauce was as dire as that between life and death. . . . With honesty and wit, [Smith] exposes anxiety as a pudgy, weak-willed wizard behind a curtain of dread and tames what has always seemed to him, and to the tens of millions of others who suffer from anxiety, a terrible affliction.

I thought this would be a...more Woah, this was SO not what I was expecting! Do you see that blurb?

Anxiety once paralyzed Daniel Smith over a roast beef sandwich, convincing him that a choice between ketchup and barbeque sauce was as dire as that between life and death. . . . With honesty and wit, [Smith] exposes anxiety as a pudgy, weak-willed wizard behind a curtain of dread and tames what has always seemed to him, and to the tens of millions of others who suffer from anxiety, a terrible affliction.

I thought this would be a humorous look at a general late-capitalist malaise: anxiety and a bit of choice paralysis. I had no clue that the book would open with the fact that starting when he was 15 Smith was groomed by an adult co-worker from his after-school job, and when he was 16 she and another woman raped him. His mother sent him to a therapist who uncannily resembled his sexual abuser. A different therapist he saw in college seems to have been truly incompetent.

Smith's anxiety stems from believing that he was not raped, but was, rather, weak willed. Defective. A "pushover . . . shamefully, contemptibly, pathetically, unreservedly acquiescent to the wills of others". When you believe, erroneously, that you made a free, uncoerced choice to have sex with someone you did not desire, but actively disliked, of course you will think your decision-making sucks.

Writer Eric Weiner is quoted on the back of the book, calling Smith's rape "an ill-fated menage a trois". *facepalm*. Would Weiner say the same thing about a 15/16 year old girl slowly and carefully groomed then coerced into sex by an adult male and his friend? Because I don't think so. And it sickens me that young men's sexual abuse is so trivialised.

The writing in this book is good, but honestly, Smith's story hurts my heart. I hope this book helped him.

Jess.marie, in the comments to this review, points out that anxiety is a serious and terrible condition. I do not argue against this point at all. I can completely understand that an anxiety disorder is both serious and frightening. Further, I think this book shows that rape can be an extremely damaging event, with repercussions that are long-lasting and life-altering, even if others dismiss your rape as sexual experimentation.

I think possibly Jess.marie and I can agree that the blurb for this book is terrible: in no way does it convey the depth of pain and hurt that Smith goes through.
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Jul 03, 2012 Linda marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads, biography

I received a copy of this book for free through Goodreads First Reads. I tend to read the first chapter, or several if they are short, of books I receive in order to get a better feel for them, before I have time to read them entirely through and write a proper review. I enjoyed what I read of this one and look forward to finishing it.

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Mar 27, 2013 Marcy Italiano rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Yeah, you can say it piqued my interest. I told (hubby) he didn't have to read it, as he's lived with it for over 20 years. If you have any kind of ANXIETY, the kind that makes you feel on the outside of normal, you might enjoy this book. That is, if you feel it is psychologically healthy for you to do so. You may or may not be as bad, the same as, or worse than the examples given by the Jewish boy-teen-man, but the anxiety is presented in such a way that it's almost a character. It's lightheart...more

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Oct 31, 2012 Rob Freund rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm going to do something that I've never done before in a book review. I'm going to recommend that you NOT read this book. It's not because Monkey Mind isn't an effective expose on what an individual suffering from chronic anxiety lives with; it is. It's at times darkly funny, as Smith has few problems poking fun at his own complexes. Other times it's very informative; you can tell he has done his research, and hasn't relied solely on personal experience. All in all, Monkey Mind is engaging, a...more I'm going to do something that I've never done before in a book review. I'm going to recommend that you NOT read this book. It's not because Monkey Mind isn't an effective expose on what an individual suffering from chronic anxiety lives with; it is. It's at times darkly funny, as Smith has few problems poking fun at his own complexes. Other times it's very informative; you can tell he has done his research, and hasn't relied solely on personal experience. All in all, Monkey Mind is engaging, a little tragic, and sometimes wandering in the way that a storyteller is wont to be as they look back on their life.

However.

One other thing Monkey Mind is, is gratuitous. Only at the beginning, only in the first chapter, and only for a few pages, but it is enough for me to caution any casual reader against picking this memoir up and reading it. Smith believes his anxiety to have been triggered by an incident of statutory rape when he was fifteen; this is something that is understandably traumatic for any individual, and I can both sympathize and grieve for the writer. Nevertheless, I feel that he broached this with the reader indelicately. There are ways to present this to a person that conveys the emotion, the tragedy and the impact, without the use of lewd and graphic description.

As I said, this is literally about two pages of the book, but it was off-putting enough for me to warn off a potential reader. Yes, it was that bad. As you read this, you're probably thinking to yourself, "Who is this prude, who hopes to be a counselor and can't put up with some descriptions of trauma?" And that's a valid question; it's why I kept reading the book rather than returning it to the store, as was my initial impulse. Therapists are privy to the best and worst of humanity, and in each person's own story. I have no doubt that in my practice I will hear similar, if not more graphic accounts. It's the responsability of a therapist to be able to listen to such a narrative and be compassionate; otherwise what good are we?

No, what I take issue with is not the telling of his tale, or that he would disclose what happened. I take issue with Smith's indelicacy and presentation in such a public format. This is a book on display at a bookstore, with a brightly colored, inviting cover. The reader is expecting a memoir on anxiety (which we get) but not a sex-education lesson. If the casual reader wants to learn about anxiety, I suggest that there are other books out there to explore.

Having said that, I cannot deny the clinical pertinence of Smith's story. He writes well, and my eyes were opened to the personal experience of chronic, pathological anxiety. As a therapist, that insight is invaluable and helped to qualify my own personal experiences with anxiety, as well as to understand the spectrumal nature of the symptoms. So often, as we live through our own brand of panic, we come to impart meaning and severity towards the higher end of the charts. After all, what do we ever have but our own experience to compare ourselves to at a given moment? Monkey Mind allows you to place your own experiences into a larger contextual frame of operation, as any good psychology oriented memoir should. As a therapist in training, it was also helpful to compare Smith's own history to the criteria of the DSM-IV-TR from an inside-out perspective, rather than with the externalized objectivity by which it is learned.

In short, Monkey Mind is a dark and frank take on chronic anxiety, but I just can't get past my personal convictions regarding Smith's gratuity to refer this book to anyone, excepting perhaps other clinicians. But, even then, surely there are equally insightful, and less offensive memoirs out there about anxiety?

This, and other psychology book reviews, can be found on my website, www.robfreund.wordpress.com (less)

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Oct 14, 2012 Claire rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've been putting off writing this review because it's hard to conceive of doing it justice in a couple paragraphs.

Having struggled with Generalized Anxiety Disorder since I was a little kid, I've read plenty of books about anxiety. Mostly nonfiction from the medical/psych fields, of the "about anxiety" and/or "how to manage anxiety" camp(s). Daniel Smith's book is nothing like that, in that it doesn't attempt to teach or enlighten. Rather, it's his story--his account of what life looks like whi...more

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Sep 30, 2012 Gwen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Read pretty fast cuz it wasn't all that enlightening. However, as someone who knows anxiety, I did identify with two different parts: College and a letter the author wrote to himself. Regarding college, the author questions how a bunch of people that don't know each other can live in that close proximity to each other and try to make everyone like them without it being anxiety inducing. I find that a good questions. Here is an excerpt from the letter: "You have put yourself in a position in whic...more

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Sep 27, 2012 Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Daniel Smith's Monkey Mind is subtitled "A Memoir of Anxiety", and it sounds so promising: a smart, intimate, honest account of one person's battle with an acute, crippling mental illness, combined with a broader perspective of treatments, societal reactions/misunderstandings, etc., like what Andrew Solomon did with depression in his great Noonday Demon, one of my all-time favorites, or Elyn Saks with schizophrenia with her also pretty great The Center Cannot Hold. AND Smith is supposedly "laugh...more

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Aug 23, 2012 Mallory rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I got an advance copy of this book through Goodreads/Firstreads for review.

I was underwhelmed by this book. It started off with potential but didn't really feel like it went anywhere. Daniel Smith has a voice which really comes through, and some of the anecdotes in this memoir are funny and self-deprecating. There are moments which remind me of David Sedaris or Augusten Burroughs, but the highlights are fewer than I'd have liked them to be.

Mostly, this memoir meanders about a topic and eventuall...more

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Jul 28, 2012 Angela rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone who has anxiety, knows someone with anxiety or has an interest in the topic

Daniel Smith made four general observations about anxiety that shows how intimate he is with this particular affliction:

1. Anxiety starts from fear. Once anxious, the brain looks for more things to be fearful of, which begets the cycle. Essentially, anxiety is addictive.

2. There is no cure for anxiety. Only treatment and treatment only works if one is committed to the long process.

3. Anxiety sufferers are not "crazy." Crazy implies a break from reality. Anxiety may be a result of being in "to...more

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Jun 05, 2012 The Bookseller rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

To soothe an anxious mind is like trying to stop a tsunami...with an umbrella. Being one of the millions who suffer from anxiety, I have tried everything to "fix" myself. I have panic attacks about having panic attacks. I am in a constant state of "fight or flight" wherever I go and, at some points of my life, considered hospitalization. That is why I connected so well with Daniel Smith's "Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety."

Friends, family, and therapists always consoled me by saying "You're not...more To soothe an anxious mind is like trying to stop a tsunami...with an umbrella. Being one of the millions who suffer from anxiety, I have tried everything to "fix" myself. I have panic attacks about having panic attacks. I am in a constant state of "fight or flight" wherever I go and, at some points of my life, considered hospitalization. That is why I connected so well with Daniel Smith's "Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety."

Friends, family, and therapists always consoled me by saying "You're not the only one who suffers from this," to which I would reply "Well, where the hell are they?" But I finally found someone, and that someone is Daniel Smith. I have never met him in person, even though he mentions walking around the streets of Boston. Could I have bumped into him without knowing? Was I too busy having a panic attack to notice a fellow anxiety sufferer? I picked up the Advanced Reader's Edition of his book on a whim at work. Maybe I could add another useless anxiety book to my bookshelf...like I really needed another book to tell me to "breathe" when I feel that I am at the bottom of the ocean with the pressure of the water crushing my lungs like a tin can.

Something strange happened when I read the first few pages...Daniel was writing about me. Sure, the names of people and places had changed but there I was living and breathing through his words. Even his panic attacks mirrored my own, they were "cerebral...starting with a thought - a what if or a should have been or a never will be or a could have been - and metastasizes from there, sparking down the spine and rooting out into the body in the form of breathlessness...and a terrible sense that the world I find myself in is...threatening." These thoughts are practically unstoppable, they start with small raindrops of what-ifs, then a flood of what-ifs these what-ifs aren't what-ifs, then an overflowing unstoppable tsunami of impending death or doom. And that umbrella you have isn't going to save you.

Anxious thoughts are completely irrational, like the time I thought I was going to die in one of the bathroom stalls at SSU after a train of thought that went a little like this: "What if the paper I wrote isn't good? If the paper isn't good then I will get a bad grade. If I get a bad grade it will bring down my GPA. If my GPA goes down, no one will hire me when I graduate. If no one hires me, I will have to write erotica for porn websites for money. If I write erotica, some pervert is going to find out where I live. If the pervert finds me, he will rape me. If he rapes me, he will kill me." For some reason, in my irrational mind, a bad grade leads to rape then death just like Smith's anxious mind sees being fired leads to getting aids and dying.

I have done many things to calm my "monkey mind" ( a state of being in which the thoughts are unsettled, nervous, capricious, uncontrollable ) including breathing exercises, meditation, yoga, and therapy but nothing will stop my mind from "bouncing skull-side to skull-side, which keeps flipping and jumping flinging feces at the walls and swing from loose neurons like howlers from vines." Because that is what most anxious thoughts are...shit, waste, useless.

Daniel and I have walked the same roads emotionally (and physically through Boston) trying to deal with anxiety. We've both had " six therapists - as many shrinks as Henry VIII had wives - and five out of six have been almost completely ineffectual, like taking aspirin for leprosy." We both stood "curbside in the wet New England heat, a stout brick dorm - my new home...suddenly seized by the impulse, an impulse it took every bit of self respect I could muster to stop myself from acting on, to go bolting down the road after them, an idiot dog chasing a car" at college. We also found short lived salvation in "a small orange cylinder" filled with little chalky tablets. We have traveled a very long road together but on route he saw something I never did. People who are anxious are highly attuned to their surroundings, they see with "sharper eyes" and feel with " more active skin." We are "more receptive to the true nature of thing than everyone else" and, because of our anxiety curse, to be able view the world with such intensity is "to be an artist."

Daniel describes his condition with spunk and isn't afraid to laugh or even cry in his memoir. Through him we learn about his anxious therapist mother, his first threesome, being exiled to college, and his work as a writer. He gives anxiety a body and a voice by breaking down all the technical mumbo jumbo about peripheral vessels and adrenal medulla and transforms it, to what I imagine to be that creepy old guy at the bar, saying "This right here? This right here is probably really bad for you. You should think seriously about taking off."

This book isn't the end all cure, it doesn't have any relieving techniques or new ways to breath. What it is....is that someone, the someone everyone has been telling you is out there. There are millions of people suffering from anxiety everywhere, and one of them is Daniel Smith. And another...is me.

All anxiety sufferers should add this to their bookshelf!

This review has been featured on Daniel Smith's Monkey Mind facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/katsaddiction...)

read more of my book reviews at shelflifeofabookseller.com(less)

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Jan 28, 2013 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's psychotherapy-as-book-review time:
I picked up a copy of this book because I hoped it would give my anxiety some perspective. Some days I can't even bring myself to leave the house, and even on my good days, I feel skinless and raw. It's always been that way, and lately it's been getting worse.
The good news is, I found some perspective in this memoir. Daniel Smith's symptoms are sometimes eerily similar to my own. The bad news is that Smith is something of an extreme case, at one point appr...more

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Dec 27, 2012 Don rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

As much as I like Smith (I heard him on WTF w/ Marc Maron), this book just didn't pull me in. Smith doesn't really convey what it feels like to suffer from crippling anxiety. I kept thinking back to Marya Hornbacher's Madness: A Bipolar Life. Hornbacher drags us into her mind. When she's manic, we feel invincible. When she's down, we really don't see how things could get better. I left that memoir feeling dizzied, dazed, like I'd suffered with her.

Smith, by contrast, doesn't seem to take his su...more

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Oct 22, 2012 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What a relief to read a book about anxiety that isn't about how to cure yourself (not that I would turn down a cure, but ...) but how someone out there feels just like you do. I should clarify and say that not everyone who suffers from anxiety has all the same symptoms and feelings, but I think we all share something, even just the ability to understand where the odd behavior is coming from (or the hands that look like they were manicured with an immersion blender, to quote the author ... me too...more

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Jan 20, 2013 Andrea rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

On page 170/212 of this book and I can't go any further. I wanted so badly to enjoy this book, from the first time I saw it at the bookstore. For many years I have suffered from anxiety, although not quite as severe as Daniel. I heard this was a light and funny read, and thought that I would be able to relate to much of his descriptions about anxiety. There were a few descriptions of Daniel's that I did relate to, such as his description of anxiety attacks.

For the most part, i found this book v...more On page 170/212 of this book and I can't go any further. I wanted so badly to enjoy this book, from the first time I saw it at the bookstore. For many years I have suffered from anxiety, although not quite as severe as Daniel. I heard this was a light and funny read, and thought that I would be able to relate to much of his descriptions about anxiety. There were a few descriptions of Daniel's that I did relate to, such as his description of anxiety attacks.

For the most part, i found this book very hard to follow. I felt as though the author would start telling a story, and then go off in a totally different direction for a few pages. Many times I found myself asking, "What on earth was he talking about?" of "How the heck did the story end up here?!" and have to go back to the beginning of the chapter to remember what experience it was that he was referring to. One part that I found really difficult, and left me wanting so much more was how he started out describing his severe anxiety while at college for the first few months. He described the suffocating feeling of not being able to find solitude, a place to be alone with his thoughts. He described phoning his parents and telling them how much he hated school and how he wanted to go home. Then, he went off on another rant in a different direction (Can't remember wait it was, as i didnt find it very intersting to the story) then the episode was over and the next one began in which he was 21 and working at 'The Atlantic' and in one section of the book he described his anxiety like this "At school, it was ever present but tolerable, at home, it was ever present and all consuming". Maybe I missed a huge message, but I definitely missed the past 3 years, and how he finally was able to tolerate being at school. I wish he described what he did to be able to tolerate being away, since previously he kept saying he hated it and wanted to go home, now being at home is what made him most anxious?! Perhpas I really did miss something, or maybe this part of his life is described towards the end of the book, which I likely will not get through.

There were a few funny paragraphs, but on the whole i found this story dull and boring and just difficult to get through. It was not linear, and went off on different directions too many times when telling certain stories that I had to give up. I wanted so much to enjoy this book and be able to relate to it, but i couldn't. (less)

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Oct 28, 2012 Judy rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-reads, bio-memoir, health-medical

Skipping the rhetoric.

Robbed!

But, hey, NICE cover!! :-)

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Jul 25, 2012 RandomAnthony rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A.J. Jacobs cover-blurbs Daniel Smith's Monkey Mind. This is not necessarily a positive harbinger. Jacobs has spawned a genre of cutsey-but-not-horrible books in which the author does something wacky like buying a Korean deli or living according to strict Biblical tenets then keeps a diary of his travails and insecurities. Monkey Mind ventures into more serious territory but retains the basic formula. Smith outlines his history with anxiety while straddling the “not too serious” Jacobs approach....more

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Jan 26, 2013 Bethany rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir, psych, non-fiction

First of all, this book should have a trigger warning associated with it. I don't think the author is far enough along in the recovery process to write about it helpfully for other sufferers of anxiety. (Which is not to say that an author must "have it all together" before sharing his experience - I do not think that is the case.) But for the most part, I found this book to be too self-indulgent for me. I would have given it two stars if it weren't for two passages that soundly resonated with me...more

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Dec 19, 2012 nicole rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

As an increasingly anxious person, I normally find reading about other people's anxieties soothing. It's sort of a reminder that what I feel is part of the human experience, and greater than my own petty troubles, like did I lock the front door when I came in from work. It's finding kinship in the experience of the other person. (And also maybe .5% reminding myself that maybe my own anxiety is not THAT bad.)

But this book was too much for me. It was more memoir than anxiety and I found it hard to...more

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Apr 24, 2013 dejah_thoris rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Smith goes many places in this memoir and I really liked his depiction of cerebral anxiety because it matches my own. His eventual control of it towards the end of the book through cognitive behavioral therapy really does work and I'm very happy to see he's surviving. However...

(view spoiler)...more

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Feb 17, 2013 JL Smither rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As someone who doesn't suffer from anxiety, but who loves people who do, I found this book to be very enlightening. Sometimes, it's hard for me to understand this from others' points of view because it gets frustrating. Like when he explains the trip to Italy with Joanna--she didn't just want him to not hate it or to silently endure it, but she couldn't understand what was so awful about such a fun trip. When you're not in that head, it's hard to understand what the problem is. The author's desc...more As someone who doesn't suffer from anxiety, but who loves people who do, I found this book to be very enlightening. Sometimes, it's hard for me to understand this from others' points of view because it gets frustrating. Like when he explains the trip to Italy with Joanna--she didn't just want him to not hate it or to silently endure it, but she couldn't understand what was so awful about such a fun trip. When you're not in that head, it's hard to understand what the problem is. The author's descriptions of exactly what it's like for him helped me get some insight into what must be going on with the people in my life who have anxiety.

I think it's also helpful to me that this is a memoir, not a psychology textbook. It's not here to help you diagnose and treat yourself or others, it's just explaining one person's experiences very intimately and honestly. It gives us a chance to laugh along with the author instead of pitying him or shrinking back in terror. After reading Monkey Mind, I realized that what I've referred to as anxiety is a completely different emotion and experience than what truly anxious people are going through.

Also, I think calling a memoir "self-indulgent" is like calling a sci-fi story "unrealistic." If detachment is what you're looking for, then memoirs are not the best choice for you, which is fine. And I'm not really sure why other reviewers would post a review after only reading a couple pages. I mean, if you can't be thoughtful about your review, just assign it some stars and move on, right? I found the opening scene completely necessary and simultaneously horrifying. The author clearly believes that this was a major contributor to his anxiety for years afterward; it is important for him to explain it from his point of view the way he remembers it, even though it's traumatic. I much prefer that to glossing it over with a clinical or intellectual glaze--show me why this was so horrible to you specifically, and then I'll understand why it affected your life so dramatically.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has ever wanted to tell their anxious loved one to lighten up or chill out and who has struggled to understand why that's not really possible.(less)

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Jan 24, 2013 Porkpie added it · review of another edition

I very much enjoyed this book, with the odd and ironic caveat that, for a memoir about anxiety, it is EXACTLY the passages ABOUT anxiety that drag this book down the most. When Daniel Smith isn't talking about how agonizing anxiety is, and specifically.every.single.permutation.about.how.agonizing.anxiety.is..., the book is fantastic.

Daniel Smith is an extraordinarily capable writer - the syntax and word choices he uses have great flow and weight to them. You're very conscious as you read this b...more

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Aug 23, 2012 Tracy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, 2012

I worry. Sometimes, a lot. It can occasionally keep me awake, make me feel tense, unsettled. When people talk about dealing with an anxiety disorder, I think, "I can relate."

I had no idea.

Well, that isn't fair. I do have some idea, but my anxiety is situational, generally short-term, and reasonably resolved. Daniel Smith lives with my kind of anxiousness (only worse) ALL THE TIME. It must be an absolutely exhausting way to go through life.

It was somewhat exhausting to read. Smith was constantly...more

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Jul 24, 2012 Cynthia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Any one that suffers from chronic anxiety and those that love them.

Shelves: first-reads-winner

Monkey Mind takes a different approach to the issue of anxiety that most books on the topic might choose. The reader is presented with three of the authors significant battles with anxiety and takes the reader from the start (or the perceived start) of the problem through how he has dealt and deals with the anxiety in his life.

For those who suffer the affects of chronic anxiety the memoir gives reassurance that while the anxiety will always be something you have to deal with it doesn't have to...more

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Jan 05, 2013 Catherine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, mainstream-us, medicine, mental-illness, science

Monkey Mind is perhaps best described as a book written for someone on the outside of an anxiety disorder, looking in, rather than someone with an anxiety disorder, looking out. Smith, using his own biography as a focal point, describes what it's like to suffer from anxiety, considers the causes of anxiety - both scientific and otherwise - and charts the prosaic and life-changing effects anxiety can have (for example a) sweat, and b) resigning from your job).

It's a well-written, honest, thoughtf...more

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Sep 16, 2012 Michelle Bouchor rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Having suffered from anxiety for the last 20 years, I felt this was going to be the book where I could say that finally someone put a voice to those of us who suffer from it. While I can completely relate to the "monkey mind", I felt that some of his writings just fell short of really being able to write about how his anxiety is affecting him.

I understand where the moment his anxiety came about (during his first sexual experience), but most of us had anxiety come out of the blue and we can't eve...more

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Dec 13, 2012 Salma rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Daniel Smith clearly has a talent for looking a the humorous side of anxiety. I can't remember the last time a book on anxiety attacks made me laugh out loud till my stomach hurt. The book is exactly what it says it is, a memoir, so be forewarned, it is not about curing/coping with anxiety. He has some tips thrown in (like a hilarious list of occupations and careers that people with anxiety should avoid at all costs) but it is not like Priscilla Warner's book because while she had a concrete goa...more

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Apr 29, 2013 Gary rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: anxiety, memoir, american-history, psychology

Having greatly enjoyed his Muses, Madmen, and Prophets I was intrigued to read Smith's deeply personal memoir about living, suffering, and coping with anxiety. Monkey Mind is a multi-category book: psychological page-turner, science journalism, autobiography, and a tragi-comedy of heroic proportions. Smith has done the field of phenomenological psychology a great service by giving us a surprisingly intimate front-seat account of what-it-is-like to suffer from anxiety. The book impresses on you t...more

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Oct 22, 2012 Rob Kirkham rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people living with the anxious

Shelves: audiobooks, brain, non-fiction, read-2012, autobiography-biography-memoir

Daniel Smith's Monkey Mind recounts the development of his awareness of his anxiety and the subsequent effects this debilitation had on his social and professional life. Told with wry wit and humor, his memoir so vividly paints a caricature of the anxious it nearly instills anxiety into its reader. My own personal dealings with anxiety have attracted me to writers like Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Camus, and Sartre, who deal with this subject at length in their writings. I thought it would be nice...more Daniel Smith's Monkey Mind recounts the development of his awareness of his anxiety and the subsequent effects this debilitation had on his social and professional life. Told with wry wit and humor, his memoir so vividly paints a caricature of the anxious it nearly instills anxiety into its reader. My own personal dealings with anxiety have attracted me to writers like Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Camus, and Sartre, who deal with this subject at length in their writings. I thought it would be nice to get a more contemporary viewpoint, however, so I picked up Monkey Mind and gave it a whirl. To be honest, I thought he focuses too much on the feeling of dread he encounters in the mundane decision making--like whether to put ketchup or bbq sauce on a sandwich--that cripples him, and he does so with such over-the-top description I can hardly take it seriously. It seems like he's almost making fun of the whole thing. I suppose if that is what is at the root of his anxiety, then it makes sense to highlight those points. I wished that he would have spent more time talking about anxiety, its causes and how to deal with it, objectively. Instead, he talks about his specifics ad nauseam. I guess that's why it's a memoir and not a treatise, though. He does delve into the thought of some psychologists and philosophers (Freud, Kierkegaard, his mother), but he does so only cursorily.

That's not to say there is nothing redeeming about this book. He talks about how anxiety affected the lives of his loved ones; how the anxious mind desires isolation so that we won't hurt anyone, but paradoxically drives us to hurt those close to ourselves in order to isolate ourselves. If you suffer from anxiety, you probably don't need this book because it won't teach you anything you don't know from personal experience. But if you are not personally angst-ridden and know someone who is, this book may help you understand a little about how they feel. Bear in mind, this book deals with mature subjects, contains fairly graphic descriptions of sex, and has some word choice that may be considered offensive.(less)

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Sep 23, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: forsaken

I read the first 60 or 70 pages word for word. I wanted to stop reading after the intro but I'd heard good things about this book so I pressed on. However, after about the first 60 or 70 pages, I skimmed the rest of the book.

This is the author's memoir of life with anxiety. That said, the book loses its focus time and again as the author goes on tangents that are unrelated to the topic of the book.

In my opinion, the nervous disorder called anxiety is very complicated, subtle, chronic, baffling,...more

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Dec 22, 2012 Holly added it · review of another edition

I'm really looking forward to reading this book!

I personally struggled from undiagnosed General Anxiety Disorder coupled with Panic Disorder for more than 20 years. I was ashamed of my symptoms and designed my life around camouflaging the illness. If I had only known how common my troubles were and how accessible treatment was for my mysterious attacks. I think it's great that more and more people are talking about their anxiety.

I welcome anyone else who suffers from an anxiety disorder to join...more

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About Daniel B. Smith

Daniel Smith is the author of "Muses, Madmen, and Prophets" and a contributor to numerous publications, including The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and Slate.

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Books by Daniel B. Smith

Muses, Madmen, and Prophets: Rethinking the History, Science, and Meaning of Auditory Hallucination

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“Freedom is anxiety's petri dish. If routine blunts anxiety, freedom incubates it. Freedom says, "Even if you don't want to make choices, you have to, and you can never be sure you have chosen correctly." Freedom says, "Even not to choose is to choose." Freedom says, "So long as you are aware of your freedom, you are going to experience the discomfort that freedom brings." Freedom says, "You're on your own. Deal with it.” — 6 people liked it

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