The Box: An Invitation to Freedom from Anxiety

Product Description

Are you ready to find your way out of your box?
There is a moment when you realize your life is no longer your own. You made it picture perfect. You thought it would make you happy and whole. You thought you could seal the walls tight and feel safe. But the panic doesn’t pass, and the anxiety seeps in through every crack. Your pain uses perfection to hide the unraveling. But deep inside, you still hear the whisper of a voice that’s always been there, calling to you, promising that you were meant for more.
In The Box, Wendy Tamis Robbins offers a window into the mental illness of an all-star athlete, Ivy League-graduate, and successful attorney. At just 6 years old, Wendy’s first panic attack sparked a 40-year struggle with a variety of anxiety disorders: generalized, social and health, eating disorders, phobias, intrusive and suicidal thoughts, and dissociation. Avoiding anything that could trigger her symptoms, she retreats into a box to contain and hide her condition. After years of living in the prison she originally constructed as her safe place, Wendy is no longer willing to limit her life to accommodate her disorders.
Raw and powerful, vulnerable and intimate, The Box is both a triumphant memoir and an irresistible invitation. It portrays a courageous journey to find the source of a debilitating disorder in order to find the power to overcome it. Wendy’s experience reminds us of the redemptive power of forgiveness and the healing power of love, not just for others, but for ourselves. It is a story of courage that reframes mental illness sufferers as survivors—a powerful portrait of a woman who refused to remain caged in a box of her making. Now, the invitation is yours… if you are willing to accept it.

Review

A memoir tracks a woman’s four-decade struggle to overcome debilitating panic attacks.
“As a child, I was overwhelmed by my fears and began building walls to protect myself from what caused them,” Robbins writes. She found a favorite place to hide from the chaos that erupted periodically in her home during those early years—a cardboard box, salvaged packaging for a new refrigerator her parents bought. Over time, she learned to build internal walls, a sturdy mental “box” that would protect her from an ever-increasing list of fears. By adulthood, those walls were firmly in place, keeping her safe but also preventing her from experiencing a full and joyful life.
“She began suffering panic attacks when she was only 6 years old. Here, she viscerally describes her childhood fear of rain, part of her broader fear of water: “No one could really understand it because they couldn’t see what I saw inside my mind—the water filling the house or car, the hands on the windows grasping at life, the corpses floating on the water.” To ward off imagined dangers, Robbins strove obsessively to establish order—everything in its proper place, doors locked, windows closed. She became a compulsive perfectionist, tormented by a poor body image, which led to roller-coaster years of dieting and overeating.
“In the most gripping passages of this intimate book, the author brings readers directly inside the experience of enduring a panic attack, which eventually would occur during classes, on trains, and, most frightening, while driving a car: “Your mind races through the scenarios—how long can I last without oxygen, is there a blood clot, am I having a stroke? Then the warm wave of terror washes over your body, making every hair stand on the end of a million goosebumps.” With a determination to understand and confront her fears one by one, Robbins uses writing to revisit the timeline of her life.
”Although this too frequently results in repetition, her prose is lyrical and imaginative, often reaching into the mystical.
An informative, painful, and engaging portrait of acute anxiety that ends on a high note.”—Kirkus Reviews
”Wendy Tamis Robbins comes across as a woman with the world in her pocket. She’s an esteemed la