Anxiety: A Very Short Introduction by Daniel Freeman

Author:Daniel Freeman [Freeman, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780199567157
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2012-12-15T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Panic disorder

In 1837, just a few months after returning from his epic five-year voyage around the globe on the Beagle, the 28-year-old Charles Darwin began to experience a number of puzzling and distressing symptoms, including palpitations, breathlessness, trembling, nausea, faintness, and sudden fear:

I have awakened in the night being slightly unwell and felt so much afraid though my reason was laughing and told me there was nothing and tried to seize hold of objects to be frightened of.

The attacks persisted until the end of Darwin’s life, 45 years later, and the scientist-adventurer rapidly became a recluse, unwilling even to leave his home unless in the company of his wife: ‘I have long found it impossible to visit anywhere; the novelty and excitement would annihilate me.’

Darwin’s doctors diagnosed a variety of illnesses, among them ‘dyspepsia with an aggravated character’, ‘catarrhal dyspepsia’, and ‘suppressed gout’. Today, discussion in clinical journals concludes that what he may actually have been suffering from was panic disorder.

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