Outwitting Our Nerves | Page 2

we learn discrimination.
CHOOSING OUR EMOTIONS 359
CHAPTER XVI

In which we find new use for our steam.
FINDING VENT IN SUBLIMATION 379
GLOSSARY 386
BIBLIOGRAPHY 390
INDEX 393

OUTWITTING OUR NERVES
CHAPTER I
_In Which Most of Us Plead Guilty to the Charge of "Nerves."_
NERVOUS FOLK
WHO'S WHO
Whenever the subject of "nerves" is mentioned most people begin
trying to prove an alibi. The man who is nervous and knows that he is
nervous, realizes that he needs help, but the man who has as yet felt no
lack of stability in himself is quite likely to be impatient with that
whole class of people who are liable to nervous breakdown. It is
therefore well to remind ourselves at once that the line between the
so-called "normal" and the nervous is an exceedingly fine one.
"Nervous invalids and well people are indistinguishable both in theory
and in practice,"[1] and "after all we are most of us more or less
neurasthenic."[2] The fact is that everybody is a possible neurotic.
[Footnote 1: Putnam: Human Motives, p. 117.]
[Footnote 2: DuBois: Physic Treatment of Nervous Disorders, p. 172.]
So, as we think about nervous folk and begin to recognize our friends
and relatives in this class, it may be that some of us will unexpectedly

find ourselves looking in the mirror. Some of our lifelong habits may
turn out to be nervous tricks. At any rate, it behooves us to be careful
about throwing stones, for most of us live in houses that are at least part
glass.
THE EARMARKS
=Am I "Like Folks"?= Before we begin to talk about the real sufferer
from "nerves," the nervous invalid, let us look for some of the earmarks
that are often found on the supposedly well person. All of these signs
are deviations from the normal and are sure indications of nervousness.
The test question for each individual is this: "Am I 'like folks'?" To be
normal and to be well is to be "like folks." Can the average man stand
this or that? If he can, then you are not normal if you cannot. Do the
people around you eat the thing that upsets you? If they do, ten chances
to one your trouble is not a physical idiosyncrasy, but a nervous habit.
In bodily matters, at least, it is a good thing to be one of the crowd.
Many people who would resent being called anything but normal--in
general--are not at all loth to be thought "different," when it comes to
particulars. Are there not many of us who are at small pains to hide the
fact that we "didn't sleep a wink last night," or that we "can't stand" a
ticking clock or a crowing rooster? We sometimes consider it a mark of
distinction to have a delicate appetite and to have to choose our food
with care. If we are frank with ourselves, some of us will have to admit
that our own ailments seem interesting, while the other person's ills are
"merely nervous" or imaginary or abnormal. After all, a good many of
us will have to plead guilty to the charge of nervousness.
We have only to read the endless advertisements of cathartics and
"internal baths," or to check up the quantity of laxatives sold at any
drug store, to realize the wide-spread bondage to that great bugaboo
constipation. He who is constipated can hardly prove an alibi to
"nerves." Then there are the school-teachers and others who are worn
out at the end of each year's work, hardly able to hold on until vacation;
and the people who can't manage their tempers; and those who are
upset over trifles; and those who are dissatisfied with life. To a certain
degree, at least, all of these are nervous persons. The list grows.

=Half-Power Engines.= These people are all supposed to be well. They
keep going--by fits and starts--and as they are used to running on three
cylinders, with frequent stops for repairs, they accept this rate of living
as a matter of course, never realizing that they might be sixty
horse-power engines, instead of their little thirty or forty. For this large
and neglected class of people psychotherapy has a stimulating message,
and for them many of the following pages have been written.
=The Real Sufferers.= These so-called normal people are merely on the
fringe of nervousness, on the border line between normality and disease.
Beyond them there exists a great company of those whose lives have
been literally wrecked by "nerves." Their work interrupted or given up
for good, their minds harassed by doubts and fears, their bodies
incapacitated, they crowd the sanatoria and the health resorts in a vain
search for health. From New England to Florida they seek, and on to
Colorado and California, and