Book or article recommendations about real people overcoming anxiety

November 22, 2010 4:59 AM

Looking for books or articles with inspiring stories of people overcoming anxiety or finding ways to use their anxiety to accomplish great things.

As someone with generalized anxiety disorder but lots of ambition, I would like to read about others who have accomplished great things in spite of having this problem. The more descriptive the text about how this was done, the better. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

posted by Shebear to health & fitness (4 answers total)

Dale Carnegie's How to Stop Worrying and Start Living is a little on the corny side and probably won't solve all your problems, but it's a smooth read and has some decent advice. Amazon Reviews
posted by some idealist at 6:23 AM on November 22, 2010

The Parnas: A Scene from the Holocaust.
posted by Wordwoman at 8:16 AM on November 22, 2010

David Sedaris writes about his quirks, tics and general OCD-ness in many of his essays. Not instructive, per se, but inspiring because he's turned fairly ordinary anecdotes into thoughtful and hilarious standalone works of art.
posted by lhall at 11:04 AM on November 22, 2010

Probably not exactly what you're looking for, but perhaps some Kierkegaard would be interesting to you.
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:32 AM on November 22, 2010