Customer Reviews

Hope and Help for Your Nerves (Signet)

5 star:		(127)
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I was in my early 20's and experiencing severe anxiety that consumed me. I had a medical education but was never taught about panic attacks or severe anxiety states. As a matter of fact, the medical school that I attended seemed to cover just about everything there was to know about psychiatry (at least at the level that I was currently at) with the exception of the sort of anxiety that can consume you and destroy your life.

I was having these attacks of severe anxiety, odd thoughts would race around my mind, my heart would race at rates as high as 200 beats per minute, I'd sweat profusely, my arms and legs would go numb, at times I would fall to the ground and pass out, and I felt as though I was coming out of my own skin. And the people around me couldn't usually tell that anything was going on. I became an expert at hiding this illness that I had no definition for. I would have done anything to find a cure for this "illness" I had. There were numerous times that I was convinced that I was having a heart attack. I'd run to the clinic at the school I was going to and be seen by a resident who would assure me that my heart was fine. Perhaps I had a flutter in my heart or something wrong with my thyroid gland or my adrenals. Tests showed I was fine. One after another, test after test, I'd be told that everything checked out just fine.

But I was dying inside. I felt crippled in a horrible way. It became so bad that I feared some public places. Mys favorite pizza place where I'd visit about 3 times per week, at the local mall in Des Moines, was always a place of joy and respit for me. The food was great and it was so enjoyable to be around fellow Italians. All was fine at the pizza parlor until the day I had a panic attack while waiting in line for my order. I fell to the floor and begged my friends to take me out of the mall. I just had to get outside to get some air. I thought I was losing my mind.

After a very long battle and after many visits to therapists, psychiatrists and other healtcare providers, I went to a meeting that was listed in the paper for people with anxiety. I could barely make it to the door, but was assisted by a friend who was trying to help me. The meeting was no very enjoyable, however on the way out of the meeting place I saw a book that was on the table. It was on sale for just 25 cents! I read the back of the book, entitled "Hope and Help for Your Nerves", by Dr. Claire Weekes, and found enough information to grab my attention. I was at the end of my rope. I had no idea that this 25 cent investment would change my life forever.

I've never read a book so fast in my life. I started to read it on the way home from the meeting I attended for people with anxiety. I was happy to get home as home was my "safe place" and the breeding grounds for my agoraphobia. By the end of that night I had read the book 2 times. I connected with absolutely everything in the book. Medicine hadn't worked. Psychotherapy didn't help me. Religion wasn't paying off. Meditation couldn't touch my severe panic states.

Claire Weekes is to be commended for many things. I wish, deep down in my heart, that there was a way for me to contact her to let her know that she saved my sanity and probably my life too. The book was filled with information that made total sense to me. She described what was causing the anxiety states and precisely what was happening in my body. She also repeated that I'd never die from a panic attack. Actually, not a soul has ever died from a panic attack. It sure feels like you're about to die or lose your mind. But have faith as help is around the corner.

I would never suggest a book to help cure an illness unless I knew 100% that the information was true and helpful. I'm telling you that this book saved my life, saved my relationships and kept me from even thinking I was crazy. Less than one week after reading the book, I realized I had not had any panic attacks. I feared that they would sort of pop out of the blue and grab me when I wasn't watching out. But Claire Weekes even described this type of pre-panic anxiety states. Months later I had mastered how to deal with anxious situations and how to breathe through and accept my panic-should it happen again.

It doesn't matter how long you've been suffering from your anxiety disorder or panic state. It's not a situation where the length of time you've spent with the illness will determine the length of your recovery time. This is one of those special freebies in life. Everyone wins by reading Hope and Help for Your Nerves. I still find time to read it and I'm reminded each time that I'm going to be fine and that I will never die from one of these panic attacks and my fear of having an attack in public isn't realistic now that I've read the book.

I suggest this book for anyone who is suffering. Suffer no longer and purchase this book or check out a copy at the library. If money is a real issue, please email me and I will see if I can find a used copy for you. And for those people out there who have loved ones with anxiety problems or panic attacks-this book is perfect for you. There is plenty of information that will explain what your loved one is experiencing. It will also help you take care of yourself and allow you to not feel responsible.

Clearly, this is one of the best books I've ever read. It is the best of true non-fiction and has saved the sanity of more lives than I can imagine. I would never pitch anything I didn't believe in. And this small book has added more to my life than I could ever have dreamed of. I went from being agoraphobic and locked in my home, to hosting telethons in front of thousands of people. It really works and I wish you all the luck in the world. No matter what your situation, you will find peace in reading this book.

Please feel free to email me or start a discussion through Amazon.com. I know what you are going through. I, too, was where you are today. Take a deep breathe and know that this will pass, what is happening is natural and can be controlled and healed forever.

My warm wishes to all. And if anyone knows of a way for me to meet Dr. Claire Weekes, the author who saved my life, please let me know.

I sure hope this review helped in some way.
Peter V. Cannice
Scottsdale, Arizona
Email: Horsepete@aol.com

This book should be extremely helpful to anxiety-disorder sufferers. I would like to mention, though, that the "feelings of unreality" chapter is a little misleading, in that it suggests that the feelings will fade faster than they actually might. Weekes suggests feelings of unreality (also known as depersonalization neurosis) will fade in a few months if one remains active, despite the symptoms. (Remaining active despite the symptoms is the key.) It tends to take longer than a few months, and the symptoms tend not to fade, but lift in "layers." The symptoms will fade only very little, but then there will be a dramatic thinning of the symptoms all at once! It often takes a number of layers to lift before you are back to feeling normal. So don't get discouraged if you haven't seen progress despite being active. Because tomorrow may be the day when a layer lifts! Anyway, this book is very helpful for people. I would like to mention that the comedian/actor Steve Martin (as he's related in a 1980 "Playboy" interview and elsewhere) suffered from panic attacks for years when he was a writer for the "Smothers Brothers Show." He wouldn't go to movie theaters for years out of fear that he would suffer a panic attack in the theater. But then he read up on panic disorders, and was able to cure himself of them. He was cured of them so totally, that he was then able to go on and become a top comedian and then a movie star. If Steve Martin can cure himself of a crippling anxiety disorder, then so can you! And this book should help.

My first episode of deep anxiety came upon me when I was 18 years old. There was much I didnt realize about myself, namely, that I had a far more sensitive conscience and a very powerful sensibility to right and wrong that my lifestyle was at deeps odds with. For 3 days I did not sleep, eat or have a moment of peace. Pure panic would not leave, ebbing and flowing in terrible ways. I thought this was perhaps what losing ones mind felt like and that a hospital was the next step for me. There was an immense amount of self-pity and if-onlys that moved through me. More than all else, no one could understand what I was saying. I would use words like anxiety and see people try to access stressful moments in their life only to realize they had no idea what this felt like.

Over the years these episodes have continued and for so long I used modern terminology to describe them, such as major depressive episode and other DSM terms. I would spend days and days searching the internet, reading blogs, articles and more and NEVER NEVER finding anything that sounded like what I was going through. I heard a lot about disorders, like GAD and it all pointed to mental illness. I have tried to avoid anti-depressants my whole life as wish to see if this pain has a purpose, and I do not wish to block it, but recently had decided to begin on a series due to how exhausted I was with a recent episode that has been on and off for a month. For so long I waded through my sub-concious, sought therapy, dug into my childhood, analyzed and analyzed and analyzed everything desperate to discover the cause and the root of this demon within. Just when I felt like I understood something, some new aspect of the problem would present itself and it was all back to the beginning.

For me, I never related to the panic attacks that I heard a lot about. There seemed to be a blurred line, but I never felt like I was dying, or like my heart was going to explode. I had cold sweats, and racing pulse, and heart beating out of my chest, but it lasted for hours, not minutes and panic attacks didnt sound like what I had, although MENTALLY I was in a full on panic often. This book clarifies the difference and the reasons why they are the same.

I offer this story because I believe after reading this book, that I was never alone. Due to the complexity of terms now and the fact that so much is simply labeled mental illness and disorders there is no help to be found for FACING our problems and our anxiety, just new ways to label things and new medications to help us not feel. The truth is that often times those who suffer from this illness are beautiful souls who feel the depth of beauty in this world more acutely than many others and this sensitivity is why they love so deeply, feel the pain of others as if it were their own and why they are the poets, artists, dreamers, inventors, who taste the stuff of God in every breath, yet these powers when out of balance can create madness and chaos because of our sensitivity. Understanding that this illness is all about the sympathetic nervous system being out of balance and fueled by thinking patterns that are destructive was huge for me. To learn to let a thought float, to accept it, and pass through it, no matter how uncomfortable it was was pure poetry to understand.

This book stands apart from ANYTHING else I have yet found. I am sure there is other useful material out there, but please get this book if you struggle with any kind of deep anxiety. We know how much this can hurt, and how it can be truly living hell to endure. Please begin the process of getting the help you need from a doctors whose life work lives on in each of us. Her love is plain, her concern so deeply felt even in the way she writes. She knows what it is to endure this, somehow she knows and more than this she gives the way out for those who are able to realize the truth of her words.

You are not alone. Remember it is often your beauty which can turn too deeply inward and creates over-sensitivity which when met with a serious problem/conflict can result in a nervous explosion. This is the way out, along with love from others, and the help of God where faith is already in place.

I have suffered with panic disorder for 14 years now and have been agoraphobic for about 7 years. This is the first book, in all of that time, that has been of any real and lasting benefit to me. If you purchase this book, and really let it sink in and follow Dr. Weekes instructions, you can't go wrong. I have been getting out for over 2 weeks now and am feeling like my old self again, I'm even considering going back to work! I cannot say enough good about this lady and her help that she has given me, more than any doctor or therapist that I have ever visited. Thank you Dr. Weekes for helping me, you're a true God send. Megan

Buyers of "self help" books about anxiety, of which I am one, are serious customers. They are not buying to amuse themselves with a tale of espionage or high drama. They are not buying to inform themselves of the complexities of world politics. If they've reached the point where they feel they must buy a book to "help" themselves, then the book they buy is not a book at all. It's a "religious" tract to save themselves from the daily torment that serious anxiety (GAD, PTSD, OCD, etc.) may bring. It's a serious purchase filled with hope that the next book holds the secret to normalcy. A life without anxiety. I've bought literally dozens of books on anxiety and find they are well meaning, well informed, and mainly (not always) ineffectual. Along these lines I have developed an invaluable tool which reliably predicts the relative value of a self help book: It's called "underlining". In this regard, Claire Weekes is without peer. The well worn, tattered and underlined books of Claire Weekes are well known to those who read her little books (Mainly: Hope & Help For Your Nerves and Peace Through Nervous Suffering) And why? Because you sense in every line she writes a person who understands the mind of an anxious individual and who more importantly can transmit a positive message that affords the anxious mind a comfort that no other book can. Is the book dated? Yes. No GAD-OCD-PTSD But that's part of its charm. Instead, she uses the language of comfort. And that's a word that a serious customer can relate to.

I"ve read in these revuews some pros and cons, to which I'd like to respond:

1. Con: This is a book about dealing with anxiety. It's not about trying to solve the problem that initiated the anxiety. For that, Dr. Weekes, talks about "need[ing] a wise counselor" who will give to a "point of view" that you can "glimpse" to get a "new perspective".
Pro: YOu may trivialize this approach, but the anxiety problem becomes an issue in and of itself, and sometimes drawfs the original problem. Sometimes, as in the case of a Panic Attack, there may be no reasons causing you to be nervous, just body physiology and biochemical interactions. In either case, the anxiety becomes the issue. You may feel anxious for no special reason, and then attribute whatever you were thinking or whereever you were with "danger". You feel fear, and then you feel fear about feeling more fear. And try to avoid that thinking or situation for fear of duplicating that experience. She calls this "second fear". It hits the nail right on the head.

2. Con: It has a quaint anarchronistic approach:
Pro: Enough can't be said about the tenor of the book. No anxiety book I have ever read has taken a non-clinical way of describing a problem. This factual approach may describe the problem and profer a solution, but reads like a veritable textbook.I wonder how many of you out there started reading a self help book, and came away with a jumble of facts, and more nervous than before, Claire Weekes wrote a book. Factual yes, but couched in such a way to think you were listening to a wise old Grandmother at he fireplace. I can't underestimate how reassuring this is.

3, Con: It's not sophisticated enough. It's superficial and does not benefit for advances in psychology:
Pro: I've read the book literally dozens of time. You can hardly pick up a page that doesn't have a nugget of wisdom. It really feels -and I can't overemphasize this- that's she KNOWS what you're thinking and how frantic you are to find someway out of this maze. Her answer to this is always simple, enlightening and to the point.

4. Con: She doesn't differentiate between the various anxiety disorders.
Pro: These anxiety problems all have the same thing in common: anxiety! This is their common thread. The individual has conditioned themselves to superstiously associate anxiety with a person, place or thing. And nobody views the issue of anxiety with more insight than Dr. Weekes.

5. Con: She doesn't talk extensively about depression
Pro: She does but not in an comprehensive way, true. If you are suffering just from depression you may look somewhere else (David Burns for example), However, if the depression is secondary to anxiety than the chapter on depression (which she likes to call "depletion") can be your guiding light.

(...)

This book it tattered and torn and thoroughly worn, but I still keep it on my nightstand and refer to it often. I always feel so much better after reading it. This is the best book I have ever read on dealing with panic disorder. Not only is it jammed packed full of useful information, but you feel a little less alone after reading it. Any symptom you feel that is related to anxiety disorder, I guarentee you, it will be in this book, and it will be discussed. I praise God for Claire Weekes and her kind and thoughtful manner of helping people with this condition. I promise you that if you buy this book, you will NOT be disappointed.

Dr. Claire Weekes had an understanding not only of medicine and the human body, but people as well. In particular, she understood those who suffered with nervous symptoms and illness. She promised no magic secret or elusive cure known only to her, but set out in a sensible, realistic way to explain just how nervous symptoms 'trick' the body.

So many people are pushed to the brink because they don't understand what the body can do under prolonged stress, or as Dr. Weekes calls it, 'sensitization.' The heart skips a beat, you can't catch your breath, the pulse races, the stomach churns, you feel constantly off-balance, your hands tremble and on and on. Until you think you are some sort of mental case. Not so.

Because of the different personalities of individuals, (we all see and feel things differently), our thoughts and emotions can greatly enhance our lives and conversely they can make us miserable. It is interesting to note that most people who suffer from nervous disorders are quite feeling, kind, sensitive people. Those who suffer the tortures of an overloaded mind and nervous system often suffer quietly and believe that no one ever has suffered as they have.

Not true. You can get through it and this easy to use and practical book shows you how in great detail. The answer is simple though often not easy. It takes committment and practice on a daily basis to 'retrain' the brain and muscles that the terrifying feelings are just that, feelings. Depression, anxiety, phobias, and fears of all sorts are the product of a heightened sensitivity that can be overcome with understanding, patience with yourself, and a willingness to change.

When I first read this book, I was convinced that the symptoms I was experiencing were mine and mine alone. No one would or could ever understand, and to a large degree that is true. We are all different. It can be a living nightmare to go through prolonged symptoms and at the same time try and get those close to you to understand them. But the honest truth is that the way out of suffering is through it.

Of course, medication can help greatly. Some people may need it a short while, and others for a long time. It doesn't matter. You wouldn't tell a diabetic to just 'straighten up' and throw their insulin away unless of course, they no longer needed it. If it sounds as if I am a fan of medication prescribed under the right conditions by a competent doctor, I am. No one should feel guilty for trying to tackle nervous symptoms in whatever way they feel comfortable.

But you may also find that with the tools you will learn about in this book, the need of medication dramatically decreases. The key point is not to let the opinions of those without experience in what you are going through to dictate how you 'should' be. Be kind to yourself. You are a human being and deserve the right to live a life free of the agony of nervous symptoms. This book will show you how in a remarkable way. Yes, it really works.

Dr. Weekes was far ahead of her time in so many ways. But she also stands on a solid and timeless foundation of understanding and common sense that sets her apart from others in the field who claim that cures can be effected in strange and bizarre ways. Get this book, do what it says, and practice, practice, practice. Then endorse yourself for the effort win, lose, or draw. There is a way out and with Dr. Weekes' methods, you will learn how.

I've suffered from anxiety and panic attacks and agrophobia for over 6 years. I thought I was alone until I found Dr. Claire Weekes book. Her advice and explainations and my hard work led to recovery. I since helped start up and lead a self-help group based on her teachings. I've read many books on this topic and I have found Dr. Claire Weekes to be the absolute BEST. Any question you have, any symptom you experience, she explains. There is a pattern to this illness and she helps you understand this, there is a path into this illness and there is a path out. Many could be spared much suffering if we had been educated along the way about our natural responses to prolonged stress. Dr.Weekes has since passed on but she has left a wonderful gift of freedom to those who follow her advice.

At the time I purchased this book, I was in the midst of a bout of anxiety. After 4 weeks of nervous suffering, I bought this book(not being one to seek out drugs to help me with my issues). After only the first few chapters(!), I felt loads and loads better!

Dr. Claire Weekes has written a book in a way that soothes and relaxes you. If you are willing to try to beat your illness without psychiatric help or drug therapies, this is the book to read!

She lays out fundamental principles on dealing with anxiety to relieve your agoraphobia, panic attacks, somatic illnesses, obsessions and more.

Really a great book!

After suffering for many years with panic attacks I decided to see a psychiatrist, he recommended that I read Dr. Weekes book. I honestly have to say that after reading this book again and again that my attacks started to disappear. It was the first true understanding as to what was happening to me. I would recommend this book to anyone who is suffering from any kind of panic disorder. There was a time in my life when I never thought I would be able to leave my house, now ten years later I am traveling around the world on business (by myself). If you think that you can not be free from the awful state of panic please read this book. It can change your life, it did for me.