Cover photograph supplied by Anton Biletskyi-Volokh; horizontal crop preserving both eyes.
A thematic selection of translated notebook fragments.
Anxious thoughts give little things enormous shadows.
The level of aggression always corresponds to the inner sense of danger.
Rejecting anything good for fear of betraying the familiar bad.
Fear is a way of defeating boredom. Give yourself a fright, and things get interesting straight away.
Sometimes the fear of a possible loss is so strong that it paralyses the ability to act. Losing in advance so as not to lose.
For anxious people, fear is like coffee: it perks you up and helps you borrow strength from yourself.
Living without ever showing yourself means never really living, out of fear and shame.
De-idealisation happens when the idealised object can no longer contain all the repressed anxiety.
Anxiety is an unpleasant feeling, but sometimes it is a load-bearing structure that gives us at least some sense of life.
Fear of closeness as an expression of separation anxiety: coming together with somebody means leaving an imagined mother.
Sometimes a person feels deeply worried, but not about what is actually worth worrying about.
Listening to your heart is good when your mind is clear. When your mind is anxious, you listen to your heart and hear tachycardia.
Behind endless demands and complaints against the world lies fear. If the world is not perfect, it must be dangerous.
One reason for getting stuck in anxious thoughts is difficulty shifting attention. You think of something bad and get stuck there.
— I cannot live unless I anticipate everything. But if I anticipate everything, I do not live.
The paradoxes of obsessive thinking.
Panicking is the flight response in words. A panicker always spends more strength on panic than on overcoming the actual danger.
Bitterness reveals inner fear and a life lived under threat. If someone is at peace inside, why spend their strength on fury?
Sensitivity to criticism and a paralysing fear of possible judgement reveal a fragile self-image. As though other people's words could destroy it.
Fear of abandonment is self-objectification. An object can be discarded; a subject whose relationship ends may grieve, but can cope and go on living.
Avoiding freedom as a fear of abandonment and loneliness. If I do not depend on anyone and nobody depends on me, who needs me?