Can Reading a Book Cause Anxiety?

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you you learn, the more places you’ll go”-Dr. Seuss, from “I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!”

I don’t go anywhere. I don’t do anything exciting. So to pass the time I read books. Books take me places. I get to read about other people’s thoughts and adventures. Because of the stories, I’ve become an armchair traveler. I get to live a thousand different lives without leaving my chair.

So I have to wonder? Am I doing myself a disservice reading about the lives of others? Does reading cause me anxiety? Or does it just expose the anxiety that was already there?

The first book I remember reading was “Charlotte’s Web”. I was seven. When coming to the end of the story and learning Charolette dies, it hit me hard. I recall running downstairs into my father’s lap and crying. I believe that experience of loss left me with no desire to continue reading.

My parents weren’t readers. No books, newspapers nor magazines were ever purchased. I don’t think I ever set foot in a library as a kid. Our dinner conversations were non-existent. We’d sit down and eat while Walter Cronkite told us the news. Nothing in my world pushed me toward books. If anything, it pushed me away from them.

When I attended Southern Illinois University, I had a teacher who recognized I was not a reader. He wanted to help me learn how to concentrate. He gave me a book list and explained to me how to open my mind and relax before I started to study.

He told me “Hallee, before you study, you need to open your mind. Relax. Go to the library. Find a carrel. Sit down. Pick any book you want, not a textbook and read for fifteen minutes. Once you are comfortable pick up your text. You just need to locate the thesis statement and then read the first sentence of every paragraph to get the gist of the topics. “

For me this system worked! And something else happened. I figured out I liked it! I liked losing myself in novels. After a lifetime of TV and silence, I found out I could disappear into a story and come back okay.

Now I read novels. A lot of them. And the more I read the more I noticed something. I have become an observer in other people’s adventures and have empathy for the principal character. I feel as though they are my best friends, and when I finish the story I feel a loss. This drives me to find another book that will replace that feeling. I understand that in order for the book to move forward the protagonist must suffer. Every one of them tells of misfortune, some loss, some hard turn they didn’t ask for. But they kept going. And in the end they find some kind of peace. Some kind of tranquility. Usually surrounded by family, a love or friends. And I think that’s where my anxiety comes back. Not from the words on the page, but the life off the page. Because the more I read, the more I feel the luster go out of my own life. I’d sit there enjoying other people’s adventures, other people’s travels and realize I wasn’t doing anything myself .

Maybe reading holds up a mirror. The books aren’t the problem. The fact that I’m still in the chair when I close them is. Or maybe armchair travel is still travel. I haven’t decided yet. But I’ll probably read another chapter and think about it.