When it comes to treatment, drugs are central to the story. Since that first dose of Thorazine, aged 10, in 1979, Stossel has almost never been off some form of psychiatric medicine. He is, as he wryly observes, “a living repository of the pharmacological trends in anxiety treatment of the last half century”. Stossel’s experiences with anti-anxiety drugs reflect the successes and frustrations of the pharmaceutical movement. On one hand, as he says, “the drugs do work”. On the other, they don’t work very well. They can contain, but rarely cure. Stossel reluctantly takes tranquillisers and antidepressants, believing in their efficacy, yet he resents being treated with “a one-size-fits-all solution”. He cannot escape the sense that he is “hiding” his condition with drugs because he lacks the moral fibre to face it head on.