I'm not looking to spill a lot of ink on the subject of my own kookiness. This is the first time I've written about any of this, and it's kind of pleasant doing so from a fresh perspective. All the same, I'll keep it pretty brief. The second time I lost my appetite I was almost 25. I'd been living in San Francisco for a few years and working at my second paralegal job for nearly six months. I had a girlfriend and a big house full of friends deep in the Mission District. I was home for the holidays, back in Kentucky, preparing to fly to New York City to celebrate New Year's Eve with friends. I ate a shrimp quesadilla with mango salsa a few hours before I was supposed to head to the airport. Thirty minutes after the last bite, a wave of weird nagging pain crashed through my stomach. I didn't feel sick, but it hurt. I felt light-headed and frantic. The feeling passed. As my plane circled LaGuardia, I nibbled a few peanuts, and it returned. Two hours later, I was in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, at a Polish restaurant with a friend. I contemplated the platter of boiled cheese pierogies, cabbage, and applesauce set before me. I took a bite. Something in my belly bucked. It was as if my innards were caught in the the throes of a coursing electric current. This time, the pain stayed -- fluttering in the depths of my gut like a little molten bug -- and my whole body couldn't help but shake -- just barely, but almost constantly once I realized the sensation in my stomach wasn't leaving. I gobbled antacids but they did no good. I didn't want to eat because food made my stomach hurt more. I wasn't sick in any other way, but I worried I was dying nonetheless. I ran up a bad, bloated cell phone bill calling and texting my girlfriend back in California. Each day, from the second I awoke, until I flopped down to sleep hours later, my gut was twisted in painful knots. More importantly, my thoughts had gone haywire. Regardless of what brief bug or extended twinge of indigestion had triggered my symptoms in the first place, anxiety had now taken over. I had an ulcer. I had cancer, of the stomach, perhaps the colon as well. I had been infected with a rare form of evil bacteria that was swiftly chewing its way through the lining of my worn-out tum.

At some point, not long after my return to California, the stomach ache faded, but the next year was still a hard one. I'd awakened something. My brain were on high alert, constantly combing my body for symptoms on which I could fixate. Any ache, cough, or unsettling sensation was an excuse to worry, and when I worried -- regardless of what I was worrying about -- the pain in my stomach returned, accompanied by dreadful premonitions, sweats, and heavy heart palpitations. I fretted about everything, usually medical concerns, like incurable cancers, aneurysms, devastating hemorrhages, and drug-resistant infections, but my fears truly knew no bounds. My doctor wanted to shoot me. I'd bump my head hard and think brain damage was imminent. I'd walk through Union Square and worry about stray bullets, the live-action equivalent of cartoon pianos dropping from the sky in Toontown. I hated driving because all I could think about were hideous mangled car accidents. I jumped from worry to worry, living like a sick person when I was not sick. I missed too much work, staggering around the house, wrapped in a towel, behaving like a consumptive mentally unsound very minor poet stricken with mysterious ailments for which there were no known medical solutions. I needed leeches and balms and wizardry.

My psychological state governed my eating habits. When I sensed no symptoms, I dined out and cooked fancy meals. When I was anxious, eating was unappealing, a tough predicament for a lover of food to face. Above all, I had to find foods that wouldn't torture a nerve-wracked digestive tract. I ate no Mexican for months and months at a time, which was sad considering my proximity to El Metate, El Farolito, and La Torta Gorda. Nothing spicy or rich agreed with me when I was feeling anxious. I ate turkey sandwiches and, yes, soup. Rice was okay, so long as I didn't cover it with curry, gumbo, or a lake of hot sauce. I had to stick to the bland and uncomplicated food groups. Even vinegary salads made my weak stomach throb.

One of my most persistent concerns was food poisoning -- probably because I'd never to my knowledge suffered from it. I'd known a guy in high school who'd almost died from E. coli in his blood, and I'd read some things online that I, knowing my tendencies, should not have read. One night that year, my girlfriend and I ate squid stuffed with chicken at a Thai restaurant. After a few bites, a slice down the middle in the right light revealed that the filling of one crispy bulb was slightly raw. We met friends at a bar afterwards, but the image of the glistening under-cooked meat, pinkish and pale, studded with nuts and spices, stayed with me. I felt feverish, and headed home early to sweat out my worries.

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Appetite for Anxiety