A GP diagnosed me with ‘acute anxiety’ – only to exacerbate it
In 2008, after his first child was born and before he was due to get married, Tom Lee began to unravel. It was as if, he explains in his fragile and unforgettable memoir, ‘some internal switch had been clicked or shorted, leaving my body and mind in a state of unrelenting and unsolvable emergency’. The breakdown began in his body: tight headache, nausea, a stiffness in his hands so extreme he couldn’t hold a pen. Welts erupted on the surface of his skin; he ate only bananas, one half at a time. The discarded halves blackened around the house. He was unable to work or sleep; but these early weeks
