Costly panic

I must say I sympathise with Kevin Berling, the Kentucky man who told his boss he didn't want a surprise birthday party because he suffered from anxiety and the party might give him a panic attack. His boss took no notice, the surprise party went ahead, and Mr Berling did indeed have a panic attack, forcing him to leave the party. He was later sacked.

He sued the company for discriminating against his disability, and was awarded $450,000 (£346,000) by the jury - $300,000 for emotional distress and $150,000 for lost wages.

The company claimed he had violated a workplace violence policy and that the other employees were the victims, not Mr Berling. The jury thought otherwise.

Clearly there are firms that still have little understanding of mental disorders and refuse to make any allowance for them. They trivialise the problem and force the employee to "soldier on" regardless. A costly mistake in this case.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who dislike surprise birthday parties (or surprise anything come to that) Why should they be compelled to attend and feign enjoyment, if that isn't how they feel? It just amounts to total insensitivity on the part of those other employees who were determined to hold the party whether he liked it or not.

In my lengthy working life I was never subjected to a surprise birthday party. I'm not sure how I would have reacted. Pleased or mortified - or a mixture of both? I was given a surprise leaving ceremony and present at my final workplace, which left me both chuffed and nonplussed - mostly chuffed.

Luckily I'm not prone to panic attacks, and no budget-busting law suits were called for.

Emotional gremlins

Wouldn't we all be very different if we could free ourselves from anxiety and fear? If we could go through life with endless confidence and optimism rather than all those doubts and insecurities that get in our way?

Virtually everyone is hampered by anxiety and fear to some degree, however skilled we might be at seeming cool, calm and collected. We all have those moments when we just want to flee some situation that stirs up the emotional gremlins.

I'm no stranger to anxiety and fear, but at least they take a fairly mild form and don't interfere too much with my daily life. It's unusual to feel so overwhelmed that I simply make my excuses and run for it.

I know people whose anxiety and fear is so intense they can be totally hobbled by it. People who have panic attacks that last for days on end and stop them doing anything but lie in bed in a helpless heap. People whose chronic anxiety means everything has to be double-checked, triple-checked, quadruple-checked before they're sure they haven't done anything horribly wrong.

Luckily I've never known those extremes. But there are things I would hate to do because I'm sure the anxiety would consume me. Like giving a lecture, or acting, or chairing a public meeting, or talking to a mega-celebrity. In fact anything where I'm visibly "onstage" and being scrutinised by large numbers of people.

And wherever I go, I'm always aware of a little frisson of fear, a slight apprehension about other people, though I know perfectly well they're probably harmless. Then there are specific fears, like a fear of the dark, or hospitals, or confined spaces, or old age. How wonderful it would be if I could just breeze through life, go with the flow, take everything as it comes, all with unshakable poise.

Which is as likely as turning into a mermaid.