US Congressman Adam Smith has authored a new book, Lost and Broken: My Journey Back from Chronic Pain and Crippling Anxiety, in which he shares his experience with chronic pain and depression and his six-year-long battle to find the treatment he needed.
The book, according to Ben Affleck, director, actor and co-founder, Eastern Congo Initiative, “helps advance a long overdue effort to talk more openly about, and find better solutions for, both chronic pain and mental illness”.
Smith, a 26-year member of Congress who represents the 9th District of the State of Washington, had his high stress levels eventually cross over into anxiety and collide with his chronic pain for a one-two punch that left him both mentally and physically hobbled. It took six long years and a hundred health care professionals before he said he started turning the corner.
In the new memoir, Smith narrates with unflinching honesty how he got to this lowest point in life, and how he slowly, painfully and unevenly found his way back to having a calmer mind and being free of chronic pain and medication.
“Millions of people suffer from anxiety, depression, chronic pain or some combination of those things, and I want to be part of raising the profile of that discussion of the problem, how we encourage people to confront it and to find solutions, because solutions exist, and that’s my big message,” Smith said in a recent interview.
He was successful by every measure, had a long, distinguished career in Congress, and he and his wife of 20 years were happy together and raising two great kids. Yet seemingly out of nowhere, his body and mind broke down to the point where every day was a relentless struggle to just keep moving.
Would he be able to meet his responsibilities as a husband and father? Could he still maintain his breakneck professional schedule and continue to do his job well? Smith soon realized he couldn’t will himself well — he needed help.
His desperate search for the right diagnoses and treatments for his mental and physical pain lasted over six years and involved more than a hundred different health care providers. He distills the valuable lessons he learned throughout all of his experiences into key takeaways to empower readers to seek the help and treatments they need. But first, he says, the stigma surrounding mental health must be eliminated.
“That stigma makes it far harder for people facing mental illness to take the first step we all need to take,” Smith said.
“Get help. Seek treatment. It really does work. There are treatments that work and that can dramatically improve your mental health,” he said.
