Every month on average six men between the ages of 20 and 30 years commit suicide in Norway, according to the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Two of three who commit suicide before they turn 25 years old are men. Men are overrepresented in statistics about depression and panic attacks. Despite this they rarely ask for help.

Aslak Hartberg, a Norwegian rapper, has written a book about anxiety which is especially aimed at men. The consequences of anxiety are often poorer quality of life, people staying home and in the worst cases disappearing from working life. Luckily panic attacks are possible to eradicate. The author describes his book as “a self-help book for those who do not like self-help books.”

This is the personal story of Hartberg himself, about how his panic attacks took over his life. It’s not a provocatively positive self-help book with solutions and expert recipes, but instead a brutally honest story from man to man about how he found his peace and got rid of his anxiety. By using cognitive therapy, he explains what the cause of the fear is, how and why it appears, and how one can stop it. This is a personal story with a literary and captivating language, which also guides the reader along their way out of the anxiety, through theory, cognitive and physical exercises.