Culture-Bound Anxiety

My Internal Journey in Turin, Italy

It all started, as it often does, in a bedroom. The moment I stepped foot on my CouchSurfing host’s sticky floor, he hurried me to his windowless bedroom.

I had just taken a 17-hour (€46.96) Blablabus from Barcelona to Montpellier to Turin and walked ninety minutes through San Salvarlo (the quintessential district of Turin's nightlife) to Lingotto (the old-Fiat-employee-now-broke-student neighbourhood) with three bags weighing twenty kilos. 

Since my CouchSurfing host had warned me of his Chinese roommate’s social anxiety—the fact she was Chinese is an important fact I’ll reveal later—I walked into the first pastry shop I saw and bought a Torta Di Nocciole (a humble Piemontese hazelnut cake), thinking that sweets would ease my presence.

Apparently, she was unable to leave her room to accept the cake I bought her. It also became clear that she was incapable of doing dishes, clearing the table, or any cleaning-related matter.

Call me spoiled, but I didn’t want to stay much longer—not that I had a choice. Since I wasn’t allowed to be in the apartment without him, I had to get up at 4:00 AM as he went to work.

After killing time at a Calisthenics park, I made my way to my new CouchSurfing host’s part of town, Crocetta (one of the wealthiest parts of town full of refined Art Nouveau buildings, large pedestrian areas, and people dressed in ways that put my scummy-ass to shame).

That same Calisthenics Park is where my built-up rage and anxiety almost led to an Italian prison.

By the way, if you’re here for the travel writing, stay tuned; that will be unveiled next week in “Turin’s Cuisine, Parks, and Divinity: The External Journey.”

As I mentioned in “A Planster’s Healing Journey,” art and travel, like all good relationships, are a mirror into the soul. I hope my articles and stories provide that mirror on my quest to the North of Sweden as I explore the therapeutic effects of slow travel.

Alright, without further adieu…

ANXIETY!

Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash

Before we get into my personal mental health journey in Turin, let’s take a look at some culture-bound anxiety disorders.

Although the question of what conditions could be labelled as disorders is often challenging, the question becomes even more difficult when behaviours are considered problematic in one culture but not in another.

Dhat Syndrome is a disorder often observed in several South Asian cultures. It’s a belief among young men that they are leaking semen, which causes them to be morbidly anxious because semen is primarily viewed as a very precious commodity, and an excessive loss of it is feared to result in serious illness.

Without the set of culturally shared beliefs regarding semen, sexual activity, and health that are prevalent among South Asians, the entire category of Dhat Syndrome would likely be rather meaningless to most North Americans and to North American psychiatrists.

Koro is a clinical syndrome in various South and East Asian countries, particularly in southern China. It’s a morbid fear that one's penis is shrinking into one's body. Hence, why it’s called "head of a turtle” in the Malay language. It is far less common among women, in whom it tends to manifest as a similar fear that one's nipples are shrinking into one's body.