This book is unique. It is a true story of psychological problems and outpatient treatments, but written from a client’s, not a psychologist’s, viewpoint.

I led a normal life until age 36 – no childhood problems, no divorced parents, no health problems. I breezed through high school and college. I had a dream job.

Then my life collapsed. Suddenly I had horrendous back problems. Later my daily life was dominated by phobias. I feared utility companies. Next I developed a fear of the state of Wisconsin and almost the entire Midwest.

James C. Schaefer is a 1961 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He graduated cum laude with a major in business administration. His undergraduate work included a significant number of psychology courses.

He was a computer systems analyst for thirty-nine years, primarily with Wisconsin Electric, Manpower Inc. and the County of San Diego. Born and raised in Wisconsin, he relocated to California in 1980.

He decided to write The Pretzel Man after experiencing, and finally overcoming, more than twenty years of phobias and back problems.

My phobia was causing me lots of concerns. One particularly critical concern was my teeth. When I was a freshman in high school, a dentist pulled four of my upper, front teeth and gave me a partial plate. Over the years, three more teeth were added.

I was throwing away lots of things, and I knew my partial plate wasn't on some sacred list. I took my partial out each night at bed time. (You take partials and full plates out at night because it allows air to get at the gums and palate. This, in turn, keeps the tissues healthier.) When I had my 2:00 a.m. wake-ups, the first action I took was to put my partial in my mouth. I knew that if I accidentally bumped my partial with the product I was throwing out, I'd also be throwing out my partial plate.

In February 1996, my dentist moved to a new office. At his old office, each patient was seen in a private room. At the new place, the office was a huge, open area with cubicles. In other words, you could hear the drilling and conversations that were going on throughout the office. There were two dentists, two dental hygienists, two dental assistants and two receptionists in the office. In addition, they had a TV set on.

This was a perilous situation for me. Words were phobic triggers for me. My solution for phobic triggers was to throw away the item involved. That meant that if I heard a phobic word while the dentist was drilling on one of my teeth, I'd have to get that tooth pulled! If, for example, the score of a Green Bay Packers game were announced on the TV, I'd lose that tooth.

This was my solution: I got them to turn off the TV while they worked on my teeth. Also, I put tissue paper in my ears. The tissue paper wasn't 100% effective, but it cut some of the sound.

Incidentally, I wasn't willing to change dentists. I was with the same dentist for 15 years. Prior to seeing him, I'd seen two other dentists and both of them had proved to be incompetent.

The power of a phobia is overwhelming. You are not going to overcome it. You get so tense and you want to sleep so much, you will do almost anything. On some nights I threw out products and groceries to get back to normal. Hell, I would have been capable of throwing out everything I had in the house.

I've seen on TV the pictures of parents who have a son or daughter who is missing. The strain and can't-sleep-look on their faces is easy to see. In the midst of a phobic episode, my tension was at that same level.

As I described in an earlier chapter, in 1988 I tried to keep a car that I really wanted but had been sold to me by a Wisconsin salesman. I was able to hold out about a month, and then I sold the car. If one of my teeth was involved in a phobic incident, I figure I would have held out three months. Then I would have had the tooth pulled.

By 1997 my partial was 20 years old, and my dentist recommended I replace it. I said, "Sure, go ahead." (There had been three separate incidents where a tooth had broken off of my partial.)

He said, "I can't just replace it. I'll have to crown two or three new teeth and replace two existing crowns. I need to have firm, crowned teeth as anchors for the partial." He said it would take six visits and two months.

There was no way I could agree to such an idea. I could never get through six visits without a phobic incident in the dentist office or after leaving his office. Also, too many of my teeth were at risk. If I encountered a phobic trigger, I'd end up having all five of the teeth pulled.

This was one of those rare instances where I told someone I had a phobia. I didn't give him a lot of details, but I did tell him I had a phobia. I told him, "If I encounter a phobic trigger in the middle of the process, I won't be able to complete it. Can't you just replace my partial?"

Even with the information about my phobia, he wouldn't budge. He maintained all the work had to be done. We were at a standoff.

In addition to the phobia issue, there was one other consideration involved. I wasn't having any problems with the five teeth he wanted to crown.

For two years, the standoff continued. I recognized that I really needed a new partial. By this time, the facing on one of my crowns was showing wear. Finally, in 1999, I suggested to him that he replace that one existing crown and my partial. He agreed.

In September 1999, I got my new partial plate.