Through interviews with experts and three young people, this compelling…
Secret Fear
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
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From Oscar-winning producer Eva Orner (Taxi to the Dark Side), this multi-faceted documentary explores the full spectrum of anxiety-related disorders, from panic attacks and phobias to obsessive compulsive disorder. Everyone experiences anxiety at some stage in their lives, but for an estimated ten percent of the population, anxiety will become debilitating to the point of illness. Many may believe that they are on the verge of insanity, while others try to self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. In many cases anxiety disorders may lead to depression and some victims come to believe that suicide is the only escape. This documentary focuses on the lives of several people who suffer from or have recovered from disorders including generalized anxiety disorder, phobias such as agoraphobia, social phobia, panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, compulsive hoarding, cutting or other self-injury, compulsive hair pulling, and obsessive compulsive disorder.
In addition to the firsthand accounts of a thoughtful and appealing group of anxiety 'survivors,' the documentary uses expressive imagery and reenactments which bring the trauma of these personal experiences into vivid reality for viewers. In pursuit of recovery, they have explored conventional medical approaches as well as Tai Chi, medication and other alternative approaches. Many have benefited from cognitive behavioral therapy. The film provides no neat answers, but invites understanding of these often underestimated disorders.
'An enthralling film...although there are no neat solutions, there is hope through the stories of people who have found a way through.' -Sydney Morning Herald
Citation
Main credits
Orner, Eva (film producer)
Barton, Sarah (film director)
Barton, Sarah (screenwriter)
Other credits
Director of photography, Jenni Meaney; editor, Robert Murphy; music, Robert C. Clarke.
Distributor subjects
Disabilities; Mental Illness; Brain Disorders; Fanlight Collection; Psychology; Psychiatry; Social WorkKeywords
WEBVTT
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[music]
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My vein\'s staggering along for months
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trying to cope with that drugs.
And, ah, how... just
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was exhausted and I wasn\'t getting the rest
I needed and it was suggested that, ah,
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I go up to the country to a friend\'s
place just to get away through it.
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My mind was raising so,
thoughts that I do that was
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just out of control. I
started to drive and, ah, I
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was aware of traffic lights, noise
being amplified and exaggerated
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and ah, bizarre and, and surreal way.
Driving was a nightmare. I
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seriously considered turning around and abandoning
the day. I could only perceive by locking my
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hands to the wheel and pointing the car in a straight
line. I was still driving, uhm, an hour and a half
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later and hadn\'t left the city. It was just
getting ridiculous. And I stopped the car and
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decided to ring my friends in the country and
said that I wasn\'t just able to, to make it.
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And my mother called and say, you know,
this was really serious stuff. I got
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back in the car, turned the key and
it just sounded so and it says,
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the whole engine it says... and
it just all hit me. But I was in
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the state, I, I was stuck, that ah, it was
just chaos. And, and I couldn\'t move.
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And I was suddenly out of the car, in the
street screaming. Just screaming, \"Help me!
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Help me! For God\'s sake
help me!\" There was an
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elderly man, who came there and put down his
bags, walked over and took me in his arms.
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And I just collapsed, ah, just waiting.
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He stayed with me for two hours.
Night came, where we sat in the
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car together. He was Iranian, he spoke
hardly in English. And he kept, just
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gently reaching over and patting my hand now
and saying, \"It\'s all right. It\'s all right.\"
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Until my friend came and got me.
And he took my phone number and he
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called away later to see if I was okay.
And his English
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was so limited. He himself said that he was sick
and asked him what was wrong and he couldn\'t
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explain. I got home two days later
to find a note into my door
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to call his son who had the
same name, and the son said his
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father died in that way.
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You, you, you always gonna suffer... you always
gonna have anxiety. All human beings have
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anxiety otherwise, well, I mean
it\'s just a natural part of life.
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But, ah, ju... ju... just you don\'t want to get
out of hand, that\'s all. But for me, it would
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freeze my creativity. I, ah,
I\'d uhm, I get saw that...
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It\'s like out of the windows, it\'s
like a white noise in your head, ah,
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and you can\'t just think straight.
I get a lot of people ra... writing
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to me, you know, with, \"If you want advice about
anxiety...\" Here\'s the first based you\'d turn to an actor.
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What is wrong with you? Nothing.
What do you mean nothing?
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I might be sick. Are you sick or
aren\'t you? I\'m waiting on the
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results on some tests. You can\'t be sick. If
something happens to you, what happens to mom?
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Not always... just about always work
related or else, watching my work,
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or else reading about my work.
Come on, you can tell me. I\'m a
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dentist. There\'s nothing wrong with
my teeth. Maybe but I\'ve also had a
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general health training. The thigh bone is
connected to the tooth bone. Exactly. Come on.
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Just tiredness, upset
stomach, that sort of thing.
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Uh-huh, uh-huh... And, ah, are you
tired all the time? Exhausted.
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And the upset stomach, is
it like, uhm, diarrhea?
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Yeah. Uh-huh... What
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is it? How would I know? I\'m a dentist!
There are people that have panic attacks
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everyday. It might have
like five in an hour.
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[sil.]
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My panic disorder started in, ah, like
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1980. I was driving to work and
I had my first panic attack
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at the time. I haven\'t been work for about three
days. And I remember thinking to myself, this
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is not a virus, there is something very,
very wrong with me. And with that forward,
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I felt this extraordinary, ah, electric
shock, just moved through my body. My
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heart\'s started to rise, I had trouble
breathing, uhm, I just started to
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shake. And then suddenly, oh, I s... it was
like, uhm, an out of body experience.
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I was looking down at
myself in the car and I
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panicked. And I\'ve always thought that was very
unaffectionately. My heart was trembling, my...
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You know, everything was just sort of pumping,
but I didn\'t know why. I suppose that was the
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scariest part of it all. So I didn\'t
know what was happening to me.
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[sil.]
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There to first panic attack was
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probably about grade three or four. I had this
thing we\'re walking. We\'re on the bus, I got this
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feeling. I thought, \"Wow! I hate that!\" And I
right stand in front of the bus and just be...
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Jumped off and it\'s still gone. And Joe(ph) had let me off
and from... for the next day or so, these feelings of
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panic have calm and then it will go again.
I was hot and sweaty and trembling, and I
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thought, I will go, \"God this is the
end and I\'m dying.\" But all through
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school, I noticed that, too. This, this bit
of feeling come up inside me. I thought, \"Oh!
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Oh-oh! I\'m going nuts or I\'m gonna die. One or
the other.\" So I think that goes right back
00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:39.999
to probably when I was three or four.
Well I\'ve
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been seeing Jason(ph) for 10 years and
Jason(ph) is Tasha\'s older brother. So,
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we meet through Jason? Yep. Everybody is
trying to trick me for all this other
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things and they were saying that Jason(ph)
recognized all the anxiety stuff that I was going
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through. And he recognized it because
of what Tasha had gone through already.
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The (inaudible)
00:07:01.001 --> 00:07:04.999
anxiety experience is extremely common. So,
00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:09.999
so there, there are huge numbers of people who
suffered from this kind of conditions. They
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never go and seek specialist\'s assistance. They\'re
treated by their family doctors or they kinda
00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:19.999
get frontline treatment from, from non-specialist
practitioners and that will always be the case.
00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:24.999
[sil.] The worst thing
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than can happen to you is read, read traffic lights
because, you... you\'re totally, totally trapped.
00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:34.999
And this whole road was just full of traffic
lights and I\'ve got every single red light.
00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:39.999
Uhm, and, and I finally got a green light
but then a train was coming, the gates
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coming down, and I was first, first cal(ph).
And that\'s when I was thinking, well,
00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:49.999
no one knows what\'s happening to me. No
one understands and I just can\'t go on.
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And as I got out of the car, and I was gonna
walk in front of the train, and everything is in
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slow motion. People\'s reactions, people who begin talking
about... beginning to understand what I was going to
00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:04.999
do. And I remember thinking myself at
least I\'m not scared to do this. And that
00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:09.999
really terrified me.
00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:14.999
The fear brought me right
back into reality and
00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:19.999
I got back in the car and I went straight
to my GP. And he told me that I was, uhm,
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experiencing panic attacks.
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An indigenous therapist that deals
with people with, uhm, traumatic pain.
00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:34.999
But before I can go out into the
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community and, uhm, help
men, women, and children,
00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:44.999
my own pain needs to be healed first.
00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:49.999
I was, uhm, sexually
abused when I was a child.
00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:54.999
Uhm, you didn\'t talked to anybody about
it, you keep it inside yourself.
00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:59.999
And, yeah... The feelings that
I was getting inside was,
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uhm, like, ah, stones in the
stomach and rising up, ah, that
00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:09.999
hot, just pumping, uhm, the fear.
I fear like that I\'m,
00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:14.999
I\'m clomping up, clomping up
inside my mind. My brain is
00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:19.999
saying, uhm, \"Stop it,\" you
know, \"stop it.\" You can
00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:24.999
have panic attacks without necessarily
having a phobia, but you can\'t have a
00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:29.999
phobia without having a panic attack. And the way that
works is that uhm, with the phobia. So, you are at the
00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:34.999
supermarket and you have your first panic attack,
and it\'s just such an overwhelming experience
00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:39.999
that you\'re starting, \"Hmm, I think I might
avoid this supermarket because I might
00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:44.999
feel that feeling there again.\" But then and
you start thinking, well, if I got defeated,
00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:49.999
there\'s a risk, too. And then if I go, then
the straight is a risk. And in the end that
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can corner you into an avoiding situation
where you end up not living your house.
00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:59.999
All the years when I was
not doing any, uhm,
00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:04.999
anything. Getting out at all, I... this
used to be my main focus. I come home
00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:09.999
if I didn\'t hit, hit... if I didn\'t go straight to be like
coming out on the shade and experiment with something,
00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:14.999
deal with something. But it was a completely different
world, ah, I escaped from the world of agoraphobia and
00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:19.999
work and into my own
little world in the shed.
00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:24.999
Because my problem is a social fear,
uhm, people assessing me and,
00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:29.999
and that\'s sort of things how I
look and a lot of that, uhm, it
00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:34.999
kinda just slipped in and I
just learn certain, I guess
00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:39.999
maladaptive behaviors in my social life
to try and compensate for that. In
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particular drinking. It, ah, tipped over into
social phobia, so that I had, you know, had trouble
00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:49.999
going out and visiting people, going to restaurants, going
to parties. I got to the point where I couldn\'t leave
00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:54.999
the house. I got to the point where I couldn\'t leave
my bedroom, except to get to accident and emergency,
00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:59.999
and to see my psychiatrist.
00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:04.999
I became housebound in, ah, 1981 and I
00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:09.999
didn\'t start to move around again to about
1994. There weren\'t many places I could go
00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:14.999
anymore. It seemed and it gradually closed in to I thought
it\'s gonna get to a stage where I can\'t even move to the
00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:19.999
bed. I couldn\'t even go from
00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:24.999
the bedroom through to the toilet. Just walking from the bedroom
through the toilet was just, uhm, an unbelievable, ah, tough
00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:29.999
experience. And I think the humiliation
that I felt, because, I, I had asked my
00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:34.999
husband to come with me. Hi! Come on in
00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:39.999
and I\'ll show you my room. I live
in a room in house, so the room\'s
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finally all I\'ve got. Uhm, this
is my bed, my old mattress
00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:49.999
which is my main living area where I write
things here, wrote, read things here. Answer the
00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:54.999
telephone, feel lazy to get up.
I had a crash
00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:59.999
injury to my hand. It was about
six months before I actually got
00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:04.999
back on the machine that I had been
working on and I had a severe,
00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:09.999
intense symptoms of what at that
time I was caught in flashes. And
00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:14.999
which now I know were severe
hallucinations. Basically, what
00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:19.999
seems to is happened is that as I work
that and overcame the symptoms of
00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:24.999
post traumatic stress disorder, as I
fight it away, the obsessive compulsive
00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:29.999
disorder became more pronounced.
OCDs are very, ah,
00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:34.999
used to be seen as a very rare problem.
And I remember when I started working in
00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:39.999
psychiatry patients with OCD who came for treatments
were very uncommon. They, they\'re seen as
00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:44.999
anxiety disorders because one\'s
response to this thoughts or desires,
00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:49.999
rituals and actions that you have to do is
def... is because you\'re anxious. You have
00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:54.999
the thought and then the
ritual undoes the anxiety.
00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:59.999
The anxiety that I have is that, uhm,
I\'m really afraid that I\'m gonna try
00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:04.999
at the wrong things, so that causes me then to
really check, and check, and check, that I\'m,
00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:09.999
before I throw anything at. Not
long after we were married, I,
00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:14.999
I notice a few things and, and
a couple of symptoms like Fay
00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:19.999
didn\'t, ah, wanna come out of the house. Come on
in and look at the main bathroom. The workman
00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:24.999
didn\'t finished it because we were out of money. So
in mean... mean... in the meantime, I\'ve used it for
00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:29.999
dumping area, and get more boxes. But
00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:34.999
one stage, we cleaned out the bathroom there
are, just for curiosity, I carried 100 empty
00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:39.999
toilet rolls. One thing that I do
remember is that, I didn\'t understand
00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:44.999
why our house was so messy when my mom
stayed home all day. Some of the boxes I\'ve
00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:46.999
got labels on. This one
says gloves and (inaudible)
00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:49.999
. Let\'s just take a look
and see what\'s in here.
00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:53.999
Oh, here\'s some of it. There\'s
a few gloves, some (inaudible)
00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:55.000
.
00:13:55.001 --> 00:13:59.999
And as usual, there\'s a few
things I\'ve got just like
00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:04.999
glasses and plastic leads and bits
of plastics(ph). Fay only told
00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:09.999
me, uhm, fairly recently that sometimes,
three o\'clock in the morning, she will go
00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:14.999
back to the rubbish bin and go through these
stuff and bring stuff back into the house.
00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:19.999
One of the habits that
00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:24.999
I\'ve had is, I\'ve been a hoard
out for probably about 20 years.
00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:29.999
Over this way, you can see
a lots of wood and bits
00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:34.999
in pieces of white wood, as to
be called junk. One thing I
00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:39.999
haven\'t disposed off and I\'ve
been collecting since about
00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:44.999
\'88 is \"Good Weekend\" and
\"The Australian Magazine.\"
00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:49.999
Uhm, and since that time,
I\'ve got every edition except
00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:54.999
one edition of \"The Australian
Magazine,\" and I asked a couple of
00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:59.999
people if they had one and they didn\'t. After
a while I did go there on one night and
00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.999
I went to the seven eleven which is few
blocks away. And everyone had their recycling
00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:09.999
paper put out and I, I didn\'t stopped
and look for quite a few files
00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:14.999
and the compulsion was there and the self
talk is there, I don\'t need to do this.
00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:19.999
If I come across a person who hasn\'t
thrown out their copy of that
00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:24.999
edition of \"The Australian Magazine,\" I
might see, you know, then I went to,
00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:29.999
\"Can I have it?\" kind of thing. Uhm, which
is a bit odd coz I might not even read it.
00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:34.999
[sil.]
00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:39.999
It just started out of
happening with just me
00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:44.999
playing with my split ends. And then I had
my hair cut short, and I couldn\'t do that
00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:49.999
anymore, so I started pulling it out.
And then it just got to the stage
00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:54.999
where I couldn\'t control that
and I had long, long hair then.
00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:59.999
And when I had it cut short, I mean it was very thick,
always very thick shiny beautiful hair. I was renowned
00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:04.999
for my hair, but you don\'t know
you\'ve got to live lost it. It
00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:09.999
sort of run your fingers through your hair and like
have to have the right one, it had to be the right
00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:14.999
thickness or whatever. And,
uhm, it just pull out and,
00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:19.999
I mean some people eat it, some people tear
it to bits. And I started pulling from the
00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:24.999
front and it... I worked
my way all the way back
00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:29.999
down to about there. And as
00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:34.999
the front would grow, it would sort
of cover the back part that you\'re
00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:39.999
pulling from. So, but it was always...
There was always patches. I mean always
00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:44.999
very easily disguisable. Uhm, if you pull
00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:49.999
for a quite a bit of time, uhm, the
next day your scalp feels almost
00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:54.999
bruised. It\'s like you\'ve been hit in the
head, and it just keeps going on and on and
00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:59.999
on. As much as I like to control it, it\'s
00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:04.999
totally out of... I can\'t, like I
00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:09.999
didn\'t feel right in a place and stuff like that.
And I\'d come home and s... sort of feel, \"Ah,
00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:14.999
okay. It was, it was this piece of jewelry I was
wearing or it was the shoes,\" and stuff like
00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:19.999
that. And I wouldn\'t ever wear them again. And so I
end up with a whole pile of things I couldn\'t use or
00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:24.999
wear and stuff like that, and it just got
out of hand. I tried to battle it, like I
00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:29.999
try to put... taped these things on coz I
know how crazy and stupid it is. I mean
00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:34.999
it\'s,
00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:39.999
I mean it\'s no way that any of
that could be true or real.
00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:44.999
So I put them on and I\'d actually
00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:49.999
feel say, an ache down
my arm or shiver. And
00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:54.999
it seems like it\'s totally
out of my control. I do feel
00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:59.999
a lot of shame. I felt here
I am, thinking these crazy
00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:04.999
things when there\'s other people in the
world say, in Ethiopia or something,
00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:09.999
starving to death and I\'m saying, \"No.
I can\'t wear this jumper.\"
00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:14.999
Uhm, after my crash injury I
00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:19.999
don\'t experience any major,
ah, physical symptoms. But
00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:24.999
the most dangerous place was the
kitchen because I would walk
00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:29.999
into the kitchen and I would see a
potato peeler and I would see it,
00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:34.999
uhm, ripping the flesh of my fingers.
Uhm, I would see knives
00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:39.999
stabbing into my hand, the oven
door crushing my head, uhm,
00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:44.999
boiling water spilling onto my hand.
I would close my eyes and I\'d
00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.999
still see the images. I\'ve go to sleep and
not having a dreams. For a day a half,
00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:54.999
I\'d had really intense images or
00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.999
sensations of being violent in myself.
And I just,
00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.999
at this time, felt that I
needed a rest, just 10, 15
00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.999
seconds. Remind myself what it\'s like not to
be in this room for like... So I first stab
00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.999
myself to one pencil and
those sensations run away.
00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.999
And I felt calm again, well
comparatively calm again. And that\'s
00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.999
irrational and, in a way, it\'s frightening.
00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
You know, afraid once lying on the bed and
she, she\'s just crying and saying, \"This
00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
time we\'ve gone too far, and go on
like this, you know.\" And see...
00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
And my response to that would be,
you know, ah, feeling extremely
00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
guilty. But,
00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
uhm, yeah... Ah, very strong
00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
emotional outburst that
how I would describe it.
00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
I... if a crew of people came into my home and
removed all the boxes, I\'ll be absolutely
00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
panic stricken because I would know that if I
throw everything after them, in amongst the
00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
boxes, photos and school reports,
and momentous from the past.
00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
Ah, if they did that, ah, I know that I\'d
00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
start hyperventilating, I\'d become extremely
anxious. I\'ll probably start shaking
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
and the anxiety would just build up and build up and
that have... possibly would have to be admitted to
00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
hospital. I used to have trouble
differentiating between my
00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
personality as me uhm, and
my personality after taking
00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
alcohol and drugs and stuff. And then
the lawns just blurred very quickly.
00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
And then very quickly I didn\'t
care anymore. Back then I was a
00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
very, very weak person. There was no way
that I could give up alcohol and drugs,
00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
not for anybody, not even for myself.
00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
I think many people with anxiety disorders,
especially with panic attacks, think they\'re going
00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
mad. They think... they believe that this
is a progression towards madness and
00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
that\'s a very powerful fear.
I was afraid of being crazy.
00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
Just basically, and I\'m afraid
that I get more crazy and afraid
00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
that it wouldn\'t go away. And
then I\'m afraid of failing,
00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
being unhappy. So I\'ll
00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
probably do some... I\'ll probably spend a lot of
time hugging myself because hugging myself in effect
00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
stops the shaking. Eventually,
there, there is depression
00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
that slips in about and might stick like
this forever. What am I gonna do? That\'s
00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
almost as if, once you\'ve seen this thing
you can\'t answer it. And that\'s the
00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
terrifying thing. I, I can\'t make this go away
I know, I know it. Drip, drip, drip, heavy
00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
hours. A sack of them on my shoulders.
Untidy things without order.
00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
I mean, I know a lot people think
depression, \"Hey, just snap out of it.\"
00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
But you can\'t, y... you just can\'t. Your down
and your down and that\'s it. Oh, I have moments
00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
where I couldn\'t cope and in these
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
moments I didn\'t actually feel suicidal,
00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
but I felt terrified that
I might commit suicide.
00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
It\'s like, uhm, I, I was
terrified I was kinda
00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
have a bad minute where I just
could not resist the temptation,
00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
and the temptation wasn\'t to
die, it was to this... to escape.
00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
I even write a note at one stage show.
I was ready to go. Was
00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
just tired of the fight and it
was just the pain I was in,
00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
seem too great to endure any longer.
00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
[sil.]
00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
I am a working mother. I have four grown up
00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
children. I have suffered OCD for 34 years.
00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
Over those years, it has
got progressively worse. I
00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
go to bed between seven and eight
in the morning and get up at about
00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
one pm. After the family
has gone today, it takes
00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
me all night to wash the clothes
for the next day and ate a
00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
sandwich, which takes me
two hours to prepare.
00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
This is my only meal for the day.
And I have it at
00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
this time when no one is around
to grail(ph) on my food.
00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
Often, I am so exhausted
that I just ate a biscuit or
00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
nothing at all. Then it takes
20 minutes washing my hands,
00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
with eight separate pieces of soap.
I then Ajax
00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:56.000
the taps with (inaudible)
00:23:56.001 --> 00:23:59.999
. Then I
00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
have to do, four more lots of hand
washing to be able to put the kettle
00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
on. One hand wash, means washing
my hand with the nail brush.
00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
Washing my hands four times,
washing the taps four
00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
times, washing my arms to
the elbows four times,
00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
then washing my hands
one more time again. In
00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
all I washed my hands at least
300 times a day in this
00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
way. My husband has had to
keep five jobs all these years
00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
to be able to support my
cleaning composures. During my
00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
rituals, I have obsessive thoughts
going around and around in my
00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
mind. I have no control over
my obsessions or compulsions
00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
and I\'m often sobby(ph) and
uncontrollably while I am doing that.
00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
This is not living, I feel like can\'t go on
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
feeling so alone and in
such pain that I must do my
00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
rituals to stay alive.
00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
[sil.] When I look back on
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
those days, uhm, i... ah,
I can\'t just express the
00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
horror of that, of that time.
00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
[sil.]
00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
When the time comes and you\'re
taking your last few brace,
00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
what you wanna do? Do you wanna look back
on a life that\'s been lived in fear, that\'s
00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
been lived in terror, or do you wanna look
back and know that you\'ve given out your
00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
best shot and you have become
everything that you could\'ve become.
00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
And that really is the choice and that\'s the
reality of the situation. What I realized fairly
00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
well, that if I didn\'t face today\'s rubbish,
that then, in the future I\'ll be facing it
00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
in a box some way. One
morning before going off to
00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
work I, I, I was, I was standing
near the front door and for
00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
some reason or other I confronted Fay and
said, \"Living with you is like living with an
00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
alcoholic. You deny everything that\'s going
on.\" But I think that was the turning
00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
point, as far as the illness was concerned.
00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
No, everyday, I, I still have
anxiety every day. But I do get
00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
through it, because I think he\'ll look back in and sort of say,
\"Well, I did get through it yesterday.\" And he get through it
00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
today before, I will get through it today.
It was destroying my
00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
life, and I began to get very, very
angry at each at the anxiety at
00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
the panic. And I found that
the more angry I became
00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
at it, the more powerful I felt. It
00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:56.999
began, uhm, I supposed probably
because of the (inaudible)
00:26:57.000 --> 00:26:59.999
that, that seemed to be,
00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
ah, I need to express visually this or
contain this fear into some sort of entity.
00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
So I put together the book
living with each. And, ah,
00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
the it character became very important to
a lot of people. I\'ve discovered scenes,
00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
especially those with a very active imagination
and a very good sense of humor. It was a
00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
way of understanding that this, it
00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
constituted almost, a, a naughty
child that was running and
00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
mocking my attics someway that just needed
to be disciplined that in a loving way.
00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
In fact, when you died of fear
the symptoms, it actually goes
00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
incredibly quick. Uhm, you got a bit of a
heart race or get this bit of fear and this,
00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
this quick high rush. But
because you\'re not investing
00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
yourself in the panic thoughts,
uhm, it just stops. I was
00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
getting to the stage where I thought, \"This is
it. I\'ll be out to getting work anymore.\" And I
00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
met a doctor that really
turned things around for me.
00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
He introduce me to a psychologist who
actually got me to face the fear,
00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
look at them and, ah, laugh at them.
00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
Mine is to get the, the hairs grown up.
00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
How long it\'s gonna take, I don\'t really
know. But now, I\'m just taking at it, uhm,
00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
and each year, there\'s less and less...
The power is actually going there.
00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
Uhm, I really can\'t put a time on it, because
quite frankly I forgotten what\'s the little other
00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
boxes behind me. Ah, it does gonna
be a surprise when I open them.
00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
The other week a friend, ah, drop me off and, and I said I
was about to come in for cup of coffee, well, I mean, I
00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
haven\'t do that for a long time.
So it felt really great.
00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
You know, you\'ve got to do a little bit of
work and you\'ve got to look at your aim
00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
forwards and that is very confronting. And, and
a lot of, a lot of, a lot of us with anxiety
00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
want, ah, someone to rescue us and no
one\'s gonna rescue us. Once you, once
00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
you realized that, that no one\'s going to rescue
you, then it\'s all up to you. Someone can guide
00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
you and, and, and show you the techniques but you are the one
who has to put it into practice. You, you know, they\'re not
00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
gonna sit beside you in the car and drive. \"Excuse me. Well,
I\'ll just keep a foot on the accelerator.\" While you sit behind
00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
the wheel, you know. You\'re the one who\'s gonna have
to do it. When, when, when people, uhm, experience
00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
that panic attack, uhm,
it is a situation wherein
00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
that particular experience is
telling them that there is that
00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
spirituality within them that they have actually
ignored. People think or some people think that
00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
the world is all about material things, it\'s all
about physicality, nothing more, nothing else.
00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
That thing within them is telling them
that you have to start, uhm, paying
00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
attention to that spiritual
sign within you and then
00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
reconnect with it and be a whole person.
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
It\'s the simple things in life.
Our priorities
00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
become so much different. It\'s not the great burning
ambition to earn, you know stocks, and stocks of
00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
money, it\'s not the great burning ambition
of power and being right out, be...
00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
And it\'s being able to
prioritize our lives so that, so
00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
that, uhm, that we\'re honoring our
00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
integrity, that we are, ah, respecting
ourselves. And I think for all of us though, the
00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
greatest lost of all has been the loss of,
uhm, the self we thought we were. And I
00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
think that\'s probably one, one of the hardest
things for all of us to come to tons(ph) with.
00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
But it\'s gonna very uhm, natural
path of your recovering
00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
process that there will be grief, everything
you\'ve been through. Occasionally, I found myself
00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
daydreaming that I was going to work
hard, make extra money, buy a house.
00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
And uhm, when I was going to move
there, I wasn\'t gonna come with.
00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
And that\'s ah, that was the
beginning possibly of, of ah,
00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
of the ultimate separation and
then the divorce. My daughter
00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
ah, has left home. She couldn\'t
stand the... me surrounding. Also,
00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
she finds it difficult to work in the kitchen
with me because of, of my symptoms. There
00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
I\'ve moved... or after, she does something I
didn\'t have to be going along and checking after
00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
her. Doesn\'t seem toward people around you. It just
doesn\'t seem logical, because I mean, you don\'t look
00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
sick. You look perfectly normal,
perfectly wormed(ph). Yeah. I haven\'t
00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
really admitted to many about how
I\'m feeling. Just my family and
00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:43.999
my doctor and egos. And the
rest of that (inaudible)
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:45.000
.
00:31:45.001 --> 00:31:49.999
Yeah. Well, hmm... Since
00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
I\'ve been diagnosed, well ah, I\'ve, I\'ve come
in out of the closet so to speak. I\'ve told my
00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
neighbors and my friends and relatives. And
ah, I mean I\'m not proud of my house being
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
amiss, but uhm, I\'m proud of the fact
that I have cleaned up part of it.
00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
I suppose when mom was diagnosed
and she explained what
00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
the story was, then I put
it... put a label on it
00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
which helps and I suppose they\'re
now be getting to realize it.
00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
It was an illness and what it was.
Whereas before I just didn\'t understand
00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
it\'s the nature of it. I
look at it as uhm, the
00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
self-medicating uhm, drug-wise. Uhm,
00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
has an escape... escaping
reality, getting away for my
00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
pain. You know, just having a couple of snips
of glue uhm, you know, twice or three times a
00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
day. Uhm, just wouldn\'t you
into a, a state of uhm,
00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
hallucination. I\'m tripping,
tripping out ah, (inaudible)
00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
. But now, you know, now on I can trigger.
That was my first thing target. It was
00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
making though an eyes of that ah, 21.
And so I think,
00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
yeah. They\'ve, they\'ve definitely found very
strong links between marijuana first thought, in
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
the unsoothe(ph) of anxiety.
And I think my ah,
00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
dabbling with ah, of ah,
psychedelic universes was a
00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
dangerous thing for someone of my
particular pre-disposition. And
00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
now one psychia... psychoses quite common. And if...
For a long time in, in the 60s, you know, we all in,
00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
in early 70s, it was all like, \"Hey! That\'s the old...
Oldies telling us that.\" But it\'s not. It\'s true.
00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
But this one that I use. Ah,
I had to magic mashes and
00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
ah, the potency of the drugged ones is very
hard to regulate, apparently they can be
00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:46.000
found more potent and (inaudible)
00:33:46.001 --> 00:33:49.999
. And uhm, and I suddenly looked at these
00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
cars going pass in a colored three-dimensional
scene as though robotic quality
00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
and the people in them, also
became these two-dimensional
00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
cold, unfeeling robots. And uhm, I don\'t
know. Just the world\'s so (inaudible)
00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
at that moment and I started feel like I\'d
00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
lost my connection. And this
rage is done for 12 hours
00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
ah, this feeling. And ah, in the end, I, I
00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
was exhausted and was saying to myself, \"It\'s, it\'s just
a dragon. It\'s just a dragon. You\'ll be okay.\" You know,
00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
when I get some sleep, it will be gone.
Hmm-hmm-hmm... It wasn\'t. And it wasn\'t the
00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
day after or the day after or the day
after. So welcome to panic attacks.
00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
[sil.] You look at all the
00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
cultures. They talk about ah, using priority
and, and various other substances. But
00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
they use it in a, in a very ah,
clear way that connecting with
00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
the higher selves or better path of the
spiritual path. And ah, and if were on
00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
the very controlled conditions in many ways,
these people think toward of that ah,
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
the, the possibilities of the, of the
anxiety having no limits. In the
00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
ways we\'re not trained for this sort of stuff. And
so we\'re, we\'re going into rush at all, we\'re
00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
going into the darkest, the darkest corners
of ourselves. We\'re playing with stuff we
00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
just don\'t understand.
00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
[music] I think there are a lot of
things that traditional Chinese
00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
medicine can offer compared
to Western medicine by way of
00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
providing a broad framework. But I
think we are entering an even now
00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
where in the mind, the body
and the spirit have to
00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
come together and be addressed as one.
That way of thinking
00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
whereby we always have to divide,
separate the body and then
00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
address it bit by bit. I think that way
of thinking should be consigned to
00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
the dust bin of history. The
doctor uhm, after he diagnosed me,
00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
put me in an antidepressant called
anafranil. I went from one to
00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
three of those over the period of time.
Well I\'m on
00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
uhm, it\'s now... it\'s called Zekton
but it used to be called Prozac.
00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
And it ah, of all the thing, very fortune
of any two had draw the one drug, you know,
00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
did ah, had of use sort of fix also
adjusting to it. I was having the
00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
anxiety feelings all day long. So
uhm, within days I was taking these
00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
pills all day long. And uhm,
I think one of the most
00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
embarrassing things was hearing
from a, a third party that people
00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
at work had, I don\'t know whether
it was customers or the people I
00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
was working with, assuming
that I was on heroin.
00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
When I went on to Aroma uhm, some of
my symptoms disappeared and that\'s
00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
when I found out what the symptoms
were because they were gone. Well
00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
interestingly I did start medication.
I\'d resisted that for three months.
00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
But the distress that I was feeling
that night suggested that this
00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
was getting a bit too heavy for me
to handle. I remained very hmm...
00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
And bevel on about the idea of
medication, but I think on a
00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
very, very temporary level, at... in the
early stages of this, it can be this
00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
overwhelming and, you\'re just not getting the
rest you need to be able to step back from
00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
ration... see it within any rational
distance. So in the short term
00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
uhm, possibly that\'s the road to go. There\'s kinda
a number of different classes of drugs that
00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
have been used over the years. These, if you like
tranquilizers, which ah, them... just a kind of
00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
them ah, sedate people or make
the anxiety seem less important
00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
if you like. I mean ah, it\'s not... it
doesn\'t dispel the anxiety, things were
00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
not... just makes the experience less
personally significant. I\'m not sure when the
00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
addiction to the tranquilizer\'s actually developed.
I know that as I was always really stunning to, to
00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
break free of the disorder, I decided I\'d had
the tons right for me to come off. And we...
00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
I came off very, very slowly uhm,
but that didn\'t stop the symptoms.
00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
The pills help me to escape like
disappear the demounted world to
00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
just be alone and truncate with
the feelings I was having.
00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
[sil.] I found it pretty easy to
00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
convince my doctor that to save money
and to just make prescriptions
00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
easier that he should just give me the uhm,
the bottle with twice the dose uhm, in
00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
milligrams per tablet. And I would quarter
them, you know, I quarter them for about a
00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
day. And then, the second day I was
like halves and that sort of thing.
00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
And uhm, they came in bottles of 200.
I ended up winging a crosses(ph)
00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
loan. She said don\'t stop doing what you\'re
doing. Try and take a little bit less,
00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
but don\'t actually stop. And...
Because stopping suddenly
00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
might have been as dangerous for my
body as just keeping, going with
00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
what I was doing. I guess it\'s a
clinical pharmacist that I don\'t make
00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
much advertisement for drugs because
I, I, in particular, in this ah,
00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
circumstance, I believe that the non-drug
therapist buying large are genuinely
00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
more appropriate. I know I\'ve had
people can now have in... with the...
00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
That anxiety sort of me on medication. They\'d been told there gonna
be a medication for the rest of their life, and it\'s rubbish.
00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
They\'re tremendously successful for the drug
companies\' points of view because it\'s a huge...
00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:42.999
It\'s a common problem. It\'s kind of,
you know, drug campaigning (inaudible)
00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:44.999
to discover a drug for a
00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
very, very common problem that lots of people can
prescribe. And especially one that\'s madly addictive.
00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
That\'s if, you know, home and host there.
There\'s a time and place
00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
for medication, but it doesn\'t have
to be for the rest of your life.
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
We wondered early on whether
uhm, we had a hereditary
00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
thing for our family with the anxiety
stuff. Mine is very much social
00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
anxiety. Uhm, whereas my dad
is quite, quite different.
00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
It\'s uhm, developed into obsessive
compulsive with lacking dose and that
00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
sort of thing. That well, we\'ll see
how she goes without a tablets
00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
and yet the mood swings came
back ah, up and down. Sort of
00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
depression came back. So, yeah. I mean I don\'t
wanna be dependent on them, but, I mean,
00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
what I have is a chemical balance in
my brain and if I need tablets to
00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
balance it all out, so be it. Yeah.
The chemical imbalance in the
00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
brain serie(ph) or the
gene serie(ph). Well,
00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
I\'m not too crazy on going with those.
Ah, I think that is up in the
00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
person suffering this ah, a
sense of being a victim. A drug
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
supposed to create balance is
creating further imbalances. Uhm, you
00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
get short-term balance, but you get long-term
imbalance. Uhm, I think there is a place for
00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
drugs, but the point is, the problem
is overused. Oh, well. That\'s my life.
00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
I rely on drugs, I rely on a therapist.
I do not rely on myself
00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
anymore. I\'m helpless. And the same
time, the very fact that I continued a
00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
quest to, to healing has suggest
there\'s a part of them that
00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
refuses to believe that. There was
no one ah, practicing (inaudible)
00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
behave therapy. It was
still the new therapy. And
00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
so, I taught myself. And
I taught myself based on
00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
the meditation traditions, and that just opened
up a whole new way thinking and feeling for me.
00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
So I... disorder just try to
find something that ah, keep
00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
me with people socially and
so I started to achieve. And
00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
then, when I started to achieve,
yeah, well I never look back.
00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
Full weight still on the back leg.
Transfer the white through.
00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
Right hand down, and the left hand up.
00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
Striking the bird\'s tail,
and bird flies off.
00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:22.999
I do it any way a lot. I break it
up in a little bit (inaudible)
00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:24.999
from up to it somewhere. I (inaudible)
00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
in the toilet, which I do quite regularly,
and do a bit of Tai Chi in there.
00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:34.999
When I\'m relaxed, I come back and
join in again. And stepping back.
00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.999
And tossing off.
00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
In fact, we\'ll be driving along the road and I\'ll say to my
wife, \"I like the tree over there and I\'m gonna do some Tai
00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.999
Chi.\" \"Okay,\" she says. Then off we go
into the Tai Chi. My son likes to join in,
00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.999
too. He is standing in front of me and say, \"I\'m
the instructor Dad. You do what I did.\" And I do
00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
what he did coz whatever I am, he
wants to be. So it\'s just fantastic.
00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:02.999
Meditation in (inaudible)
00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:04.999
pure sins.
00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
It\'s the oldest cognition technique in the
world. And that\'s really what meditation\'s all
00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
about. And meditation taught
me how to stop to work
00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
with my mind. It began to teach me
so much about the way that I was
00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
thinking. And I began to see how
the way that I was thinking was
00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:26.000
increasing my symptoms and my (inaudible)
00:43:26.001 --> 00:43:29.999
incredibly worse. When I first started
00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
meditating... I mean I was, I was extremely lucky because I
mean, you\'re not all I\'ve... I\'d done healthy Yoga when I was
00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
about 21. Uhm, and I\'d read a lot
about Yoga and I\'d read about
00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
Kundalini. And I thought, \"Oh, yeah? This is something that
doesn\'t happen to anyone.\" I mean, in the latest diagnostic
00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
manual uhm, DSM IV, in the
culture-related disorders,
00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
ah, there\'s a very, very tailing piece
about uhm, what\'s called qi-gong.
00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
And we, we really had a quite a good
look at qi-gong. And the disorder begins
00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.999
after extensive medication practice.
And we looked at the
00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
descriptions of qi-gong and found
that those descriptions were
00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
identical toward people with spontaneous
panic attack experience. Those
00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
sensations are certain sensations and they
do occur in the process of doing qi-gong.
00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
The important thing, first of all, is
not to panic. And that secondly, to
00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
work out to the... to employ certain
techniques that you can use to settle
00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
down that energy. I think I burst
the tears. And, and then I sort of
00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:37.999
start at laughing at it. It was extraordinary. I
mean, it\'s where you have been impulsive (inaudible)
00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:39.999
. But it was...
00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
But that happens to me, it\'s, it\'s weird. I mean I
knew what it was coz uhm, ah, of, of reading with
00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.999
healthy Yoga. I\'ve experienced Kundalini.
I absolutely gassed that this could
00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.999
happen, you know. And that\'s... a lot of people
get it just with their anxiety technique to get
00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.999
that energy and it\'s like ahh-ahh-ahh... People are
reporting its electric shock living through the
00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.999
body or this burning trembling
heat moving through the body
00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.999
and the people describe it as
uhm, ah, an unusual vibration
00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.999
or, or unusual energies moving through
their body. But get it in the meditation.
00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:19.999
I\'ll be sitting there and I\'ll be... and then suddenly I\'ll
get this bang! This punch in the head. It\'s like, whoa!
00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
Oh! Originally what it stimulates to...
For alive and they go, \"God!\" And yet
00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:29.999
that is the precipitator or one of
the precipitators for the actual
00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
panic. Now I mo... move all the hard
objects, you know. And... but I
00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
Within the indigenous
cultures, within the
00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
meditative traditions, this
particular phenomena is, is respected
00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
totally and completely. This pana...
Particular phenomena is encouraged in other
00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.999
cultures because it is
actually seen as a part of the
00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.999
on-going development of the individual.
I\'m very
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.999
reluctant to think of things like anxiety
disorders as kind of... as growing to
00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.999
another stage of being. I mean, I, I
don\'t... I\'m... I see the distress in those
00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:14.999
experiences. It\'s so powerful and
it\'s not easy to see them, for me,
00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.999
as, as beneficial experiences. I\'ll be fine.
I\'ll just gonna do this. People look at
00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.999
anxiety, \"Pull yourself together.\"
\"Yeah, okay. How do I do that?\" Being
00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.999
frightened of death to create some messy
fear of living. We are constantly worrying
00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.999
about what other people think and look at what
it\'s doing to us. Is that the price that you wanna
00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.999
pay? All of these \"what if?\" What if
I had a heart attack? You know, what
00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
if I do die? What if I do go insane?
Recovery means we go to \"so what?\"
00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
So what... and going to the point,
\"Well, so what if we do die?\" \"So what
00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
if we do go insane?\" \"So what?\"
I went with the people who have
00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:59.999
very, very, very long standing
difficulties. And I don\'t... myself find a
00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
kind of the concrete nature of
cognitive behavior or treatments helps
00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
for those individuals because the, the
core of their anxiety is so wrapped about
00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
by a whole range of issues to deal
with the long lives that they\'ve lived
00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
since these problems. And that
I, I try to kind of take a
00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
slightly broader view with this. When
I thought of alcohol or drugs coming
00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
to my mind today,
00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
it\'s uhm, I\'ve got to be very
00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
aware of what ah, uhm, where the thought
is coming from. And sometimes it
00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
does indeed seem to come out as sin. A, a lot
of people would swear that that\'s the case.
00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
Hmm, I\'ve... I\'m a little dubious
about that, too. If you start
00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
looking at the history of your
self-esteem and your self-worthy. And
00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
it can be quite rehealing(ph). I
realized that I had been guilty with a
00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
lot of stinky thinkings through my life.
Uhm, very, very hard on
00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
myself, very unforgiving. Stress.
The doctor asked me if there was
00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
anything I was worried about.
Is there? Not that I could
00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
think of. Oh! You take after your father.
They could never work out what he was
00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
worried about, either. You don\'t
just focus on when you\'re
00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
having the anxiety attack. You actually start to be
aware of the way you\'re thinking this all the time, the
00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
way you put yourself down where you\'re hard on yourself.
And I\'m not saying you\'ve got a sort of, you know,
00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
positive thoughts that work or, or you\'re gonna start
to love yourself. That\'s, you know, learning to accept
00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
yourself is, is terrific, you know, it pretty being for...
Hard to say, \"You\'re gonna have to love yourself. Oh! I,
00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
I love you Gary. You\'re a wonderful man.\" It doesn\'t,
doesn\'t look like that. I thought I was cured
00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
and so I am, I am, wandering
for about a year and a half
00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.999
before I started to get another attack. I rang up
the therapist Frendhere Melvin(ph) and said to her,
00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
\"What the hell\'s going on?\" She said, \"Oh! You\'re having a hiccup.\"
What we call a hiccup. She said, \"They\'re good coz... because
00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
you\'ve forgotten your treatment. \" And she
said, \" It will reinforce it. So just ring up
00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
your therapist that you\'re into, you know, a year
and a half ago.\" And I did that. And I went back
00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
and I have one session. And across, I
dropped away immediately. Back in 1990,
00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
after the... being locked away for so long,
I caught the train to the city and when
00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
I got into the city or the station was completely
different and it\'s like I just go into a...
00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
Being in a time where the all the
old stations have gone and we have
00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.999
these new make-believe
lies so I called it. I
00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.999
thought to myself, \"Where the heck have
all the steam trains gone?\" It\'s very
00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.999
hard for me to contemplate how my life
might have been limited by anxiety because
00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.999
basically
00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
it\'s such a big part of my identity. In the end
I\'ve made great friends with these and ah,
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
and that\'s the idea coz it is me.
00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
Munda Gara(ph), my god, grant
00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot
00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
change, courage to chance of being okay
00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
and always calm to know
the difference. Hmm...
00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:30.000
[music]
Distributor: The Fanlight Collection
Length: 52 minutes
Date: 1997
Genre: Expository
Language: English
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
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