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This documentary delves into the lives of four individuals who courageously share their personal journeys of living with clinical anxiety. Explore the triumphs and challenges they face on a daily basis as they navigate the complexities of this often invisible illness.
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00:0140 million American adults suffer from anxiety disorders.
00:06Few people realize depression and anxiety are the leading cause of disability in Australia.
00:11The elderly and even children experience symptoms of anxiety.
00:14While the disorders are treatable, only one in every three people who suffer from anxiety ever seek treatment.
00:20Everyone has anxiety. At least, that's what they say.
00:24And it's true. It's a normal, everyday thing to experience anxiety occasionally.
00:29However, when you're experiencing anxiousness that is persistent, overwhelming, and seemingly uncontrollable, it can be absolutely disabling.
00:39Hi, I'm Jason, and I suffer from a pretty extreme case of generalized anxiety disorder.
00:46My name is Kelsey Matthews, and I work in entertainment here in Hollywood.
00:51The best way to explain anxiety is literally this voice in your head telling you're not good enough all the time,
00:56and it makes everything seem like you are messing up.
01:00And it can be a little bit much.
01:04And it goes hand in hand with PTSD and depression and everything like that.
01:07I feel like they both coincide.
01:09I'm Rick, and I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder,
01:15and a little bit of obsessive-compulsive disorder in 2003.
01:18But I've suffered from it all my life.
01:20My name is Dustin, and I suffer from anticipatory anxiety.
01:24I think people are stressed out.
01:27But I wonder if it has to do with that people are just more aware of their feelings.
01:32I don't think so, Sharon.
01:34I don't think so, Sharon.
02:00To me anxiety is my worst enemy.
02:03I wake up with it in the morning.
02:05I live with it throughout the day.
02:07I go to bed with it.
02:09I remember having anxiety from when I was very little until now.
02:13I'm, you know, in my mid-forties.
02:15Anxiety has been a constant companion.
02:18To me anxiety means a challenge.
02:32It's something that I face every day that I sort of look at as the enemy that I have to overcome,
02:39and sort of what keeps pushing me in the direction I need to go in life.
02:43I'm 40 years old.
02:44I grew up in a small town in southern Virginia, right along the North Carolina border.
02:49I've always been kind of a technical guy.
02:51I've always been very interested in video and the things you do to make video look good.
02:57And pretty much since I was seven or eight, I kind of focused my whole life on getting out of my small town
03:04and to a place where I can help people make their videos and films look good.
03:09I don't have a lot to say myself, but I am interested in helping other people who have something to say,
03:15say it the best they can.
03:21Anxiety is an epidemic.
03:23When anxiety consistently interferes with your everyday activities,
03:28you're most likely suffering from an anxiety disorder.
03:32An anxiety disorder is a real, serious medical condition.
03:38Just as real as any physical ailment.
03:41Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent and pervasive mental disorders in the U.S.
03:47For people who have one, worry and fear become constant and overwhelming.
03:53But with treatment, many people can manage and get back to a fulfilling life.
03:58Researchers are unsure of the exact cause of anxiety,
04:02but it's likely a combination of factors that play a role.
04:06I think I first noticed anxiety was an issue for me back in elementary school.
04:12At the end of the summer vacations when the school supply commercials would come back on, I would get anxious.
04:19I kind of blamed the Trapper Keeper commercials for showing the klutzy kid having a horrible first day at school.
04:24It gave me terrible anxiety for going back.
04:26I think that's when I first really noticed it.
04:28My anxiety usually comes out of nowhere and it's brought back by flashbacks from my PTSD.
04:36And it makes me black out and I will break down in tears just out of nowhere from it as well.
04:42There are five major types of anxiety disorders.
04:46Panic disorder, aka panic attacks.
04:49This disorder is characterized by unexpected and repeated episodes of intense fear or terror,
04:55accompanied by physical symptoms such as chest pain, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, or abdominal pain.
05:04Two, generalized anxiety disorder.
05:07It is characterized by chronic anxiety even when there is nothing or little to provoke it.
05:13Obsessive-compulsive disorder.
05:15Characterized by recurrent unwanted thoughts, obsession, and or repetitive behaviors or compulsions.
05:22Repetitive behaviors such as hand-washing, counting, checking, or cleaning are often performed
05:29with the hope of preventing obsessive thoughts or making them go away.
05:33Performing these so-called rituals, however, provides only temporary relief.
05:38And not performing them markedly increases anxiety.
05:42Post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.
05:46PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal
05:52in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened.
05:56The fifth type of anxiety disorder is social phobia, or social anxiety disorder.
06:01It's an anxiety disorder characterized by overwhelming anxiety and excessive self-consciousness in everyday social situations.
06:10Social phobia can be limited to only one type of situation, such as fear of speaking in a formal or informal event,
06:17or eating or drinking in front of others, or in its most severe form may be so broad that a person experiences symptoms
06:25almost any time they are around other people.
06:28Physically, anxiety makes me feel, well, tense.
06:34I get numbness in my hands.
06:37I get a heaviness in my chest.
06:41My stomach contracts.
06:44Becomes upset.
06:46I get headaches sometimes.
06:48I have trouble sleeping.
06:50I tend to avoid things that make me anxious.
06:54And I will feign sleep.
06:57And eventually, when one feigns sleep, one goes to sleep.
07:00So I sleep a lot.
07:01Or I will work on things that have nothing whatsoever to do with the thing that is making me anxious.
07:09Even though the thing that's making me anxious probably shouldn't make me anxious.
07:12It's just part of my brain chemistry that's amplifying and overdriving like a guitar.
07:20A little strum of something that needs to be taken care of.
07:23And turning it into kind of an industrial style sawtooth wail of frustration and rage and fear.
07:35It's like having nine-inch nails in your head playing all the time.
07:42Lots of, you know, your body actually tenses up with anxiety attacks a lot too.
07:46So I get muscle aches from it.
07:48I don't sleep very well.
07:50So I usually have bags underneath my eyes recently because it's been so aggressive as of recent.
07:55But for me, it just weighs down on your body a lot and gives a complete exhaustion.
08:00You just, you feel so fatigued that it's hard to have any, want to do anything.
08:09If you have an anxiety disorder, you may also be depressed.
08:13While anxiety and depression can occur separately, it's not unusual for these mental health disorders to happen together.
08:20Anxiety can be a symptom of clinical or major depression.
08:24Likewise, worsening symptoms of depression can be triggered by an anxiety disorder.
08:29Anxiety is always there, ready for something to worry about.
08:34Whether it's how poorly you're doing in life or outlandish things that could never happen.
08:40With anticipatory anxiety, it's interesting because it'll be very extreme.
08:44I would say it's a 10 when I'm about to do certain things.
08:47But then once I'm in the moment for what I was worried about, it completely dissipates and it's pretty much a zero.
08:52My anxiety would keep me up at night and leave me too tired to keep my house the way it should be to have people over and to make personal relationships and to find romantic partners.
09:04On a scale from 1 to 10, I would say my anxiety is about a 9.
09:13I don't think I've ever had what would be called a panic attack, you know, where it felt like a heart attack or something like that.
09:20But I just live in a constant state of heightened tension.
09:27On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say my anxiety was at about a 7 or an 8.
09:32So currently, mine's like an 8 to 9.
09:35And that's because I've had a lot of things that have been triggering me lately with my PTSD.
09:40And I seem to have worse anxiety attacks when that occurs.
09:44What's interesting about anticipatory anxiety is that it's completely subjective to different people
09:51because it's based on what you worry about could possibly happening.
09:55For me, because I live outside of L.A. and I often have to come to L.A. for things, I have anxiety about what could happen on the drive.
10:02You know, having car trouble, having my phone, the battery died, I don't know where I'm at.
10:06It's a lot of things that I think I realize are very neurotic to worry about, but you kind of really can't help it anyways.
10:13And I think that it takes getting within, like if I'm worried about the drive, once I'm actually on the road,
10:18it starts to slowly go away because reality sets in that I'm okay and it's not what I thought I was going to be.
10:23I was not able to have the personal life that I wanted because I was deathly afraid of screwing things up even though I didn't need to be.
10:36I think I first realized anxiety was an issue for me in college.
10:41I had had it through high school.
10:43You know, I was somebody that was always worried about what other people would think.
10:47I would lay awake at night sometimes just worrying about the day-to-day of school, like, you know, way too much.
10:57I'm a survivor of domestic violence and still dealing with my ex and court stuff.
11:03So whenever that happens, I get overwhelmed a bit just because it brings, like, all those past traumas and can be a little bit much.
11:13And so then my anxiety just takes over.
11:15The other night I had an event to go to and I was trying to do my makeup.
11:18And just putting it on, I started breaking down crying because I had, like, a flashback just out of nowhere.
11:24So it's, like, little things like that and things that just kind of overwhelms you and it doesn't want to make you go anywhere.
11:30You just want to hide away in your covers.
11:32Well, I mean, thinking back to, like, my childhood, I feel like a lot of it is just, it sort of, like, was little things.
11:38Like, I was thinking about this earlier, actually.
11:40My parents are divorced.
11:41They divorced when I was a really young age and I didn't see my dad a lot.
11:44And I remember when I was really young on his weekends to come see us, which was maybe once every couple months,
11:49there were some times when he didn't show up and me and my sister would be waiting at the screen door for him to show up for hours on end sometimes and he wouldn't come.
11:56And I think that that's actually sort of, like, what really instilled in me that I have to worry about things, that things may not go the way that you want.
12:05And I think that then once I got more into school, you know, as the years went on and I got older, it started to morph into other forms of anxiety.
12:12And my life was going very, very poorly in early 2003.
12:22The anxiety was really an anchor holding me down with just me having my nose and mouth above water barely and sometimes popping underneath and then trying to pop back up.
12:40It was a very dark and scary time in my life.
12:48For me, it gets so bad, like, the smallest little things will trigger you.
12:55Like, just driving, like, you become really tense.
13:00My dog, if she just pulls a little the wrong way, I get overly anxious about it and it makes me upset.
13:07The things, like, most people would not get upset about now become just, like, ten times worse for me.
13:14And, but then, like, when there's, like, the things, like, my PTSD triggers, then that actually makes everything, like, just tenfold.
13:22So I feel like it's more so, like, if it just depends on if I'm being triggered by something.
13:28But I usually, I'm always, like, high, super tense now and everything kind of, like, makes me a little bit edgy.
13:35It was when I started college that I first noticed the debilitating effects that anxiety could have.
13:41You know, all of a sudden I was having trouble getting out of bed.
13:44I was having trouble concentrating on studies.
13:47I was having trouble going to work.
13:50I would get really anxious in social situations.
13:55It seemed the older I got, the harder it was.
14:00I was having trouble concentrating on studies.
14:05We spoke with four young adults who have been battling anxiety and depression.
14:09I've found ways to cope.
14:11The therapy aspect of it is huge.
14:14I'm on an antidepressant.
14:16I decided that I would try my best.
14:19I sought out counseling in my early twenties, actually, because I have some other medical issues that were actually induced by my anxiety.
14:27So I kind of had to go and get a full thing done with a couple different doctors.
14:31I was 22 when I came out here in 2001.
14:33And I was 24 when I sought treatment and was diagnosed.
14:37Six weeks.
14:39It was night and day, and it seemed so fast.
14:42I look at my journal entries, because I kept an online journal like one does when you're an arty kid in, you know, your early twenties, in the early 2000s.
14:51You know, your live journal, your diary land, whatever.
14:54I looked back at my online journal entries and during the depths of anxiety, there would be words and pages and expression.
15:04I'm talking graphic design in these diary entries that just showing, just showing myself in what bad shape I was.
15:11And within about six weeks, my entries became much more matter of fact and positive and dwelled less on how I was feeling and the negativity of that and just more on what I was doing.
15:29With occasional flashes of, I can't believe I've come this far, but most of the time I was just living my life again and not really dwelling on how bad it had been.
15:40Which I think is the goal of any successful treatment, causing the body and the soul to forget how bad things were, especially for anxiety when the disease itself is always there promising to remind you of how bad things were before and how bad they could be in the future.
16:01Anxiety makes it to where I have trouble performing even the simplest tasks.
16:08I will put off going to the grocery store because I don't want to drive.
16:13I'm honestly scared to death to drive.
16:17Like, I won't take unprotected lefts.
16:20Like, if I pull out onto a main street and you have to go left, I won't take it.
16:27I was an easygoing person, pretty bubbly, pretty happy all the time.
16:31I just went with the flow.
16:34I never really had, like, set plans for things.
16:37I kind of would just go on a whim.
16:40And now, like, I have to have a schedule with what's going to happen or I get super high-stressed.
16:46It's just, it's really changed my life overall.
16:50And it's caused my body to have body aches and everything.
16:53That, where I had to get physical therapy for it.
16:57And it's caused other health issues.
17:00And it's, I wouldn't wish it were my worst enemy.
17:03I always knew I wasn't normal, but that word is so loaded with connotations,
17:08especially in the mid to late 90s.
17:11I wouldn't want it to be normal.
17:12I just figured I was sensitive and had other things on my mind.
17:19It was never something that held me back or presented a major problem until my senior year of college.
17:27I lived by myself in a dorm.
17:30I had the entire room to myself.
17:32I had it decorated the way I liked.
17:33I didn't have to share a schedule with anyone or share any living space with anyone.
17:38It was just kind of me.
17:39And I could do what I wanted, research what I wanted.
17:43I was able to run the student television station from that room.
17:49And it was nice because I didn't have to kind of show myself or face problems.
17:55I could kind of deal with them from a distance.
17:58And that's when I started realizing I was spending a lot of time on the couch, immobile, just waiting for the ability to get up and do the thing that needed doing.
18:11Whether it was washing clothes, vacuuming the carpet, writing the paper, editing the documentary, anything.
18:20And that's when I first realized this isn't right.
18:23There is something wrong with me.
18:27The anxiety got really bad for me in high school.
18:29I was bullied a lot.
18:30You know, I came out as gay in junior high, so high school wasn't particularly awesome for me.
18:35So I had a lot of anxiety then, that then sort of morphed into physical problems, like with my stomach.
18:42I ended up getting irritable bowel syndrome, and that was because of the anxiety.
18:45And so it's frustrating because I often now have anxiety over having IBS symptoms, which were brought on from the anxiety.
18:52So it's one of those catch-22 things that it's really difficult to manage, but you have to stay rational about.
18:58Sometimes just getting out of bed.
19:02Yeah, getting out of bed.
19:05Sometimes just brushing your hair.
19:07Or, you know, just the smallest little things, like taking my dog out.
19:11Like, oh, I get anxious about that.
19:14Like, you know, running into somebody, having a conversation, whatever.
19:18I'm dealing with these things in my head.
19:20Even going to sleep at night, I don't sleep very well because my brain is running 24-7 telling me what I need to get done,
19:26or what I did wrong today.
19:28I don't know.
19:29Like, those little things, like, you take for granted.
19:32Because back in the day, it was like no big deal, and now I feel like I'm just constantly on edge.
19:38When I was lying on the couch, sweating, shaking, avoiding, and just trapped in a loop of thought,
19:46my thoughts would always come back to this face, this giant face of a housefly with its compound eyes,
19:56and its antennae, and its mandibles.
20:01And it would be thinking to me, you are me, I am you.
20:06This is what it will always be, buzzing around, not accomplishing anything.
20:14Anxiety affects every area of my life.
20:18I've lost jobs over it.
20:20I've lost friends.
20:21You know, for example, you know, I'll have a freelance editing job,
20:26and, like, I just won't be able to bring myself to work on it.
20:31Like, I'll get up, and I'll just get anxious about what I'm going to do,
20:35you know, how I'm going to approach it, how I'm going to approach the workflow,
20:39and I'll just find excuses to not work.
20:42You know, I'll, you know, busy work, or I'll, you know, reorganize the files, or stuff like that.
20:48With relationships, I really like people, and I want to reach out to people,
20:53but, you know, I get scared of how they're going to react,
20:57or how they think about me, or how I feel they think about me.
21:01I'll say, I'll make plans to go somewhere, and then it'll come time to do it,
21:05and I'll start getting anxious about going to that place.
21:08Where am I going to park?
21:10You know, how much is it going to cost?
21:13Is there going to be too many people there?
21:15You know, I'm not going to like it anyway.
21:17I might as well just stay home, and then nine times out of ten,
21:20I just end up staying home.
21:22And, you know, eventually people will get tired of trying, you know,
21:26they won't want to hang out with you anymore, and, you know, you'll lose friends,
21:29and I've lost many like that over the years.
21:33So at Home Life, my poor pup, she's a service puppy,
21:37so she's very in tune with me, but I feel bad sometimes
21:41because I get really high stress with her whenever she just acts out a little bit.
21:46And it's not really her acting out, it's her playing off my emotions.
21:50So for me, like that makes me feel like kind of like a bad dog mom, you know?
21:55So there is that.
21:57And then dealing with my mother and my brother who live far away,
22:03but they're not easy to deal with in general, and it makes it even harder to deal with them
22:09and can cause me to just break down in tears when I have to like cut myself off from them at times.
22:15The anxiety at home, so let's say that I have made a very big dinner of food I like,
22:27but that's a little messy to make, and I don't have time to clean it up,
22:33I'm too tired to clean it up for whatever reason, I leave it in the sink.
22:37The next day I wake up late because I've been staying up late,
22:43even though I was really tired.
22:45I didn't have the energy to wash dishes, but I had the energy to lay in bed and sweat
22:51and worry how I'm going to make the deadline for the project I'm working on at work,
22:57and worry about what happens if my car tires blow out on the freeway, things like that.
23:11The anxiety was comorbid with kind of an obsessive compulsive disorder,
23:19and I'm told this is often the case.
23:21Anxiety is comorbid with other serotonin-related diseases as, you know, it's thought of currently.
23:28So, with depression you'll find anxiety.
23:32With obsessive compulsive disorder you'll find anxiety.
23:35Anxiety just kind of, I don't know whether it's an effect of the major disease
23:42or the thing that kind of causes the major disease.
23:47Work is one place where you have to be able to concentrate, take in information,
23:56and decide the best course of action with a clear mind.
23:59Anxiety at work can be a big obstacle for all these things.
24:0372% of people who have daily stress and anxiety say it interferes with their work dramatically.
24:09Some of the main culprits of workplace anxiety are deadlines, interpersonal relationships, staff management, and troubleshooting.
24:18To reduce the role of worry in our working lives, we need to become more tolerant of uncertainty.
24:23We cannot avoid it.
24:25And the time we use trying to counter it can be very counterproductive.
24:29And then work life, it gets really overwhelming.
24:33Like, if I mess up on something, I punish myself now.
24:37Like, I punish myself so hard.
24:39I could be working on a project and I just make one little mistake and everyone's like,
24:44oh no, it's fine.
24:45For me, I will keep apologizing the rest of the day for it because it's on my mind.
24:50It was definitely interfering with my job.
24:55My superiors had noticed and had said, I don't know what's going on, Rick, but you need to do something about it.
25:02And soon.
25:04It affects my work the most because what I do takes a lot of guts.
25:10I have to present myself to a lot of people.
25:13I'm judged by a lot of people.
25:15I have to be able to manage important situations under really stressful conditions.
25:21So I would say that if I was to give into the anxiety, it would be completely crippling.
25:26There's times too when I do have to give into it because it's so overwhelming and I end up missing out on certain things in life.
25:32But when it comes to my work, because my career is so important to me,
25:35I kind of make that the challenge I have to overcome every time.
25:38So while it's really, really difficult for me sometimes to do certain things in my career,
25:42it ends up being that much more rewarding when I can get through it.
25:44My anxiety at work would have me planning for things that I didn't need to plan for
25:52and not focusing on the job at hand and focusing on things kind of down the road
25:59and not in a very productive sense, but again, in the sense that it's something I don't really need to worry about.
26:06And that would impact my present work that I should be focusing on.
26:12So my work performance was not the best for the first two years of my career.
26:18And it all kind of snowballs.
26:19You know, if your work performance isn't the best, you don't get a raise, you don't get a raise,
26:23but rent goes up, then you have to worry about how you're going to make that extra money.
26:27You don't get to go out with friends as much and you don't get to network and meet people.
26:32So it is kind of a vicious cycle to use that old cliche.
26:35In American capitalism, you don't really have to have a reason or a real reason to lose a job.
26:44I have been laid off before and I am positive that my anxiety contributed to that somehow.
26:54I definitely have lost relationships because I have been worried about them.
27:01And my anxiety will prod me to either avoid the source of my worry, my friendship,
27:09or latch on like a cheap suit and be all over them and kind of chase them away.
27:16It goes both ways, but I've definitely lost relationships over anxiety.
27:23I was actually supposed to work with a pretty big band.
27:26They were going to have me working their merch table and it was going to require me to travel out of state.
27:31And at the time I was living back in the Midwest and I actually used to have some travel phobia.
27:36And that was part of the anxiety. And I ended up last minute backing out of the gig and it really upset him.
27:41And I told him that it was because I was sick, but obviously it's because of the anxiety.
27:45But the thing about anxiety, I think as an adult, is it's a lot of adults feel embarrassed to talk about it.
27:49Like you feel kind of, I don't know, like a dork being like, oh, my anxiety.
27:53So you end up usually making up another excuse.
27:56And I think that that's what's really important about this documentary is that people need to understand that that's really how it works.
28:01So I have noticed in some of my interns and entry level co-workers the same signs of having an untreated anxiety related disorder.
28:13And in general, when an adult leaves college and goes out into the workforce, that is when things start going into overdrive for that kind of disease.
28:27They're away from home perhaps for the first time.
28:30They're away from their usual support structures or in an unusual environment, a high pressure, fast paced environment where they have a lot of worry about whether they'll excel, whether they'll make it out here, whether they'll make it in Hollywood.
28:48I think that you get extra perceptive, you know, too, in other people because they have sort of the same mannerisms that they have about themselves, the way they carry themselves and maybe the way they're wording something or being a little bit more mousy.
28:59And I tend to gravitate towards people like that in life, actually.
29:02I feel like because I can relate to them and I want them to feel comfortable in the situations they're in.
29:07So like I have like an effects girl I know that suffers a lot from anxiety and I make a point to always involve her because I know that it's difficult typically for her to get work because of it.
29:15And I want her to know that there's a place for her in the world.
29:17And I think that it's important for all of us to sort of help each other with that.
29:20And that's a good way to really get over it.
29:22Just being able to see someone being habitually late or being a little scattered in their thought processes and tasks,
29:35even though they have a list of tasks that are given at the beginning of each day.
29:39Sometimes interns will have kind of outlandish risky behavior that I'll hear about or that they'll display.
29:48Sometimes interns will be very reserved and quiet and introverted.
29:56I can look back at the times I was introverted.
30:00And if I see something that they've done that I used to do, like taking lunch by myself or taking a long time in the restroom to kind of recharge.
30:12Or if I see the risky behavior like abuse of other prescription drugs or just drinking to excess or things like that.
30:23I can point to that and say, Hey, can I talk to you for a second?
30:26You know, there's no, no judgment here.
30:28I've just been through this before.
30:29And can I ask you if you've ever felt like this things, if you think, if you worry about things a lot that you don't need to worry about.
30:40It overwhelms everything, overwhelms you.
30:42It's like the smallest task become the biggest task ever being around friends.
30:48Whenever you're at that full moment of anxiety, it can be a much on them.
30:53And my friends though, like I said, they understand what I'm going through.
30:57They've been very, very gracious and kind and just patient with me.
31:03And I think it's good when you have anxiety to have a good support unit.
31:07And I've lost friends over the years from all this.
31:09But the people that have been right by my side, they get it and they love me for me.
31:14So they are willing to work with me through those moments.
31:18If you find yourself held back for no good reason, but that doesn't matter.
31:24You're still held back.
31:26You're still holding yourself back somehow.
31:28Your body isn't letting you do something or your brain is not letting you complete a task that your body has already started.
31:35And usually when I say, I felt like that my whole life until I got treatment.
31:43That is when, if they say, really, or if they say, you felt like that.
31:53When they say something that indicates to me that they felt the same way their whole lives.
31:59That's when I know I can talk very frankly and share some of my experience and some of my former interns experiences as well.
32:06If they're comfortable with me sharing that.
32:08Having said that, I generally do not discuss it with coworkers above my level unless we are friends outside of work.
32:19There's not as much stigma with having an anxiety disorder or a little depression or a little OCD.
32:28Some firms actually look for people with those traits that those diseases can bring out because it may mean that they're detail oriented.
32:39And if they can, if they've been in the business long enough, it generally means they can handle and manage and control it and use some of those traits and behaviors to their advantage and into the firm's advantage.
32:54I do consider anxiety to be an illness.
32:57Anxiety is a defense mechanism.
33:00However, when it reaches a certain level of intensity and frequency, it stops being useful.
33:06Rather than fueling foresight, it becomes a source of suffering and distraction.
33:12This kind of relentless anxiety makes it hard to fully enjoy life.
33:17It is often a symptom of an anxiety disorder, which is an illness.
33:22My dreams were very anxious.
33:26I missed an entire semester of class and I have to take the exam and oh no, where are my clothes?
33:32Lots of falling dreams, lots of drowning dreams, lots of why am I driving this car and not on the road?
33:38It is falling towards a swamp.
33:40Things like that.
33:42Very, very strange things.
33:44Often very shocking and violent dreams.
33:48I had many dreams where I would wake up and say, huh, I feel funny and see the aftermath of some violent struggle or carnage or gore on the wall.
34:02One particularly bad dream during the worst part of my anxiety before I sought treatment.
34:10I woke up and felt very strange and I raised my right hand and there was a smoking gun in it.
34:16And I looked in my closet mirror door and my brains were on the far wall and there was a hole in my head, but I was still moving and thinking and doing.
34:30And my thought as I woke up was, oh no, even this didn't get rid of it.
34:36That was really, I think, the thing that caused me to seek treatment.
34:45Not the job, not being lonely, not the money or anything economic, just the idea that if I don't get this under control, I might hurt myself.
35:02I actually had a long discussion with one of my very close friends the other day about it.
35:06I feel like I'm constantly like a burden or letting people down all the time because of it.
35:15And I know that that's the anxiety of it at all.
35:18And it's like, it's hard to be around me is what I feel like.
35:23But my friends, they understand.
35:25And I'm one of those people now.
35:27My anxiety controls my decisions.
35:30Usually when I have to go to something, like, yeah, I'll be there, you know, no big deal.
35:34Now, if my anxiety gets the best of me, I have to cancel because I know it's going to overwhelm me getting ready.
35:41It's going to overwhelm me getting there.
35:43It's going to overwhelm me just being around people.
35:45And you never know how it's going to like, you know, and I don't want to ever lash out anyone.
35:50And one of my very best friends the other day, like, he asked me to do something when I was already dealing with anxiety and trying to get ready for something else.
35:58And it was like the smallest, like, thing.
36:01And I snapped.
36:02And I apologize.
36:03And I continue to apologize.
36:05He's like, stop apologizing.
36:06It's been two days now and I'm still apologizing.
36:09Throughout history, I mean, as a human society, we haven't handled mental issues very well.
36:15A common misconception about anxiety is that most people believe anxiety is a sign of personal weakness.
36:22It's seen as a mental sort of malady.
36:25Oh, she has anxiety and depression.
36:28And it's like, no, I have anxiety and depression the same way a person has hypoglycemia or diabetes or anything else.
36:36For people actually experiencing anxiety, the perception that most people have a negative attitude towards their condition reduces the chances that they'll even seek support both formally and informally.
36:48People expect children and teenagers to have anxiety because they have so many things to be anxious about growing up.
36:53But I think that society expects you to sort of grow out of it.
36:56I think that for most people that work a nine to five job and are married and have kids and all of that, they have such a routine life that they often don't face the types of anxiety.
37:05Maybe someone like I do face.
37:07And so it can be hard for me to talk about it to other people because they may not be able to relate.
37:12They're like, well, it's not stressful for me to go to work.
37:14Why is it stressful for you?
37:15And so I think that it's different, you know, for different people, for sure.
37:19Honestly, it's like, it's usually like, oh, that makes more sense now.
37:24Um, because before people will be like, oh, why is this person crazy?
37:30Like what's wrong with them?
37:31Um, but now like whenever you tell them, yeah, this is why I'm this way.
37:35And then they're like, okay, this makes more sense.
37:37And I'm so sorry you're going through this, but how can I help?
37:40And so it opens the door of communication and understanding.
37:45But yeah, no, usually it's a better response than I think it's going to be in your head.
37:49It feels like no one's going to want to be around you.
37:52Like you're just going to be like this black sheep in the group or something.
37:56And it's never that case.
37:58It's usually how can I help?
38:00How can I be there for you?
38:01And it's been very rewarding in that fact.
38:04A paper published recently online in the journal Brain and Behavior suggests that women are almost twice as likely as men to experience anxiety.
38:13That said, there's a growing recognition among psychologists that men are more likely to suffer in silence.
38:20Instead of saying they're anxious, they complain of headaches and muscle aches and pains.
38:26They are more likely to use alcohol and drugs to cope with anxiety.
38:29So what looks like a drinking problem may actually be an anxiety disorder.
38:35Also, anxiety in men often manifests as anger and irritability.
38:41The social stigma surrounding anxiety can make it harder for a man to come forward with their issues.
38:48And that's what's interesting is I think a lot of men actually suffer from anxiety because they're expected to not have anxiety.
38:54And so it's really difficult for people to talk about it as a whole.
38:57Anxiety, it's like it's gender neutral.
39:00It's literally attacks everyone.
39:02And some get it from different things, but it will come in the same light, I feel like.
39:07And it attacks the same way and it plagues you in a way in your mind.
39:12So I feel like it has, it takes all surrender.
39:17Like it just takes all victims and all kinds.
39:20One of my friends, one of my good friends, he actually has some severe anxiety as well.
39:25And the little task that he's put forth, and we work together a lot,
39:30and the little tasks that he'll get overwhelms him sometimes.
39:34Overcoming stigma for anxiety is one of the biggest barriers to people seeking help.
39:40It's what mental health professionals call social stigma.
39:44Essentially, social stigma is the negative view that others can project onto people who reveal particular imperfections or problems.
39:52One of the largest factors that makes stigma so powerful is it can lead people to reject or exclude others.
40:01It is common for someone with anxiety or other psychological problems to think that if they reveal their struggles,
40:07they will suffer serious social or professional problems.
40:12Sense being thought of as crazy or insane carries a significant stigma in the American culture.
40:19Think about how often it is that we use those words to insult someone.
40:23Any possibility that one could be misunderstood and seen as crazy is significantly threatening.
40:30I do openly discuss my anxiety now, but for years I just lived with it.
40:37As a man in today's society, I think I was always taught that to show anxiety or depression was a sign of weakness.
40:49So I would just suffer silently, put on a good face, pretend everything was okay, and move forward.
40:57And over the years, as I get older and older, it feels like the anxiety compounds, you know, and things that were once very doable for me, you know, now become harder and harder.
41:09Like, you know, I find one of the hardest things to do now is, you know, to go get in my car and drive to an unfamiliar, you know, grocery store or movie theater or, you know, restaurant.
41:21You know, I mean, I'll spend all kinds of money on, you know, DoorDash or, you know, Ubering places just because I'm too anxious to drive, you know, which, you know, begs the question, you know, why am I paying a car payment?
41:36So I will openly discuss anxiety with friends and coworkers at or below my levels, especially entry-level employees or interns who I think could benefit from some of my experience.
41:51I am pretty good at telling when someone has anxiety because I've been through it and I know the signs and I've heard some of the same thoughts in my head coming out of some of my interns mouths.
42:07And immediately I say to them, hey, let's talk about this.
42:12All right. The work can wait for a second. We need to focus on you because you can't do the work if you're not working at your best potential.
42:19I'm going to tell you my story and I want you to tell me if this seems familiar, because it is something that can be treated successfully that you can manage and work through and in some cases overcome.
42:36There's such a stigma. I think that people look at it almost as like someone who has anxiety has problems or they're difficult or they're going to be complaining a lot.
42:45And so I don't because I'm in a position where I have to really put myself out there for people and I have to appear to have such confidence that I just don't let the anxiety show.
42:54You know, I'll do whatever I can to not show it.
42:57A key element in reducing stigma related to mental health is for everyone within the community to have a good understanding of anxiety.
43:04Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in this country. We can all relate to that tense, distressed feeling. But what causes so many people to live with fear?
43:14I have not really done therapy on the regular. I've had a couple of consultations. I think that that's something though that I should probably do.
43:23I would seek therapy if I could find the time and the money for it.
43:30Many people with anxiety never seek help. Despite the importance of mental health care, many people are afraid of being stigmatized if they admit they need help.
43:41Not being able to pay for treatment is another big issue. Although most insurers cover mental health to some degree, not everyone can afford insurance.
43:51What's more, young adults who are less likely to have insurance are also at higher risk for addiction and other mental health issues.
44:00And some lower income populations face unique pressures that can increase the chances of mental illness.
44:06Then there's fear of treatment itself. Someone who has not been treated for a mental health issue might have some pretty strange ideas about how it's done.
44:15Some people may simply fear the vulnerability of telling a stranger their problems. In reality, therapy is nothing to be scared of.
44:23The setting is quite relaxed and you don't have to discuss anything you're not comfortable with.
44:29Treatment often involves some kind of medication too, which may require some trial and error to get right.
44:35However, most people benefit from treatment to some degree, and many notice significant improvements in a relatively short amount of time.
44:44At the moment I don't have health insurance, so I can't get some of the treatment I want or need.
44:51I can get the drugs from online pharmacies. That's not a problem.
44:56Having people talk to and having the time and energy and disinterest or perhaps distance to be able to look back at my thoughts and actions and look at what could be causing them and work on those causes.
45:16That's something I am doing more.
45:20If you're anxious frequently, you may decide you'd like a drink to calm your nerves.
45:24After all, alcohol is a sedative. In a social setting, that may feel just like the answer you need to let your guard down.
45:31Ultimately, it may not be the best solution.
45:35Some people with anxiety disorders end up abusing alcohol and or other drugs in an effort to feel better regularly.
45:42This can create dependency and addiction.
45:45So over the years, I've coked with anxiety in different ways.
45:48When I was a little younger, I probably self-medicated with alcohol quite a bit.
45:52I don't think it got to the point where I would consider myself an alcoholic, but I was drinking nightly.
45:59You know, two or three drinks, sometimes more, you know, just to feel okay to be able to go to sleep.
46:06And then I discovered CBD and THC.
46:10I never liked smoking it, but once it was legalized in California and they started doing the edibles and the sprays and the tinctures,
46:17I got into that a little bit more and medicated with that.
46:21But more productively recently, I've started into meditation.
46:27I've been doing guided meditation for about a year.
46:30I do it in the morning when I wake up and at night right before I go to bed.
46:34And then, you know, depending on how severe my anxiety is during the day,
46:39I might do a quick session in the middle of the day.
46:42I do breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, passive muscle relaxation.
46:50And I find those things help.
46:52So regarding the treatment, my psychiatrist said, here, take these pills.
46:58Also, I want you to start therapy.
47:00I did not start therapy.
47:02I did not do therapy once.
47:04And what I did find was that once I was being treated successfully and effectively
47:11with the SSRIs, I was able to look at past behaviors and kind of maybe not give myself therapy,
47:20but look at the motivations and the patterns of thinking that were in evidence and find ways,
47:27very effective ways to get around those.
47:29So at least I have that going for myself, which is nice.
47:32Yeah, I openly smoke marijuana now.
47:34I actually, and I've never publicly said this, but I smoke an average of about eight times a day.
47:39Anybody that's known me in the last 20 years hasn't seen me not under the influence, actually,
47:44because it's what got me through college.
47:46It's what got me through all of the situations I'm going through now because,
47:49and there's a popular medical discussions about it.
47:52But for me, when I smoke marijuana after I eat, it's my digestive that I have problems with.
47:56So if I smoke after I eat, it calms my digestion, which calms my anxiety.
48:00And so if I, because of the IBS symptoms, I can't eat full meals also.
48:04So I have to have something smaller every two hours.
48:06So essentially I have to smoke pot every two hours after I eat.
48:09But that's sort of what keeps me on the same calm level.
48:12You know, I like to go on hikes to combat it.
48:14Although recently, you know, just deciding to go to the park to hike, you know,
48:20like, you know, driving out there or walking out there, sometimes I'll get nervous.
48:24So a new thing I've been training is transcendental meditation.
48:28It's been helping quite a bit.
48:30Then there's other times where I just sit in silence,
48:33sitting in silence, focusing on my breathing, on my heart rate,
48:37if you, which is part of the meditation part too.
48:40But just sometimes doing that and just recentering.
48:43I do often meditate. I've tried meditation.
48:46I've actually been to four different doctors for the IBS symptoms.
48:49I've done everything from pills to meditation to marijuana and drinking.
48:53And I've found that meditation works really well for me.
48:57But because of my profession, I often don't make enough time for myself
49:00to really get in the zone.
49:01You really have to be fully committed for meditation to work.
49:05So for me, sometimes it's easier to just load a bowl, smoke, and then go back to work.
49:09My biggest thing now is if I write it out,
49:12I start like a blog to like journal my journey.
49:17When I write it down, it seems to relax me more
49:21because I'm releasing whatever is plaguing my mind at that moment.
49:25Yeah, I do exercise and that does actually help.
49:27I noticed that physical activity helps a lot
49:29because it gets your mind off of what you're thinking about.
49:31So walking and hiking has really helped me a lot.
49:34But sometimes you just got to let the tears come.
49:36Sometimes you just got to like sit it out and let it come out.
49:40My dog, she's the biggest, biggest support for me.
49:43She knows what to do.
49:44And if I didn't have her, then I don't know what I would do.
49:48But I think that right there, I think for people who have anxiety,
49:52having an animal is key because they do help.
49:57A lot of it is just constantly reassuring myself because it's like you're self-aware of it.
50:02Like you realize that the thoughts that you're thinking don't make any sense
50:06and that to you it's so dumb to be worrying about it
50:09because you know it's not that, it's going to pan out that way.
50:11And I think just doing so much that causes anxiety and pushing myself through it,
50:15sort of like getting on a roller coaster,
50:16like when you're afraid to get on the roller coaster.
50:18Once you've got off it, it's exhilarating and you're so glad you did it,
50:20and now you're not as afraid to do it anymore.
50:22So I think that with time, although I still have anxiety,
50:25it's sort of like more and more manageable because I can be rational about it
50:28the more I do something and realize, look, you've done this 10,000 times.
50:31This is exactly what happened. Why are you worried? Stop worrying about it.
50:35I didn't really try meditation because when I was in the deepest throes of my anxiety,
50:40staying still, trying to clear my head,
50:45which is what meditation at least partially involves,
50:50it would generally be an opening for the anxiety to say,
50:54hey, here's something to worry about. Here's something else you haven't thought of.
50:57So I didn't make space in my life for meditation.
51:02There are thousands of self-help books on the subject.
51:07While it's not recommended to self-treat serious issues,
51:11they can be a good jumping off point to a better understanding of anxiety
51:15and the possible steps you may need to combat it.
51:18I've never really read any literature about therapy or meditation,
51:27and I've never really gone in for self-help stuff.
51:30I've always been kind of an autodidact,
51:33and I learn best by trial, error, and experience.
51:38So the idea of a self-help book has never appealed to me.
51:43A lot of that thought is kind of my upbringing and, in general,
51:47being wary of institutions like churches or support groups.
51:55And that's probably something I should look at and interrogate to see what my antipathy is
52:01and if there's something about that that is holding me back from my potential.
52:06Social media is undoubtedly an outlet that engages most online users.
52:11However, according to mental health consultants nationally,
52:14social media has become a major anxiety-provoking factor.
52:18I think that we live in a world that social media has sort of catered to fast attention spans
52:25and people that want things quickly and often don't take time to fully stop and understand something.
52:30And I think that anxiety because of the world we live in is a very common thing.
52:35And I think that we would get to a better place as humans and coexisting together and understanding each other,
52:41especially on social media, if we actually did stop for a minute and understand each other's problems.
52:46Whether it's anxiety, whether it's bullying, anything that can sort of affect the soul and the mind,
52:51I think is important, especially in today's day and age,
52:53for everyone to stop and pay attention to each other a little bit more.
52:56I think that there's a way that you can go about presenting yourself to an audience.
53:01I think that there's a right way to do it, like a right time and a right place.
53:04I think that the reason anxiety has sort of the stigma it does is because chronically people that suffer
53:10are often posting about it and talking about it.
53:12And it sort of creates a sort of idea of what people think that it is.
53:16So it's difficult when other people want to go and talk about it.
53:18So I think that what's best for understanding is to maybe have someone within a position of power
53:23or someone that's respected that can say,
53:25look, I have anxiety too, but look at what I was able to do with myself.
53:28So I think that in that sort of situation, it's a really positive thing to talk about.
53:32But because of, unfortunately, the way that people are judged on social media,
53:36the way that people look at your Facebook page and think of you in that way,
53:39that if it's something that you're chronically suffering with,
53:41you're probably not going to find the answers on social media.
53:44Now we get to the most important message.
53:47How can we reduce stigma related to social anxiety disorder?
53:51It's not going to be an easy fix, unfortunately,
53:54and will require changes in attitudes through education.
53:58I have been very open with using my platform to spread awareness for things such as anxiety, PTSD, domestic violence.
54:08I've decided I wanted to not put facade on anymore.
54:13For so long you put on the face to appear like you're happy all the time,
54:18so people don't ask questions.
54:20But now I feel like that with social media and everything,
54:24everyone's living in this fake life and it causes other people to have depression issues
54:28because they're not living up to the same standard as someone else.
54:31I do enjoy helping people see that they don't have to live the way I did or the way they're living,
54:38that there is something they can do about it, maybe temporarily, maybe not,
54:43but any kind of respite or relief that I can give someone,
54:47I'm pleased to do it and I'm glad I can do it.
54:50For me, being open about it has been the most healing part about it
54:54because I'm no longer holding a secret.
54:57It's more so of I'm letting people in and saying I'm not okay, but that is okay.
55:04And it's allowing others to reach out to me too.
55:07And it's created like a support network of people.
55:10It also explains why I act certain ways too.
55:13Like, you know, sometimes you don't want to talk about it like when you're going through it,
55:18but if people already know that you're dealing with these things, then they can accept it.
55:22If I could go back and talk to myself
55:24when I was at the worst part of my anxiety, I would tell myself the same thing.
55:29I tell my interns and entry-level co-workers who I mentor,
55:36that this is something you can get through.
55:40It helps if you have the support of your family and your friends.
55:44You don't have to tell everybody, but you do need to tell the people you trust.
55:48You don't need to let it get any worse before you get treatment.
55:53Get treated as soon as you can and explore alternative support structures
55:59in case the medicines don't work as well as they should,
56:03or if they stop working after a period of time.
56:06It's still, there's still a lot of work to be done.
56:09I don't enjoy feeling negative emotions, but I welcome them
56:14because I know they're a part of life and they're a part of who I am.
56:17So it's been 16 years since my diagnosis.
56:19I'm nowhere near as bad as I was 16 years ago, but I do have a lot of anxiety.
56:25And I do.
56:28Before, I would pride myself on being calm, cool, and collected when emergencies emerged.
56:38And now I kind of go to pieces.
56:40My wife has remarked on it, and my co-workers have not remarked on it to my face,
56:47but I kind of wish they would.
56:49Even without the help of drugs, I know it can be done.
56:53And I'm going to give it a shot as opposed to just lying on the couch
56:57and not giving it a shot and saying,
56:59get up, get up, do it, and feeling bad about not doing it.
57:02That executive dysfunction is something that I am keeping at bay for the most part.
57:08I need to just calm down.
57:10You can't focus so much of your time worrying about uncertainty
57:14because it can really destroy you.
57:16And I think that early on in my career, it did guide me into some bad places
57:20because I let it control me.
57:22And I think that maybe I would have gone back now and told me to really look at the big picture
57:26and see where I'm going.
57:27Once I went to a psychiatrist and he diagnosed me and began treatment,
57:33once the treatment started working, things got much, much better.
57:37And my career kind of took off like a rocket.
57:40And I got a girlfriend, got engaged, got married, all that good stuff.
57:45Worldwide, let's work toward breaking the silence about mental health for social anxiety disorder
57:52and all mental illnesses.
57:54Let's follow in the footsteps of such countries as Australia and the UK
57:58that are working towards integrating mental health care and therapy as a routine part of care.
58:05By being more open, I'm just allowing myself to be more real and help others through my journey.
58:12If there's one thing in general I wanted people with anxiety to know, it's that there's nothing wrong with them.
58:22Any person who didn't have an anxiety disorder and was faced with the things that people with anxiety worry about
58:32would worry the same way.
58:36They may not react the same way, they may not do the same things because it's new to them
58:41and their coping methods are different.
58:46They grew up with different coping methods.
58:48And people with anxiety can learn those coping methods and they can get treatment,
58:52whether it's medication, whether it's meditation.
58:54There are things that they can do to reduce the effect anxiety has on their lives.
59:01One of the biggest things I've learned through my journey with healing and everything that I went through
59:07in the last couple years is being open.
59:12Someone might need your smile more than you need your tears.
59:15I'm working my way to becoming a less anxious person and I think you can do it too.
59:31Come on in for my life by loving people and every pain.
59:33I'm struggling with a mass stressor.
59:35I'm struggling with other spirits with what you're capable of living or spending in the last couple.
59:36It may be wonderful to be残red.
59:37You don't give them an extremely busy dream of mourning.
59:39I live in a veryescending way like a CG.
59:43I'm struggling with** am I blinding with having to wear.
59:44On my daily voulait and avec my restauration...
59:45Let this becomes uncomfortable and ia getting older...
59:47...you're smiling.
59:49I don't have to be opening up.
59:50Do baby that every day last time.
59:52וחed and even being able to do this,
59:53I remember telling you to be a better day off the r bird Mosch chord