Documentary Details The Struggles Of People With Anxiety Disorders

Some of us feel nervous or scared or anxious occasionally but for some of us anxiety never seems to go away. You live in fear and some people don't understand what you're going through. A new documentary that airs on KPBS couple times this month helps to help you will understand what it is like to suffer from uncontrolled fear panic and anxiety and how it affects their daily lives. Joining is Susan the director of it is just anxiety. Welcome to the program. The title of the film is both ironic and to the point. Isn't that were people suffering from anxiety disorders here it is just anxiety there's nothing really wrong. Right absolutely and they diminish the feeling and it makes it feel worse. It makes you feel more anxious because go take a bath or something that will go away and it doesn't. Is that's what some people suffering from anxiety tell themselves incident They do until they learn more about it. That is one of the reasons that I did this. 40 million people suffer from anxiety disorders. I've always had a little bit of anxiety and it propelled me to successes but it started to get really bad as I was older and I had all of the what-ifs and worries. I knew I was anxious I decided to do a lot of research on it and then I decided to make the film in order to better understand anxiety and how people thought was us. What forms of anxiety does this film address. Social anxiety and the example of Jamie Blythe who was on the bachelorette. Micheline who was a San Diego therapist she worries about everything. Terry who was in the Army and she is just obsessed with health. Scott who was the editor of the Atlantic magazine has generalized anxiety which means all kinds of things. He has panic attacks. June has posttraumatic stress syndrome and then the other two they are not there -- anxiety disorders they used to be but they were taken out of that category they are just dominated by anxious feelings and Lori who lives in San Diego also has germ phobias and Matt has generalized phobias or OCD. As you have been telling is one of the unique things about the film it is just anxiety is that the story about these disorders and problems is told by the people who suffer from them. Not from the doctor therapist a researcher. Why did you make that choice. I have six films. One was on depression. One was on tickets coming out to their parents. I did not want to go talking heads. I wanted to hear it straight from the people suffering. I just wanted them to tell us what it was like to have it and what they were doing to get better. How to define the people you included the film. That was hard. I met Lori who was the person who had a very severe germ phobia and an anxiety group run by Doctor Jim he was also in the movie. He was at the anxiety support group playing plastic over her. I started talking to her and I asked immediately if she would be in the film Scott had been a book about anxiety to he really understands and suffers a great deal from it so I contacted him. Each person was a different way. Some I was looking at on the Internet. The woman that you have a beginning of the show, Danielle post to YouTube of her having a panic attack. I contacted her and she's fixed all kinds of people I found met who has OCD and talked about locking the door 1 million times I found him on YouTube. It was a very long process find it the right people. There is a woman who walks us through her compulsions about washing her hands. Why do you think it is important for her to see that. Lori was the one that I was talking about. She had a germ phobia and she could say all day will I wash my hands and all that it was not a put on you really understand that you don't even need words. If he just told me about it I don't think I would have realized how sad it was. It touched her arm at one point and she had to run into the back -- bathroom and do a whole ritual it takes is first takes about 45 minutes all over again. Does the stigma of mental illness stop people from trying to get help when they need it. Once somebody knows that they are not alone and anxiety access they are willing to get help. The fact that people don't have any compassion for anxiety makes you feel that it does not copy from getting the prevention of what may be stops you is if you think you are the only person in the world that feels like this. And you have no idea what is wrong and he told politico. What kind of reaction have you been getting. I've gotten 20 reviews from like the Washington times and they were just amazing and really gratifying. Thank you very much.