This documentary gives you an insight of mental health by introducing people from different backgrounds who’s describe their own personal struggles with their mental health. This film was filmed over the time span of five years, the documentary follows each individual that suffers from anxiety and his or her own symptoms ranging from worrying and fear to more extreme manifestations such as compulsive behavior and torturous panic attacks that become crippling in every day life.
One of the people that were being interviewed was June Moss. She is a retired staff sergeant from the U.S. Army. She was a respected woman that faced real life or death scenarios of war. Sadly upon returning home she is facing the horrible effects of PTSD as known as post-traumatic stress disorder. Scott Stossel is another person in the documentary. He was an editor of the monthly magazine The Atlantic and the author of “My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hop AQe, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind,”. He has been faced with his generalized anxiety along with different therapies for years searching for relief. Through this documentary he shared his personal experience as both researcher and patient. Another individual, Jamie Blyth, found that the more he avoided his anxiety, the more his symptoms’ increased.
Without knowing he was using exposure treatment to get over his social anxiety by beginning his career in sales and then went on to the first season of “The Bachelorette”. We also meet Lori Daniels, who has been battling a war with her mental health that caused her to have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and limits herself to her safe spot, which is a single armchair in her living room. When she comes in contact with any person or object, she must run to the bathroom and aggressively wash her hands over and over. However, at the end of the film, Lori is in therapy and is thriving. She is shaking hands, petting cats, accepting hugs, and working as a teacher. GO LORI!!! Watching cases like Lori bring such joy to the audience and gives hope to others who suffer from similar symptoms.
With over millions of Americans suffering from anxiety this one-hour documentary aims to bring light to this crippling but treatable mental health issue. I can not imagine facing this mental health issue in my every day life. I find this film to be inspiring with its real-life stories. This documentary gives people who suffer from this mental health issue can begin the path to recovery.
