(upbeat music)
I think about my health and my physical situation
a hundred times more than the average person does.
I live my life minute by minute because of my anxiety.
Right now I'm feeling anxiety,
I can't get a deep enough breath as often as I want to,
the light is hurting my eyes and I am very lightheaded.
I was seeing stars when I walked in here
because I'm so lightheaded.
(inhaling and exhaling)
This is just something I feel every day.
I've taken my blood pressure up to 12 to 15 times a day
on a really bad day.
I check my blood sugar like three times in an hour.
I use gauge strips to check the pH levels of my blood.
I wanna know what's going on inside of my body.
It's very disheartening when you go to people for help
and they just shrug you off as like
(dramatic beat)
a crazy person.
I feel there's an underlying issue that's causing my anxiety
that has not been discovered.
You talk about anxiety neurosis
as though it's not a real disease,
as though it's not a real thing...
Which is (hand smacking) kind of an insult to me
(audience laughing)
Sorry.
Since I've devoted my entire life to the diagnosis
and treatment of mental illness.
To me, there's no stigma to having an anxiety disorder.
To me, it's the same as having a kidney disorder
or a knee problem or arthritis.
It's very real.
If you have a problem with anxiety,
it changes your body chemistry.
I think I've acknowledged it.
I just feel like I'm having an underlying cause for it.
I found this show really interesting
and I found her to be a really good teaching tool because...
We are talking about the process, the differential diagnosis
and people absolutely have to understand that you...
Don't want...
To become a patient as part of your identity.
What you want to do if you've got something wrong with you
Okay, you have to deal with that but don't let it become
who you are, what you do, your social life,
what you think about from the minute you wake up
'til you go to bed at night.
You have to compartmentalize this
and not let it dominate all your waking hours.
And here, she's been to 35 doctors who are telling her,
"Okay, look, you've got anxiety here" and she's thinking,
"I don't know, you're not paying attention to me;
"I've got something wrong with my body."
And she thinks their telling her anxiety
is just a deflection,
their not wanting to pay attention
to what's going on with her.
But the truth is they'll never get to anything
that might be going on if she doesn't get that under control
because number one, doctors won't look pass that
and number two,
if she is in such a state of hyperventilation,
if she's in such a state of adrenergic arousal,
if she's having panic attacks which creates hypertension
and all that, they'd have no baseline.
They'd never get a chance
to figure out what's really going on.
So, currency for her is she'll work on this
so they can then diagnose her properly.
I don't think that there's a lot going on
besides the anxiety
and I don't think the anxiety came out of the blue.
She had a lot of events going on at the time
that scared her, okay?
Let's acknowledge those and deal with them without fear.
For very understandable reasons, about a year ago,
during your pregnancy, finding out that you have a gene
that makes you susceptible to breast cancer,
finding out that you have family members with cancer,
having a big physiological change during pregnancy,
a lot of things conspire at one time,
you do have a reaction at this time.
We're gonna start by using non-medication and teach her
to control these processes inside her body;
biofeedback is a powerful tool.
You first learn to relax then with biofeedback
we learn to control certain bodily processes.
We'll deal with this.
She will do well.
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