[Music]
so it's kind of like a mix of like
actual physical pain with just kind of
like the mental kind of main you know
kind of like looking in the Sun for a
little while like that I'm David Brown
I'm 18 years old and I live in Lyme
Connecticut at the Rundlett time my
anxiety was at its peak I didn't really
want to go out my friends and stuff I
would like to be isolated just please
don't talk to me right now
I'm dr. Ellen Leibowitz
clinical psychologist at the Child Study
Center here at Yale medicine anxiety is
part of everybody's life but in many
people anxiety can be overly sensitive
so that we experience danger fear even
in situations that are not actually
threatening to us
dr. Lewis was a very helpful man he
always knew kind of what to say like
talking to like a close friend you know
hey come on in thank you when I first
met David
he'd been experiencing severe and really
debilitating anxiety in a number of
different areas of his life and he was
suffering a lot personally and feeling a
lot of distress I really spent a lot of
time out of the house as much as I could
I tried to keep David busy so he was out
of the house because I just didn't know
how to cope it was definitely hard I
think five six years ago going to school
I would not look forward to it in the
morning because I knew we were gonna
argue every time we got in the car it
was always gonna be like separation you
know windows down no contact with me and
it was just very uncomfortable David was
also experiencing some ticks which are
involuntary behaviors like that the
person feels like they just can't stop
themselves from doing so it's kind of
like both the tick and like the feeling
of want to get rid of the tick at once
kind of building up one important goal
for us in the treatment was to teach
David some relaxation skills you know
kind of feel that
building up try to just really gradually
and slowly let your eyes kind of shut
just do a few deep breaths
perfect biofeedback was a really
powerful and useful tool for David
because it gave him an immediate sense
of what his body was doing and so right
now just because those are on your
fingers the computer is starting to get
information about what's happening
inside of your body and from that yellow
which is a little bit more tense yeah to
the green and already it's already
shifting into the blue it's telling us
good getting calmer getting get relaxed
I had trouble kind of coping around that
time so once I was able to kind of get
some techniques from that kind of
program then it was very useful to be
able to kind do that outside of it I
felt so much better when I realized like
oh it is getting better and he is
changing in a positive way just last
weekend we won it looked at a college
that he's probably gonna wind up going
to where he'll be living in a dormitory
and like Diane said we never thought
that was gonna happen
he has come light-years from where he
was when I first met him he has an
active social life he's doing well in
school he's gotten into college he is
really just thriving and it makes me
really proud of the work that he's done
I think he'll really flourish in the
future because Yale medicine has taught
him a lot of ways to handle his anxiety
positively I feel like after meeting dr.
Leibovitz and the program it is you feel
a lot more confident that I'm gonna be
able to do better in the college and
since I have known no more trouble
really with having tics or anxiety as
much or mirrors in the past then I feel
very comfortable going away to college
and being able to succeed in what I want
to do
you