Conquering My Messy Mind | Real Stories Mental Health Documentary

foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] my name's Libby and the reason I want to make this documentary is so that I can help people understand that there's nothing wrong at all with having a mental illness [Music] hi um Ethan and um um yeah I think it's important for me to make this film mainly because I want people to know how it feels to have low self-esteem and people with low self-esteem won't have to feel like they're the only ones going through it that hopefully this will show them that just because you have it doesn't mean you're not perfect help reduce the stigma around mental health and let people know that they're not alone on the outside Ethan Oliver and I might seem like regular teenagers but on the inside there's a lot going on in our heads our mental health problems made me find some simple everyday tasks really difficult I hate phoning people but we're determined not to let our marvelous messy Minds hold us back [Music] find out how the three of us get on as we try and overcome our own mental health challenges and hopefully you can pick up some top tips along the way my name's Libby I live with my mum my dad and my younger brothers Max and will foreign I have suffered with anxiety for a year now possibly longer than that like a year and six months it's gonna make me quite anxious are things that most people will probably find really easy to do so walking to school by myself I feel really uncomfortable and I have to cross the road and I avoid doing them because they make me anxious which you know isn't really going to help at the end of the day is it no my brother Max walks me to school he is my younger brother and I live two minutes away I think it's just because when I'm walking to school I get really anxious and I just get really scared because I feel quite vulnerable so having him there is sort of like he's protecting me even though he's younger people looking will probably think we'll get over it what's the problem but it really hits her hard when it does hit her one of the first times I think I experienced my anxiety was when I decided to meet up with some friends and my dad had dropped me off that told me that he was actually worried about me because you completely freaked out on him and I just remember feeling really panicky because I had to cross this road and it was one of the like main roads I just knew that I could not cross the road what happened it was so bad that made your dad actually scared I don't know it's just I didn't want to cross the road and get hit by a car all of a sudden like my heart was beating really fast and I just he's just like really scared and worried and like anxious anxiety affects my body in different ways my heart beats really fast I have butterflies in my stomach which make me feel sick I start to sweat and my legs turn to jelly it's just really frustrating not being able to do normal things like going gigs to see bands that I'm into this is what I want to do this is the anxiety and I'm just sort of like walking and just bouncing off of it and you know all I need to do is like come through the door down and then walk on through to the gigs of Awesomeness and music and rock and roll okay so what are my goals for this year first goal is to be able to walk to school by myself because I'm reaching the age really where I'm sort of meant to be more and more independent [Music] [Music] this is Ethan he lives with his mum his dad and his three sisters [Music] Ethan was diagnosed with ADHD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder when he was 9 years old and as a result he has low self-esteem I can accept him when someone says you've been bad today I can accept that but that's when someone says actually you can do done well today I find it quite hard to accept I don't know why low self-esteem is when we find it hard to believe the good things about ourselves and when we think we can't do anything well smaller this makes us feel the harder it is to think positively when people do say nice things this causes Ethan to get easily frustrated I get angry of a really little petty things that just don't need to be getting angry about like not having ketchup with dinner just makes me angry so some interesting things happen this week well not such interesting been quite a bad week for me I've got excluded from school um yeah I got fined breaking the chair because I got angry sometimes I just wish I didn't get angry as easy because I think I'd be a much nice person as well to be around and it's quite upsetting to feel like people feel like they have to be on guard when they're around me now hold it nice and tight and put it up like it how's last time gone for you I I think travel keeps saying to find me so that affect your confidence a bit yeah I think it makes me feel a bit a bit dull inside a bit like a bit potato what are some of the things you're finding difficult I normally get angry when I try and express my feelings and I don't know why I just do so I find it quite hard to talk to people about myself but you don't like looking people in the eye though do you I can only look my mum in the eye what about me no I mean I could talk to you yeah I am you've got to be able to do this being honest I feel ashamed sometimes when I talk to you that's right that's honestly why I find it hard to look anyway against having this wood in I think just disappointing my parents is one of the things I have to deal with after I've done something wrong I think it's it's the truth of life you do so you've got to live with your consequences no matter how bad they are I find I can't really talk people without making a feel of myself I know how does it make you feel it makes me feel rubbish and then when you feel rubbish what do you do act rubbish it's like a full circle isn't it yeah it doesn't have to be that way I died enough for today now let's finish it we'll finish it up tomorrow this is Oliver he lives with his mum his dad and his two older brothers he's had anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder known as OCD since he was really young having OCD makes Oliver scared of germs and getting dirty with my OCD I was really afraid of germs and so I was always washing my hands and the knock-on effect with that was that my hands were chapped and my skin was cracking at one point I couldn't go to school because my hands were cut all the way around how would you feel if I handed that one to you oh that's disgusting when you were about three you were always asking me has anything happened today that can give me shorter life do you remember that I remember exactly and I think like most parents I thought it would pass by and that you would outgrow it and you didn't OCD affects my everyday life by causing me to do things that would seem odd to other people so it's like straightening out my pens people would think why are you doing that are you trying to get attention and you're genuinely not and I was always thinking what do you mean I thought this was perfectly natural because it's what I have to do at first I thought it was normal then I could see myself slowly kind of drifting apart from all the other students which kind of made me feel upset and secluded and that's when I really started to notice oh maybe I'm alone maybe I'm just a weird kid so I want to be able to do everything that a child should do because I think if I can cross that boundary my life would be phenomenally improved I could do so much more if I can just get control Oliver really wants to overcome his fear of dirt and germs [Music] a bad day to me is just a day when I just feel really upset and really anxious and lots of people think it's just quite easy to just sort of snap out of it but it's sort of like I'm being followed by this dark rain cloud the key thing about mental illness is that we need to talk about it because people don't talk about it people then don't know how to help so by talking about it and being more open people feel loved and more cared about I'm really grateful for have you guys as friends so what do you think your next step is to like conquering anxiety my mum's organized for me to see this therapist psychology person I don't know I suppose the next step is just sitting down and talking to him and just seeing what he has to say [Music] thank you [Music] when I was younger I always climbed trees and I loved climb trees it was like my life it makes me feel a sense of calmness and like whenever I get angry I run to the park and I just climb on top of the really high climbing theme it just hasn't come down [Music] although a lot my friends think oh he's very confident and sometimes I do come across as confident but it's inside I'm really unconfident I might look on the outside but I'm really not on the inside I want to feel as confident on the inside than I do on the outside Ethan really doesn't like talking on the phone do you ever like feel like it's hard to speak on the phone it's easier than in person why because you don't have to face them face to face and doing eye contact is just awkward on a photo you don't even have to look at them if you just talk because I find it really hard to speak on phone and I find it easy to speak in person you can see if they're not liking what you're saying because you know they'll be like but she would prefer it in person yeah only all my friends are glued to their phones I just don't see how they managed to do that because it gets really awkward on the phone I think I end up just you know flustering and hanging up because I don't know how to act Ethan really hopes he can build up the courage to start using the phone more I want to organize a five-star football team for me and my friends but I think I'm very limited because I'm not a very confident person on the phone have you got everyone um yeah I think I've got um Louis TJ a bit nervous but I'm a bit um excited at the same time at least I'm feeling up for it I think that's what I'm that's the word I'm feeling up for it I am feeling determined to overcome my fear of walking to school and I'm really looking forward to the psychologist coming around because hopefully he can give me some tips and help me out with how to cope with my anxiety and I will eventually conquer my fear so if we think about walking to school okay so you told me that's something that you find really stressful has that been always the case I've never really walked school by myself I can deal with walking but only if I've got you know headphones in and I don't have to think about it okay so you're doing some distraction the whole point of listening to music so I don't hear myself walk if I can hear my footsteps then everybody else can hear them and I just don't want to be the center of attention so at the moment if you were to walk to school by yourself without your headphones on how anxious would you feel out of 10 where 10 is really really anxious a nine yeah okay what can be really helpful with anxiety is to do the thing that you're finding hard over and over and over and you'll start off feeling 100 anxious at something and then the hope is that gradually over time that you'll feel less so and so your first step is walking to school without my music on you're gradually in Little Steps weaning yourself off the need for that at the back of your mind you do know that it's going to be fine but you've just got to like push yourself to do it and then when you do you sort of can laugh at yourself a bit and go see told you wasn't that bad and one of the things that I think is really exciting is when people decide I'm not having this push me around anymore I want to be in charge of my life thank you very much and you sound to me like you're feeling a bit more like that yeah Jamie just made me feel like the things I feel when I am anxious are totally normal and that it's not just me that feels these things it's a common thing if you do have anxiety so it's nice to know that it's not just me foreign how to reduce my anxiety I've decided to try and walk to school without using music as a distraction walk in school without my headphones isn't actually as scary as I thought she was going to be so it just makes me feel more confident that I eventually will be able to just walk to school by myself today's just left me feeling quite happy and confident in knowing that I can properly battle my anxiety and show it who's boss [Music] do you remember when it was really difficult for you to come out and do anything like this before I guess I used to think that if a leaf kind of landed in my mouth it would kill me and the likelihood of that is very low and I think that's why I wasn't realizing so I was so terrified of kind of losing my life that I wasn't actually living my life when anxiety really builds up it can cause a panic attack remember when I was going to go to France in year six I do the night before yeah I had a panic attack I was scared I didn't know how I'd cope without you so I'd run I ran upstairs [Music] and I was terrified a panic attack is when your breathing gets faster but your chest feels tight so it's difficult to breathe your heartbeat sounds really loud and you feel dizzy as if you could faint people tend to think that when you're having a panic attack you're trying to get attention or it's just like oh just calm down stop it I'm thinking I wish I could I genuinely wish I could do you remember what you said to me you remind me my dad my nighting shining arm you said to me you know it's Oliver it's gonna be okay you're not the only person with these issues and we can get your help and you will fight through this and that relaxed me so much without Family Support overcoming mental illness isn't impossible but it's just so much harder yeah Oliver sees a psychiatrist to help him control his anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder okay okay all right thank you therapy is a lot like going to school it teaches me new ways to bite my OCD and anxiety so as we talked about it's good to face your fears in a gradual way okay so one idea is to in fact make a fingerprint deliberately and leave it there without smudging it away being able to talk to someone about my issues is something that I find very useful because it gets a huge weight off your shoulders and you feel so much better afterwards if you're starting to feel really worried it's it's very important to recognize it and to stop for a moment take a deep breath that's it perfect that's really important and I think that's what I struggled with to begin with as well is I I don't quite understand when I was getting anxious until it's too late and I need to be able to like you said get on top of that before it gets to that stage [Music] I wanted to talk a bit about having low confidence and how that affects me talking to new people it's really hard for me to actually start the conversation in the first place and um I think a lot of people take it for granted how easy it is to just talk someone do you often find that you felt anger as well as anxiety I feel anger quite a lot during the day and then like anxiety during the night that's why I don't sleep forever this is Kay she runs a confidence boosting Workshop so that's your body when you get angry the blood flows much much quicker and you can feel it in your heart yeah but if you were to stop and breathe all of those particles will eventually drop to the bottom and everything will be calm so it's a little bit about getting you to feel karma in situations where you feel anxious I feel low rather than high lately I think this is just really going to help me to feel more High than though you know you're still Ethan but you can pretend that you're confident Ethan but the thing is when I'm on the phone I am confident enough but in terms of like I put a different person on and that's not me why do you feel like you can't be yourself on the phone um what's my car I don't feel very confident about myself do you think you would like you put yourself down a bit yeah a little bit Yeah Yeah highlighting your National foot in sometimes if you can act confident you'll become confident and it's practice as well the more you do something the more it becomes second nature to you one of my teachers once told me that um if you work and you don't enjoy it but you have put a smile on you kind of enjoy it more smiling is really important yeah really important because if you smile like if I want you to smile now all that like negativity disappeared it's hard to smile and think of something negative at the same time and yeah I found the complex class really good she's giving me some good advice and talking on the phone she told me actually to visualize that they're there because then I don't I don't feel like I'm talking to a black hole I feel like I'm actually talking to them [Music] passionate about music and I think it's a brilliant way to express yourself foreign [Music] now I'm starting to control my anxiety to walk to school maybe I can use the same techniques to help me sing in front of an audience ever since I got stage fright like I don't want to perform in front of people I know because they'll be really judgy what about basketball that's a good idea I think busking would make me less anxious because nobody's gonna come up and like tell me yeah and judge and tell me I'm a failure so that would help so it would help [Music] just about to start doing my phone calls for my five team to organize it um yeah I'm a bit nervous but I'm also a bit um excited for it as well just to see if actually that confidence building class actually did help me and I really do think it did so I'm going to try out the technique she taught me who do you think we should call First um I think we should call my mum and Nathan yeah okay [Applause] I hate phoning people oh hi Nathan you're right and I was wondering if you're still up for coming over on Saturday for the five side thing yeah see you homie bye well done he's so cool so Ethan how about calling Corin hello how are you so um the five side things um uh two two o'clock at the Leisure Center she can't come she's just rejected that was really awesome yeah hello um oh sorry about that um don't worry about it see you on a Sunday bye how did it feel like when um she couldn't make it I had all these lists of saying oh thanks for coming I haven't had anything about them if you don't come yeah what do I say so it's a bit like so maybe we could write another little list as in somebody can't come you know what to say despite the hiccup Ethan finds the confidence to finish making his calls well done Nathan I'm really proud of you you've got a good job there so you've got your players you've got the mini Direct that's it we need the ref so who do you think would be a rep [Music] I feel like I've achieved something I've managed to finish something and follow it through you'll never know how far you can go if you don't take that first step and I think by taking that first step you're actually doing yourself a favor [Music] if you know anyone who's got low self-esteem be there for them when they're on their lows and when they're Downs don't be a friend who's already there when they're happy not when they're sad because I think when they're sad is when they're actually most in need of you [Music] this morning I've decided that I'm going to walk to school by myself out of 10 I'm probably a six or a seven minutes get your hands to rise even higher something could still go wrong Max won't be there I won't have my earphones but at the same time I'm weirdly excited I think that's mainly because if I can do it then I've sort of proved to myself that nothing will happen but I can still feel my heart beating like mad wish me luck will [Music] oh I'm a bit worried [Music] oh nice car oh God what are you doing okay he's gone [Music] I hate this hell it was tripled on the gravel for triple crime [Music] I did it I made it one piece everything went well I'm really proud of myself actually I'm quite surprised that I actually managed to do it but I mean it wasn't 100 anxiety free on a car oh God what are you doing but I feel like the more I work on it and the more I actually do do it by myself the better it'll get [Music] remember how Oliver's obsessive compulsive disorder means he hates getting dirty we'll look at how far he's come OCD and anxiety is something that will always be a part of me but I have learned to control it and I'm still learning to control it I'm developing new skills every day and it's getting easier and easier I just swallowed the leaves that was nasty now Oliver is so good at controlling his OCD he's got a new hobby which is all about getting muddy and being outside I do Cadets the first night I was hooked right humbug you grab that corner I'll grab this corner right Shake It Up grab this and it's something that I've found a huge release from my anxiety and OCD because I know I can go to Cadets have fun with my mates and talk to them and they won't judge me I guess that's the best thing about Army Cadets anybody else want to join us it's really comfortable I'll lose our hamburger come and let them all in right so it's the weekend and me and Ollie are going busking and I'm so excited I'm also really scared in case people boot us or something are you nervous yeah at least they're not the only one yeah great all right you ready yeah what's this keep your heart strong mindset keep your hair long oh my my darling keep your head up keep your heart strong I'm quite proud of myself to see how far I've come in the past few months and I've just you know how hard I've actually tried and that it's all becoming worth it because I'm making little doggy steps but they're leading up so really good and I tried my best to embrace the darkness I feel so proud of myself now because I've gone from being scared to go outside and drinking out of other people's cups to running around in the woods crawling through the mud and dirt and now I'm starting to live my life to the full keep your hair long we're all very proud of how far we've come and we all should feel that way because it's very difficult to change your mental state and how you think so when you do you've overcome yourself and you've made yourself a better happier person and what else is there to be I'll keep your heart strong foreign [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Real Stories

Views: 40,210

Keywords: ADHD communication skills, ADHD confidence building, ADHD development, ADHD self-growth, ADHD struggles, OCD awareness, OCD coping strategies, OCD management, Real Stories, anxiety management, anxiety management techniques, anxiety relief, conquering fears, mental health education, mental health empowerment, mental health perseverance, mental health support, mental health transformation, mental health well-being, mental wellness, mindfulness practices

Id: ZK2q0LkJnWQ

Length: 28min 16sec (1696 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 05 2023