Researching Anxiety

The main character in my film, Hazel, suffers with mild anxiety. She is a quiet, shy and insecure girl who gets sucked in by curiosity to an evil book. The book causes her many problems which turn her mild anxiety into a severe form. Even though my opening isn't being made into a full film, if it was, anxiety and how Hazel deals with it would have been a focus. However, due to the fact Hazel has mild anxiety and the fact the beginning of my opening features a flash-forward to the end of the film, I feel like its important to widen my knowledge of the issue and how it makes its victims feel so that I can portray it in a genuine and unbiased light and direct the actress on things like body language in order to make my film as real and relatable as possible.

My two sources to finding out more about anxiety are...

1. The Internet
2. A close friend of mine

The NHS ( http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/anxiety/pages/introduction.aspx ) website tells me having anxiety causes you to feel anxious about many situations, and that it can be mild or severe. It says people with anxiety are rarely relaxed and that it can cause physical symptoms as well as psychological ones which lead to the 'patient' being restless, having a low concentration span, and being tired due to lack of sleep. This website tells me some other psychological symptoms of anxiety are feeling irritable and feeling on constant edge whereas physical symptoms are feeling sick, headaches, shortness of breath,  and trembling or shaking.

Sometimes the cause of anxiety is unknown, however if its the result of a phobia, the sufferer will usually know why they are feeling anxious.

My close friend suffers with anxiety and I asked her to give an account of what living with this illness is like, you can see this below...

"Living with anxiety isn't easy, I usually feel on edge even though there's nothing around me I have a fear of, I'm not as confident as I would like to be because of it and it makes little things like just talking to people feel like the biggest task. The worst part about anxiety is having panic attacks, they can spring on at any point and I find if I think about it too much I begin to get myself into a bit of a state. I would advise anyone suffering with this to talk to someone because even though that in itself can make you feel sick to your stomach, it will also make you feel so much better and happier in yourself. I'd like to say that anxiety completely fades away and that its just a phase, but unfortunately its not, you just learn to deal with it and cope. You learn your limits and realise there are some situations you simply have to avoid, but you should slowly push yourself to keep braking these limits. There might be days where you just feel anxious, but there are so many things you can do to keep your mind occupied - go for a run, do exercise, have a relaxing bath, go shopping, or just spend time with people you love. There is always light at the end of the tunnel, dealing with this alone is so dark and if you don't seek help can lead to a downward spiral, so if you have anxiety; talk to someone."

 

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From my research into anxiety I have learnt that living and dealing with it can be very hard and lonely, I have also learnt a lot about the symptoms sufferers experience and how this makes them feel. I will incorporate some of these characteristics into Hazels character to give a true representation of what anxiety is like, even though because I'm just making an opening two minutes, it might not seem completely apparent to my audience that Hazel suffers with this. Nevertheless, I think its important to start as you mean to go on, and if 'HAZEL' was being made into a full feature film, anxiety would be a focus.