Videos on Demand: The Experience of Personal Distress
The topic I chose to write about was a ‘on demand’ film called Animated Minds. The film is a collection of eight short narratives and accompanying animations “attempts to communicate the subjective experience of abnormal psychological states”. This film exposed me to some of the thoughts and experiences of different illnesses including schizophrenia, anxiety, obsessive compulsive, and self mutilation. A common theme I noticed was each persons experience of personal distress due to their condition.
Figure 1.3 of the text shows and example of the mood, distress and impairment experienced by two different people, Richard and Yoko. While their situations may be similar, their reactions to the distress differ and it is this difference that helps to measure whether a person is suffering from a disorder. For example, both Yoko and Ricardo experience anxiousness, worry and avoidance related to their situation but Ricardo experiences a greater amount of distress and impairment.
It is because of this differences that people sometimes don’t understand how people with mental illnesses or disorders suffer. That is why I liked the film, Animated Minds. I was blown away by the symptoms these people experienced. In the first film, Dimensions, the narrator describes that he was “living outside of consensus reality” and how it was pleasant at first because he experienced feelings of grandeur, but with shifts in his realities came unpleasantness. In one reality he was experiencing nuclear fallout (including symptoms of radiation poisoning) and in another reality London was under 100 meters of water. When the voices started talking in his head, they were pleasant at first and mostly of his family members but later were persecutory and essentially encouraged self harm. The narrator reflects, “I do find it amazing, the power of the human brain to recreate, you know, ten to 20 voices perfectly. This person experienced personal distress related to his condition.
In another film, Over and Over, the narrator is describing the feeling of needing to check things over and over (windows, doors, light switches, etc) even though there was a part of him the knew what he was doing was ridiculous. He said that the number 8 was the only number he could trust; he liked even numbers but even then it wasn’t right because, for example, a six is made up of two threes and he doesn’t like odd numbers. These are interesting compulsions, and are familiar to me because I once had a friend that had these symptoms. She would have to check the stove, oven, windows, and door before we left her apartment; at the time I thought it was odd but amusing and I played along. I do recall that she did everything four times which seems reasonable considering that others suffering from the same disorder may have to do it many more times before they feel satisfied. The driver for the narrator was the worry that something bad would happen if he didn’t repeat the action, causing him distress.
The narrator of Fish on a Hook summed up my point nicely. This person described his distress over the thought of going to the grocery store for food; his chest would tighten, his breathing would shallow, he felt as if he was being strangled and he was sure that if he went out, others would actually hear his heart beating. He was overwhelmed anticipating what was going to happen, and then overwhelmed by the experience of actually being at the store. He explained that from the outside, his distress may look odd but that his distress is like being a fish on a hook - wiggling around because he is suffering - but others can’t see the hook. Put it in context we would see why, “And so I think a lot of us are wiggling, and that is seen as a kind of illness. Without the vision of the hooks that we’re bound by it seems that the behavior is very crazy but, when seen in context, it isn’t.” Understanding that everyone can experience different levels of distress and impairment to a given situation can help us be more compassionate and tolerant of people suffering from a mental illness or disorder.
The topic I chose to write about was a ‘on demand’ film called Animated Minds. The film is a collection of eight short narratives and accompanying animations “attempts to communicate the subjective experience of abnormal psychological states”. This film exposed me to some of the thoughts and experiences of different illnesses including schizophrenia, anxiety, obsessive compulsive, and self mutilation. A common theme I noticed was each persons experience of personal distress due to their condition.
Figure 1.3 of the text shows and example of the mood, distress and impairment experienced by two different people, Richard and Yoko. While their situations may be similar, their reactions to the distress differ and it is this difference that helps to measure whether a person is suffering from a disorder. For example, both Yoko and Ricardo experience anxiousness, worry and avoidance related to their situation but Ricardo experiences a greater amount of distress and impairment.
It is because of this differences that people sometimes don’t understand how people with mental illnesses or disorders suffer. That is why I liked the film, Animated Minds. I was blown away by the symptoms these people experienced. In the first film, Dimensions, the narrator describes that he was “living outside of consensus reality” and how it was pleasant at first because he experienced feelings of grandeur, but with shifts in his realities came unpleasantness. In one reality he was experiencing nuclear fallout (including symptoms of radiation poisoning) and in another reality London was under 100 meters of water. When the voices started talking in his head, they were pleasant at first and mostly of his family members but later were persecutory and essentially encouraged self harm. The narrator reflects, “I do find it amazing, the power of the human brain to recreate, you know, ten to 20 voices perfectly. This person experienced personal distress related to his condition.
In another film, Over and Over, the narrator is describing the feeling of needing to check things over and over (windows, doors, light switches, etc) even though there was a part of him the knew what he was doing was ridiculous. He said that the number 8 was the only number he could trust; he liked even numbers but even then it wasn’t right because, for example, a six is made up of two threes and he doesn’t like odd numbers. These are interesting compulsions, and are familiar to me because I once had a friend that had these symptoms. She would have to check the stove, oven, windows, and door before we left her apartment; at the time I thought it was odd but amusing and I played along. I do recall that she did everything four times which seems reasonable considering that others suffering from the same disorder may have to do it many more times before they feel satisfied. The driver for the narrator was the worry that something bad would happen if he didn’t repeat the action, causing him distress.
The narrator of Fish on a Hook summed up my point nicely. This person described his distress over the thought of going to the grocery store for food; his chest would tighten, his breathing would shallow, he felt as if he was being strangled and he was sure that if he went out, others would actually hear his heart beating. He was overwhelmed anticipating what was going to happen, and then overwhelmed by the experience of actually being at the store. He explained that from the outside, his distress may look odd but that his distress is like being a fish on a hook - wiggling around because he is suffering - but others can’t see the hook. Put it in context we would see why, “And so I think a lot of us are wiggling, and that is seen as a kind of illness. Without the vision of the hooks that we’re bound by it seems that the behavior is very crazy but, when seen in context, it isn’t.” Understanding that everyone can experience different levels of distress and impairment to a given situation can help us be more compassionate and tolerant of people suffering from a mental illness or disorder.
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