Anxiety can be socially crippling and overwhelming. The BBC recently reported the story of a man who beat “deep-seated anxiety” by photographing complete strangers and making connections, some of which continue to this day. If you are experiencing symptoms of anxiety and would like help, we’re here for you. Request an appointment today.
From BBC.com:
John Mannell had always been the “shy kid in the corner”.
He didn’t particularly like talking in front of big groups of people, but was happy that way.
Seven years ago, John finished university, moved into his first flat and was enjoying his job at a glass and glazing company.
But the stress of a stomach operation triggered a deep-seated anxiety in him which meant he was completely unable to recognise the good things in his life.
John soon began having anxiety attacks that were so bad he hardly left the house apart from to go to work.
“I spent months where I’d literally just go home and sit in a blackened room, and keep myself shut away,” he says.
“I’d sit in the dark thinking everything was collapsing around me. It’s very suffocating and restrictive.
“I used to suffer when I was a kid with asthma and it felt quite similar. It was not that I couldn’t breathe, but it was just completely overwhelming.
“You just want to feel safe, and I know it sounds mad, but safety for me was just being shut away where I felt like no one would notice.”
John began attending a therapy group after he was diagnosed with depression.
When the 32-year-old told members he used to love photography, his new friends suggested he revive his hobby to give him a nudge out of the door.
John started tentatively by capturing photogenic places near his home in Sutton, south London – using his camera as a “comfort blanket”.
Although he had jumped a huge hurdle in simply leaving his bedroom, he still found it terrifying to speak to other people.
At first he would go “stupidly late at night” so as not to have to talk to anybody. But he knew it was time to make himself take photos of people, not just places.
“I asked a couple of strangers, and that was one of the most nerve-wracking things I’ve ever done,” he said.
“I was so nervous. I didn’t really look them in the eye – I was looking everywhere but their faces.”
John joined a night school to work more on photography, as he could tell it was helping him to “start seeing the world again”.
That’s when a tutor suggested he do project 365, where you pick an activity and do it once a day, every day, for a year – be it running, baking a cake or reading.
He decided to take a picture of a stranger every day in 2017, and so began his Portrait Per Day account on Instagram.
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