Social Anxiety Disorder: Clinical Features and Treatment
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JOHN WILLIAM KEEDY: It took me a number of years to be able to make work about the anxiety. So showing the images at first did make me nervous, because I wasn't sure how people were going to react and what conclusions they were going to draw about me based on those photographs.
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I think growing up, and especially as I moved into high school, I think I started to withdraw. What I thought was just being shy sort of became more than that. As I started college, I know I would miss a class and then feel like I couldn't go to the next class. And it would sort of build on itself.
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My phone would rang, and I just couldn't physically get myself to pick up the phone and answer. There was a sense of embarrassment to admit to people that I wasn't able to fix this by myself. It caused me to withdraw more. And I felt trapped in a lot of ways.
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10 years ago, I went to a mall. I remember there were so many different sounds, like different conversations. I was self-conscious to the point where I thought there's no way that people wouldn't be making a judgment about everything I was doing.
As the anxiety was building, it felt very physical. It felt very visceral. I felt very flushed and hot. My hands were trembling. And then, you know, I ran. I ran away from it.
The lowest point for me was when I ran into a professor of a class that I hadn't been to in several months. And he asked if I was OK and told me he had been trying to get in touch with me.
I think I may have like actually sat on the ground crying. And of course, like it was in the middle of this public space. I think it was the first time that I sort of admitted to myself that I didn't have control over what was happening. I didn't have control over the anxiety.
I met with a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. After the diagnosis, I started medicine and meeting with a therapist. You know, we started doing cognitive behavioral therapy to help me get a better grasp on what I was experiencing and how to process those experiences.
Within a couple of weeks, I started to feel more in control. But it took about seven years, I think, after my diagnosis to get to the point where I felt comfortable making images about it. Before I shoot each image, I usually make a sketch of what I want the final photograph to be.
The image I'm working on now is a house plant with the leaves wrapped in hair curlers. The series is titled, "It's Hardly Noticeable." The character in my series, I think, is trying to navigate living with this anxiety without revealing that that's what he's doing.
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The goal with each of the images is to take this abstract idea of anxiety and turn it into something that can be photographed. Installation images show the world of this character. This image comments on the very thin line between comfort and fear.
The still lives are representations of mindsets or beliefs. The glass is full, but the leak sort of implied that it's really a temporary fullness. The self portrait act as a way to explore to what degree these are images of a character and to what degree. these are images of my self.
So in this image the characters confined by this chalk outline on the sidewalk. There's not anything literally keeping him trapped, but he is still physically unable to move from it. The image I'm working on now is about an attempt to imbue control onto something that is fighting that.
For a while, I was worried that making images about the anxiety would cause me to re-experience the anxiety. And in reality, it's sort of had the opposite effect. They've been a way of indulging that anxiety and still staying productive. The work has been featured by the Huffington Post, and NPR, and Wired magazine. And I've really been honored by their response.
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The anxiety is something that—you know, it's been a number of years since it was at its worst. You know, it is something that still comes up. It's something I think about. I think that's always going to be there.
But you know, these busy places, I am OK. I don't really get anxious about it. Part of it is just sort of recognizing that it's there and making sure that it doesn't reach the point that it did before.
In the fall, I'm starting a visiting professorship, where I'm teaching photography and new media. Being a professor is sort of the epitome of what I was scared of happening before—room full of people watching me and listening to everything I say and watching everything I do. It is strange, but I love it.
I'm really lucky that I have such a supportive and loving and encouraging family. Opening up about it with my family and my friends, it forced me to summon up courage to be open about something that I had really been making an effort to hide. 15 million American adults are struggling with social anxiety. The most important thing is to remember that they're not alone in that struggle. They're not alone in experiencing those things.
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