Sarah Fader on Stigma Fighters, Panic Disorder, and Recovery - At least 27 killed in Tunisian terrorist attack

Sarah Fader on Stigma Fighters, Panic Disorder, and Recovery




Sarah Fader
I am the CEO and Founder of Stigma Fighters.
Stigma Fighters is a non-profit organization dedicated to giving people with mental illness a voice
and it began when I told my story about living with panic disorder on the Huffington Post
so I had my first panic attack when I was 15 and I can
distinctly remember that day because I
was reading a comic called andquot;Books of Magicandquot;
and so that had a profound effect
on me and I started to feel my heart race
and I felt myself unable to breathe
and I reached out for my mom and I said
andquot;I need to go outside right nowandquot;
and I knew something was very wrong with me
but I didn't know what it was and my mom
turned to me and said,
andquot;You're having an anxiety attackandquot;
and after that anxiety
attack I felt different from my peers
and I felt like I had to hide what it
was like to be anxious and so I became a
very good actress and I pretended to be
normal and so I was playing this role of
Sarah who doesn't have anxieties, Sarah
who is an honor student, who is good at
theater, who is sort of an introvert and
but I wasn't normal and that was the thing-
I was concealing this very
significant part of myself but when I
was 18 I was so utterly exhausted from
dealing with panic and depression that I
made the choice to see a psychiatrist
and get on medication.
I can vividly remember opening the prozac that I was given, putting it in orange juice, taking
half a dose to try to get on you know
the regimen, drinking that orange juice
and then feeling like something was
changing.
I could actually feel.
I felt different.
I remember the next day
looking at the trees outside and it was
Springtime and realizing there was no
more noise in my head
and I felt like for the first time there was quiet and I
could actually think and so I decided
after living with the shame of having
anxiety I wanted to be open about this
so I told my story in the most
public way that I could
and that was on
the Healthy Living section of HuffPost.
I wanted to see if there was a centralized
location for people to share their
stories online and I searched the
internet and I couldn't find one so I
created one myself and that Stigma
Fighters.com last year we published
Last year we published an anthology of the personal essays from the site and it's called the
Stigma Fighters Anthology and that's what Stigma Fighters is about so it's about really
being authentic to yourself and being
able to speak your truth and have it out
there for the public to read for public
consumption.
In order to live a fulfilling life,
you need to be true to yourself. You will be able to achieve
what you want and your goals in life if
you're authentic to yourself and you give
fewer fucks about what people think
Be true to yourself. Go for what you want
and only care about the people that are
important to you
and you are okay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2uTdcLEvk0


At least 27 killed in Tunisian terrorist attack




At least 27 have been killed in a terrorist
attack on a number of Tunisian tourist hotels.
Tunisian TV ran this footage from one hotel
close to where the attacks to place.
A security source at the scene said police
had shot dead one of the gunmen who was armed
with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
Holidaymakes heard the attack take place while
sunbathing and were told to take shelter inside.
Sousse is one of Tunisia's most popular beach
resorts, drawing visitors from Europe and
neighbouring North African countries.
This country has been on high alert since
March when Islamist militant gunmen attacked
the Bardo museum in Tunis.
That attack killed a group of foreign tourists
in one of the worst attacks in a decade in
the North African country.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebgZGwvvZZk