MY NAME IS ANXIETY ad is a bit too dark & threatening for a community feel site.....

[The_Real_David_Charles]

Dear BB,

I'm more anxious reading the ad MY NAME IS ANXIETY.   It's a bit dark/threatening/James Bond meets Dracula.   For me, I end up making fun of it just to see some sense.     This is a serious point but requires some humour to understand it:

"I am the tightening of your cheast" - [from your BB ad]

I am trying on a Medium Size Shirt instead of my true Extra Large Size XXXXXX.[David's interpretation]

"I am the hot & cold flushes that confuse you when you are already confused enough"  [BB]

Who ordered the Bombay Duck and why is it so hot in the Indian Restaurant ? [David]

"I am the obsessive and the compulsive" [BB]

I am the Country AND the Western (Blues Brothers movie)  [David]

"I am the ill ease you feel when walking into a crowded room"  [BB]

"We should have waited for the Ladies Leane and not snuck into the Gents toilets at the State of Origin"  [David]

I don't mean to disrespect the work that went into this campaign but all the cloak and dagger is leading to more anxiety or secrecy and missing the whole point that Anxiety can be given a realistic angle with simple definitions that won't scare the living beJesus out of people.     The only real danger is that such an ad actually stigmatises what is already stigmatised by making things appear too foreboding to tackle or seek treatment.  I always thought Beyondblue had a more mature view of mental illness than to make a serious illness like anxiety masqaurade as a cheap 1950's cop show.

What are you relating to ?  Someone's inner fear ?  That Anxiety has no daylight ?   It's a confusing ad and yet by placing it in the opening page there is the danger that a newcomer might be turned off the site.  Counter productive ?

How is BB gonna treat my own illness - bipolar ?  A Jeckyl and Hyde scenario ?     "I am the mood disorder that cannot be controlled because raging neurons in your brain disconnect and alter your behaviour without so much as a by your leave and then leave your family in a panic because one minute you're suicidal and the next you want to be Jack Nicholson giving the eye to the LA Lakers Basketball Cheer Leaders when the Lakers are 86 to 88 in the last seconds and Kobe has the ball and they need a 3 pointer to win".    So "I am the Hot and Cold" would be the sausage roll and the beer.  Just saying.

Adios, David.

PS   Any other feedback or am I on my own here ?

[beyondblue_Online_Communi]

Hi David,

Of course, you are right - there is absolutely more to measuring success than plain numbers or YouTube hits. These are just preliminary numbers and we'll have a far more detailed and accurate summation of the campaign once it is independently and extensively evaluated.

[dropbear]

Hi

This is a poem I wrote describing my struggle with depression. I hope it resonates within everyone who reads it and reassures that depression should shared and not bottled up Anyway here it is:

The Bleakness of Knowing

A step behind where ever I go

This pit of black sorrows

The beast abides for the chance

To claim the one it knows

Too many days of song and wine

So many things left undone

Fruitless pursuit’s, conceited affairs

Decay already begun

As a corpse lay fresh in ground

And creatures relish the feast

The beast that’s always with me

Comes quickly fury released

It hides the sun and binds my soul

Dripping with fogs of despair

I muddle within the inky murk

Life’s compass in disrepair

Flooding numbness rising fast

Breaching levy banks

Sweeping all before

The tide of hopes which sank

Beast is back, it is here

The inconvenient friend

Shall you tarry long

Shall you be my end

Possesses me completely

Immersed in gelatinous fears

Disconnect from all that’s dear

Optimism disappears

You know me so well

You conspire to steal my joy

I stand revealed before you

My hopes and dreams destroyed

And when you’re done and had your fill

I’ll languish in your wake

Pitch surrenders to the light

I endure for families’ sake          

Beast departs... but not too far

I take solace at its going

But I know it will come back

Tis the bleakness of knowing

[The_Real_David_Charles]

Thanks dropbear,

Maybe BB will have a section for poetry. It would be interesting to have a place to go where all the poems that have been written on the site over the years can be viewed.  There have been some really expressive ones like this one.

I've got to write some short stories for a few weeks - it's quite freeing.  There's a line from the movie "The Committments" where they are getting a band together.  Faced with the impossible (and most depressives know how that feels) the psuedo band manager Jimmy says "We just have to start.  The rest in inevitable".

Is procrastination a form of depression or just stuck thinking ?

Adios, David.

[Jellybean_Bandit]

I just watched the My Name is Anxiety ad and I have to say I disagree with you David. The ad depicted many of my experiences of anxiety so well that it made me shift in my seat. I nearly couldn't finish it because I identified so strongly with it. I actually find some of your responses to the phrases used in the ad slightly offensive as it feels a little like you are making fun of my experiences but of course you don't know me and therefore I know better than to take your comments personally :-)

As someone who has experienced various forms of anxiety my entire life, I found the ad very confronting - in a good way. Of course experiencing anxiety is different for everyone, but I think the ad does touch on some common themes that most people with anxiety would experience at some stage in their lives. I'm not sure I'll look at Ben Mendelsohn the same way, which is a shame because he was one of my favourite Australian actors!

I'm currently working on a community engagement program with sporting, social and recreation clubs and groups around building a more inclusive and accessible community for all - including those who experience mental illness. Some of the responses I am getting from every day members of the public hark back to the dark ages so I don't think the ad is too far off the mark for many (unfortunately). I think people who cope with mental illness or mood disorders every day can sometimes forget that not everyone is as educated around this stuff as we might like them to be. Sure - we've a long way. But my recent experience within my local community has shown me that we have a long way to go and I believe ads like My Name is Anxiety gets us a little closer.

I'm interested to know how you would have done the ad differently?