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> Will talks to Bryony Gordon in Telegraph podcast.
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truly talented
post May 29 2017, 02:25 PM
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Link with article and the podcast... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/health/w ... y-gordons/

https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/868943714944667648

The Telegraph‏Verified account @Telegraph
.@willyoung: I considered breaking my own legs to get out of #Strictly - Episode 7 of @bryony_gordon's #MadWorld

Tweet from Will.

Will Young‏Verified account @willyoung
I chatted to @bryony_gordon at the @Telegraph about my PTSD and why I couldn't carry on with @bbcstrictly.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/health/w ... y-gordons/


Bryony Gordon‏Verified account@bryony_gordon
Replying to @willyoung @Telegraph @bbcstrictly
And you were awesome! X


This post has been edited by truly talented: May 29 2017, 06:47 PM
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truly talented
post May 29 2017, 06:41 PM
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Thanks to Ros for finding this well written article in the Telegraph.

QUOTE
In an interview for Bryony Gordon's Mad World podcast this week, the singer Will Young openly discussed his post-traumatic stress diesorder, which he believes was first sparked by being separated as a newborn from his twin brother, who was ill at birth. The trauma was then exacerbated by his time at a "vicious" prep school and recurred while he was competing in Strictly Come Dancing, he says. Here, in his own words, he writes of how the illness felt and what he has learned from it.

Three years ago, if not more, I contracted post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I don’t like the word ‘contracted’. PTSD is defined as a mental illness, a flooding of the brain's senses. But it was wasn’t contracted, nor did it suddenly occur. It was merely the awakening of latent energies that had laid dormant for 33 years. So perhaps I will use the word ‘arrived’. I arrived at PTSD.

I have been extremely fortunate. PTSD came at the time it needed to and I was ready for it. I had nowhere else to go. I had earned good money and achieved all the goals I had set out to achieve in my career. I had bought fast cars and big houses, slept with beautiful people, partied, tried drugs, bought expensive clothes, flown on private jets, taken expensive holidays, the lot. I had basically tried everything the western world promoted as ‘happiness’ - and had seen that it hadn’t worked.

I was fortunate that I got to this place. There was no option, I had run out of them. I also had the time and the funds to take three years off singing to concentrate on getting better. Therapy didn’t come cheap and I had no earnings, but still I could afford to do it.

So how did I arrive at this point? After years of previous therapy, which was beneficial, it was recommended I attend an experiential residential therapeutic course that lasted eight days. There, many past demons were laid to rest. I came out and began to work through behaviours such as co-dependence, love addiction and looking at other addictions I had procured in my adult life. It was this dissembling of my behavioural habitat that led me to confront my true feelings of trauma.

Suddenly, amid what could only be described as a breakdown (as in a literal breaking down of how I was leading and viewing my life to that point) I suddenly lost all sense of who I was, who other people were, and places. I couldn’t even recognise my own face in the mirror. Life seemed unreal, as if in a movie, and I questioned the very existence of everybody.

It led to pure and existential terror. Not understanding what this feeling was, I took to the internet and found I was experiencing a 'depersonalisation’ and ‘derealisation’ linked to incredible anxiety, and a symptom of PTSD. My therapist suspected I was indeed suffering from PTSD and recommended me to a clinic that specialised in this field, Khiron House.

Over the next five years I was to undergo regular somatic re-experiencing and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing therapy (EMDR). Both these therapies deal with the body. They differ to talk therapy in that they work from the body out. EMDR uses eye movement to recalibrate the brain's system of storing traumatic memories and feelings. Somatic re-experiencing asks you to gently feel into your body and sense the trauma. With the guidance of my therapist I slowly chipped away at the traumatic energy stored up in my body, releasing it bit by bit.

PTSD occurs when someone has been privy to an event, either prolonged or singular, that brings about a traumatic reaction. A key factor in any such event is an overriding sense of fear and hopelessness. The condition is known to the wider world through stories linked to war veterans. Men and women who have seen horrific things during service will, after the events, often years after, experience flashbacks, emotional triggers that will take them straight back to the horrific traumatic incident or incidents.

Trauma, however, is not solely linked to war or other ‘cinematic’ events. A traumatic event is anything that was experienced by that person as traumatic, be it an earthquake, falling off a bike when young, sexual abuse or emotional neglect and abandonment. If an event or events occur in someone’s life that are experienced as traumatic, leading to feelings of hopelessness and terror and any overriding emotion that cannot be dispelled at the time, then that person has trauma in their lives. If this traumatic energy isn’t suitably discharged at the time then the heightened energy will remain in the body.

If the energy isn’t dispelled it can remain in our system and over time can become intertwined in our neural pathways to formulate how we act and think in life. It can lead to anxiety, depression, co-dependent behaviours, addiction and so on. PTSD symptoms can include not eating, not sleeping, depersonalisation and derealisation, hyper vigilance, depression and suicidal tendencies.

As my PTSD took hold I displayed all the symptoms. I stopped sleeping as a result of my hyper vigilance. I was terrified of going to sleep and equally terrified of waking up into a fresh day of terror. I stopped eating, stopped taking interest in any friends or hobbies or work. I began to isolate more. I couldn’t feel things or taste things. I would have scolding hot baths simply to feel. I had suicidal thoughts. I wanted to cut myself. I became terrified of seeing even closest friends. This was compounded by the fact that my depersonalisation meant I couldn’t emotionally connect with anything anyway. The protective mechanism in my brain said that the sensory overload was too much so it shut down any emotional feeling at all to save me from the pain.

Essentially, I felt like the walking dead. It was extremely hard to comprehend myself, and even harder to relay to friends, that I was not primarily depressed or unhappy. In fact, a lot of the work I had previously done on myself meant I thought I was a brilliant person. I would often say to my EMDR therapist ‘I know I am brilliant! I just can’t feel it!’

I became terrified to leave the house, and when I lived in Hackney in a beautiful old square, I would walk half bent over around the square when I had to take the dog out. It must have been quite a sight. Such was my utter fear.

During this process, I was diagnosed as bipolar. The medication came and was altered accordingly. I saw the best psychiatrist, a renowned and respected man who was sensitive to my situation. I realised during my treatment the effect the drugs had on my traumatic energy. What comes with PTSD is often very physical reactions - the jerking of the body, intense pins and needles in the hands or legs and even sudden shouts. Drugs didn’t and haven’t touched this. It became apparent to me that there was only so much medication could do. It also became apparent that PTSD is often misdiagnosed as bipolar as the characteristics are very similar.

For my part, I don’t care about my diagnosis. In fact, I think the medication had probably helped me stay alive. That is not to discredit my own spirit, which is incredibly robust and determined. There were times, however, of deep despair and I believe the drugs took the edge off. What I have found fascinating is what they won’t do. I can say as a walking experiment that drugs will not cure the body of trauma-related energies, feelings and side effects thereof.

Too often people are swamped with quick-fix prescriptive drugs that simply lack the capacity to take away these feelings. My God, if the drugs were out there I would have taken them. I am not pointing fingers or suggesting intentions are anything but good, but in my experience, drugs will not touch this kind of energy. We are so quick to try to treat the symptoms and not the cause.

I experienced the repercussions of trauma from a young age, and this just played out throughout the rest of my life. I had always felt extreme anxiety and I simply manoeuvred into behaviours that allowed me to hide from this. It is a human instinct to move away from pain, to alienate oneself from the painful feelings and find quick solutions. It is in our basic DNA to survive. The problem is that with this instinct we split ourselves and move away from parts that must be healed.

Will Young: Too often people are swamped with quick-fix prescriptive drugs Credit: TOM VAN SCHELVEN/TOM VAN SCHELVEN
What I have learned is that body-based therapy works, although it isn’t easy. I don’t point fingers at the doctors when talking about medication; I also look to our desire to have a quick fix - to take the drugs rather than face the pain within.

Ultimately I could not run away from that pain whatever my medication was - porn, alcohol, shopping and even the drugs prescribed to me. The pain of childhood trauma does not leave unless it is re-experienced through body therapy. I was brave enough and fortunate enough to see it through.

Here in the UK, if we want to treat people with addictions and behavioural ‘disorders’, as they are known, let’s look to the true root of the problem. Trauma cannot be ignored. We need more education and more recognition that trauma is not simply for veterans or witnesses of a dramatic event. It’s for everyone. Ignore this at your peril, for understanding it is the solution to peace and contentment.
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