Overcoming Anxiety: Jonas Kolker (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of Jonas Kolker’s talk titled “Overcoming Anxiety” at TEDxTheMastersSchool conference.

In his talk “Overcoming Anxiety,” Jonas Kolker shares his personal struggles with anxiety, particularly during his school years. He describes the intense physical and emotional symptoms he experienced, such as panic attacks on the way to school. Jonas discusses the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure therapy in managing his anxiety.

He emphasizes the universal nature of anxiety, highlighting its evolutionary roots and prevalence in society. Jonas concludes by advocating for the wider adoption of CBT and exposure techniques as tools for everyone, not just those with severe anxiety or OCD.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Before I delve deep into my personal life, let me introduce myself. My name is Jonas. I’m in 9th grade. I like reading, sleeping, and video games.

Good, now that we’re all well acquainted, I can begin. For me, 3rd grade was kind of a sucky year. All of my friends were in the other classes. The teachers weren’t the ones I wanted, and I got pneumonia, to boot.

But what really makes the year stand out for me was this one day in November. My mom was driving me to school like she always did, the familiar sights passing by my window. But as the school building came into view, I began to feel a sinking sensation in my chest, a sort of rush. I began to hyperventilate, breathing in and out much too fast.

And before I knew it, I was crying. My mom turned around, confused, like anyone would be in a situation like this, and asked me what was wrong. I didn’t know what to say. The concept of panic is not one that a 3rd grader can completely comprehend, or at least not this one.

So I simply said, “I don’t feel good.” When she asked why, I simply repeated, “I don’t feel good.” At this point, we were already at the school drop-off zone. What would normally happen here on any given day is a teacher would help you out of the car and bring you into school.

Well, when the woman came to help me out of the car, it was just too much. I began to fall, and eventually, I had to be driven home. This series of events repeated for about a week. I would leave the house feeling fine.

I would get in the car feeling fine. I would make about 7/8ths of the trip feeling fine. But on that last segment of the ride, I would panic, and I wouldn’t be able to go to school. My body would simply overload on fear and anxiety.

Understanding Anxiety and Its Impact

Eventually, my parents realized this was going to be a problem, and I started seeing a psychiatrist. To my horror, the number one thing she told me was that I had to continue going to school like normal. And I know it may be hard to comprehend this from outside of my perspective, but to me, this was a death sentence. Yet, my parents were adamant, and I was pulled out of the car and pushed into school each of the following days.

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To put it lightly, these moments were by far some of the worst I have ever experienced. Imagine if you will, every inch of your body telling you something. Telling you not to do something. Your heartbeat booms as you shiver and shake at the thought.

Sweat forms on your brow as you try to avoid listening to the voices telling you what you already know, hearing the sounds of your own yells over those of the people trying to bring you in, into the place that your body is telling you not to go. All of this combined in a mighty clanging roar that drowns out all rational thought. This was what I went through for more than four years of my life. It wasn’t fun.

But there was something important I began to notice over time. Something that confused me beyond all belief. You see, once I got into school, things would get better. One hundred percent of the time, no matter how awful, horrible, terrible, miserable things got, it would get better.

Approaches to Managing Anxiety

And it’s from here that I would like to begin to talk about anxiety. About one in five people has anxiety to a degree in which they need to make active changes to their lives in order to better manage it. But anxiety is a universal emotion felt by all. And when I told that story, it may have been confusing to some of you, uncomfortable to others, but it’s an important story.

One that helped me learn a lot about myself and anxiety as a whole. Over the course of those eventful four years, there were two main methods I was taught to better handle what I was going through. These were cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT for short, and exposure. Now, the first one, cognitive behavioral therapy, that’s essentially the idea that you can work with your mind to better roll with how you feel.

And to my third-grade mind, no, to my third through eighth-grade mind, I thought this meant I was going to be a superhero. I thought that with the snap of my fingers, I would forget the fear clouding through my head, the pounding of my heart, and suddenly smile and be A-OK. I don’t need to tell you I was wrong. No, like most people, I had a misconception about this.

In reality, cognitive behavioral therapy is a collection of methods, today often including mindfulness, you know, that mind-over-body stuff. If you still don’t know what I’m talking about, picture, if you will, a friend who’s really into meditation. Everyone has one. But mindfulness is not meditation, and it’s not some mystical hippy-jippy mumbo-jumbo.

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For example, there’s this one exercise I had to do where I would close my eyes and imagine waves slowly crashing over different parts of me.

For all of you, try, close your eyes, and try to picture these waves slowly rolling over and passing on. Just take a little time. OK.

Now, for some of you, that may have felt good, and for others, it may have just been weird. But this would actually slow me down. And here’s the thing, I’m not the only one. A study from the University of Massachusetts found that those who are adept in mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy, these people could actually lower and control the activity in their posterior cingulate cortex, a part of the brain believed to control mind-wandering and concentration.

I don’t know about all of you, but to me, that’s incredible. But what about that second method I mentioned before, exposure? Well, that’s essentially the idea that if you’re scared of something, the best way to handle it is to face the fear head-on. Put yourself in a situation where you’ll have to interact with it.

Embracing the Challenge

I remember in fifth grade, I had a really bad day. It had been two hours before I could bring myself into the school building, and another two before I could enter the classroom. I was fed up. That night, I went to my dad and I asked him, “Dad, why does this suck so much? Why do I have to keep putting myself through this?” To which he calmly turned around and responded with, “Embrace the suck.”

Well, it turns out that embracing the suck is actually an effective mechanism against fear and anxiety. The University of Pittsburgh made a study regarding the effects of exposure on those with OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The study had three groups: those who were taking medication, those who were taking medication and going through exposure treatment, and those who were only going through exposure treatment. After the testing period was done, each group would rank their anxiety levels. Here’s what the study found. The two groups that used exposure treatment ranked lower severity ratings than the group without.

This means that, at least in this case, exposure works better than medicine. So when it came to my panic attacks, exposure and OCD and CBT made a difference. When it came to OCD and relaxation, exposure and CBT made a difference. But what about all of you in the audience?

What if you don’t have severe anxiety attacks? What if you don’t have obsessive-compulsive disorder? What if none of this applies to you? Well, remember that statistic before about one in five people having anxiety to a degree in which they need to take action?

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Guess how many people have anxiety in general? Five out of five people. Fear, panic, stress, these are all things that we as human beings experience. Think about it from an evolutionary perspective.

These were the emotions that would keep us away from predators and many of the other ways early humans could probably end up dead. But nowadays, society doesn’t really have as much of a place for those feelings. So even if our primitive fears aren’t determining the fate of our lives, they’re still an important part of them, and it’s always great to have good tools. I had a friend who was terrified of my dog.

Every time she came over, it would be the same. My dog Lucy, by the way, is about as intimidating as you can imagine for an animal to get scared by its own reflection. So nothing changed until after many visits and a lot of prolonged exposure. When my dog came over, my friend didn’t react.

She let Lucy pat on over, sniff, give a quick lick, and then walk away. And this friend, with a smile on her face, continued on as though nothing had happened. And this is exposure, maybe not to a monumental degree that will change this girl’s life, but exposure nonetheless, and it helps her. So imagine if she had known to go for it from the beginning.

She would have felt comfortable in no time. But let’s go beyond fears and beyond anxiety. Can CBT and exposure help in situations that have nothing to do with these? Why, of course they can.

Exposure, after all, is simply an extension of perseverance, a fundamental method in life. And CBT? Well, a little while back, I was curious about its uses outside of stress management, so I did a quick Google search. Here’s what I found.

And this. And this. So if CBT is so powerful and important, if exposure can empower us so much, why aren’t we taking these and making them vital parts of our everyday lives? Why aren’t we all embracing the suck?

Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? And to that I have no answer. Thank you.

Overcoming Anxiety: Jonas Kolker (Transcript)

Understanding Anxiety and Its Impact

Approaches to Managing Anxiety

Embracing the Challenge

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