Thriving with Schizoaffective Disorder – Sarah An Myers | Mental Health Recovery Short Film

Описание: If I don’t communicate, I feel like I’m disappearing.

If I stay silent, I feel like the world won’t hear me.

It’s better to sacrifice a little vulnerability in order for people to see me for who I am than it is to stay silent, and nobody sees me for who I am.

These quotes from Sarah An Myers, a super smart and talented artist, are everything.

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From film director Glenn Holsten — Sarah holds a graduate degree in psychology and a second graduate degree in creative nonfiction. She writes a blog for Psychology Today that blends her scientific training with her lived experience of schizoaffective disorder. She’s penned two thoughtful essays for Recovery Diaries—“How Modern Schizophrenia Treatment Steals Our Autonomy” and “Medication Adherence and my Schizoaffective Journey.” When Recovery Diaries Executive Director Gabriel Nathan suggested that I meet with Sarah to discuss a potential film project about her life, I was intrigued and, truthfully, slightly intimidated. Soon after we started chatting one afternoon at an outdoor café in Brooklyn, however, I realized that we were equally excited about embarking on an untraditional adventure in storytelling together.

After a few brainstorming sessions, we decided to commence our filming in a not-so-pressured way, by capturing moments in Sarah’s everyday life. We filmed Sarah walking her dog (sweet Isabelle) around her Brooklyn neighborhood. We found a park bench where we sat and talked for a while. And though the many planes overhead interrupted our conversation multiple times (JFK Airport isn’t far away), Sarah was unflappable. That evening, we followed Sarah to her fencing lesson at the awesome Brooklyn Bridge Fencing Club and documented her lessons there. For me, it was familiar turf as a documentary film director. I was grateful for Sarah’s patience as she tried to live her normal life with a film crew following her around.

A few days later, we returned to her Brooklyn neighborhood, we ventured down to a subway platform, a place that has been challenging for Sarah at times. This is where things shifted for me as a filmmaker and became new and very interesting. Sarah wanted to somehow recreate the visual sensation she experiences when feeling destabilized. I gave Sarah the director’s monitor that I hold and use to see what the camera is capturing and communicate with our DP (Director of Photography) Phil Bradshaw. Sarah took the director’s reigns and gave Phil direction to recreate her visual sensation. It was fascinating to watch, and I captured the whole action with my camera. The creative energy was real, and the results were intense.

On our third filming date together, we decided to try to convey Sarah’s experience of hearing voices for others. She wrote a script for actors to read, based on her daily experience with the reoccurring voices that are part of her daily life. Sarah directed the two talented actors—Rain Diaz and Zoe Feldman—to perform the script in a way that felt true for her. She then worked with talented audio designer Peter Rydberg at his lovely Studio 1935 in Philadelphia, to mix and manipulate the sound to match her experience even closer. We filmed all of it.

Sarah is thoughtful. She’s funny. She’s also bold and brave and honest. I am incredibly grateful to her for her collaboration on this film project. I’m grateful she was able to do this “vulnerable scary thing” (her words), that will open windows of understanding into her experience for those that don’t have the disorder (as it did for me). And for those that do live with schizoaffective disorder, I hope that this film acts as a mirror, and that watching it is an affirming and validating experience.

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