The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, September 16, 1999, Image 4

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Page 4 • Thursday, September 16, 1999
GGIELIFE
Pain showcases battles with panic disod
BASSINGER
NEW YORK (AP) — Mysteri
ous, overpowering blitzes of fear:
In Kim Basinger’s life, there have
been so many.
But one stands out. The setting:
her fourth-grade classroom at Alps
Road Elementary
in Athens, Ga.
“It’s very quiet
and kids are rais
ing their hands.
But the teacher
called on me,”
she said.
“I stood up
and I was shak
ing, and my
mouth wouldn’t move, and every
body stared at me, and 1 thought I
was going to faint.
“I ran out of the classroom. It
was horrible.”
Unbeknownst to her or anyone
else, Basinger was gripped by
something called panic disorder.
She still is.
And however extraordinary her
accomplishments as a star and
Academy Award-winning actress,
in one respect she remains all too
common: She shares this affliction
with as many as 28 million other
Americans.
Basinger provides a compelling
case history in a new HBO docu
mentary, simply titled Panic.
Produced and directed by
Eames Yates, whose credits in
clude HBO’s acclaimed Dead
Blue: Surviving Depression of two
years ago, Panic airs Friday at 8
p.m. EOT.
Besides Basinger, the film visits
an unemployable model in Los
Angeles who is plagued by inter
mittent dizziness, shortness of
breath, crying and terror.
It travels with a successful
mortgage banker from Syracuse,
N.Y, as he attempts to escape his
geographic comfort zone for the
four-hour drive to see his ailing
grandmother in New Jersey.
Another subject: Earl Camp
bell, the Heisman Trophy-winning
running back at the University of
Texas who later played with the
Houston Oilers, then fell victim to
panic disorder after his football ca
reer ended.
Thinking back to when he hid
in a room with the shades drawn
and even contemplated suicide, he
said, “It wasn’t any more of that
tough stuff.”
The film hears from experts
who offer psychological and phys
iological theories and try to ex
plain to nonsufferers what the af
fliction is like.
Dr. David Barlow, director of
Boston University’s Center for
Anxiety & Research Disorders,
asks people to imagine them
selves subject to lightning striking
us two or three times a day, with
out warning.
“What would happen, of
course, is that you could think of
nothing else except: When is the
next time that I’m going to be hit
by this lightning?” he said.
Basinger agreed. “There’s a fear
of fear, fear that fear will come.”
Panic disorder can result in
feelings of isolation, inadequacy,
paralysis.
“I remember how lonely I felt,
and how in need of help I was,”
Basinger said.
/ don't know if I
was more elated
over winning or
more in pain over
knowing that I had
to come back.
— Kim Basinger
actress
The breaking point, she re
counts in the film, came when as
a rising young actress she had a
full-blown panic attack in a
health-food store.
She managed to get herself out
to her car and drive home. She did
not leave again for six months.
Then aid came from Dr. Ronald
Doctor, a clinical psychologist also
seen in the film.
“Dr. Doctor — he gave me a
new start in this life,” Basinger
said. “I even had to learn how to
drive again. It was quite a process.
I’ll tell you that.”
The good news: Whether with
drugs or a behavior-modification
BY
M
F
or jura
Hulinj
was n
program, panic disorder
treatable.
The bad news: Onlyoi
sufferers seeks help.
Today Basinger know
never be “cured.” She said
never be an easy taskforn!
up in front of the public.
"1 think I’m gettingbei
it's an inch-by-inch procesi
laughed. "Not even a wholtjj
She recalled the Ac
Awards in March 1998,w
won the supportingactre:
for her performance in L
fidentiol. Bance to
"I was rust absolutelystsfcds. Last
death,” she said. “And 1 kneBarch in ci
the next year, I had to hpug Enfo
rd out to the next w (D.K.A.), re
“I don’t know if 1 wattandste
elated over winning ormB’workin^
pain over knowing that] Hilling’s jo
come back m with ag
The irony is not lost or pis, coi a in
terrified little girl from CkBd workii
Lane became an interr,:Puisiana I
celebrity.
"God only knows wli
came from, and that's the
she said. "Here 1 was, a kid
school who never said a wo
then on the night of the
Miss Pageant, 1 stood up ini
ditorium and sang that sc
My Fair Lady — 'Wouldn'! 1
Lovely?’
Maybe it was her blenc
solve and effective treatraet
has made life lovely forfe
Panic is a bracing look at he
and others like her cansuo
spite of fear.
Brooks and Dun
reflect on s
Kick-
Continu
“The 1
gieland \
said. ‘Tit
back here
and Free!
The D
is most
Texas Aj
"Workii
isome pre'
sai
^hen ager
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP)-Bnd I wou
as close as country musicjMoingon.”
a sure thing. I Huling i
In 1997, presenter Tn * working w
er announced Kix Br: |P ar hnem c
Ronnie Dunn as the best cred
duo without bothering ’4 ° enn 8 re ‘
the winner’s card. F”? 0 ,®?
She was right. j working at
For seven consocumstM. p ose( ^ ° 0 a
duo of Brooks & Dunn hi was a j] a ^ (
award. And they are up ahumblim
when the 33rd annual Copt placed in si
sic Association Awards (Cl bit: position
broadcast live Sept. 22 on CM
“There’ve been times I
we’ve won duo of the yeaiB
we’ve sincerely been embam
Dunn said, grinning at thep;
problem of having so much;
it seems unseemly sometime;
"It can be perceived asbeif
tie one-sided.”
Since teaming up in 1991
urging of Arista Records hes
DuBois, the two former sole
rants have fashioned themselvi
an efficient hit machine am
more than 16 million albui
1996, they became the only!
CM A history to win the topa«[
best entertainer.
Dunn, 46, from Colf|
Texas, has one of the mostf
ful voices in Nashville andij
lead singer on the bulk c|
Brooks & Dunn hits. Brook!
from Shreveport, La., isi
dynamic live performer.
For their new album i
Rope, longtime Brooks &
collaborator Don Cookworkpl
the songs featuring Brooks,’
Dunn brought in Byron Gal
(Tim McGraw, Jo Dee
for his numbers.
That would seem to i
team drifting apart. Just
site, they said.
“That freedom, as muchas
pie are ready to latch on to at'
of a rift with us, actually isll<
namic that keeps us toj’fi
Dunn said. “Because youcJ
press your individuality an!
come together and make
Brooks & Dunn record.”
Another success strategy: 1
writers who want to work wl
duo are invited to join them on
instead of working in Nasi'
which is the common practice
“You spend all day sittingtft
those buses a lot of times, i
the show,” Dunn said. “Sow!
utilize that time? And if you! 1
co-writer out there as motiva!
lot of times that’ll help yougeb
Brooks added: “Kids
and all that stuff you need to pi
tention to when you’re 1
it’s hard to pay attention toil"
you’ve got somebody over the:
ing to write a song with you."
One of their first hits was"
Scootin’ Boogie,” which betfl
from the country music'line daT
craze of the early 1990s. Tiif'j
adept at ballads (“Neon Moon |
especially good at cranking oil
gressive rockers like “Hard Wfl
Man” and “Rock My World F
Country Girl). ”
"You d
mis