Video Testimonials

"After having my son, I quickly became pretty anxious but I didn't understand why. My doctor said he thought it was post-natal depression with anxiety. With an absent father and the pressure to return to work, I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. I soon began to feel very anxious and it became worse every day until I had panic attacks and I felt very agoraphobic.

I had constant generalized anxiety, depersonalization, derealization and morbid thoughts. I became very dependent on my mother and my family members which was tough on them and I felt so crazy. Most of the time I felt like I was in a play or a film, I was sort of outside myself and the world around me felt unreal; that was really frightening for me.

Panic attacks happened both during the day at night. Night time panic attacks were the most frightening, I would wake from a deep sleep and jump across the bedroom, sweating, shaking and breathing like I had been running a marathon race.

I was driving my family crazy and I didn't know what to do. I felt so guilty because I wasn't coping with my son, I felt lost and alone.

It had been over three years since all this started and things hadn't gotten better or worse.

My dad found out about The Linden Method from our family doctor, who had a few clients who had used The Method with amazing results.

Dad ordered the pack and as soon as I received it I started to read it. The immediate sense of relief was magical. I felt better immediately and from that point on, I made constant progress.

Charles Linden's method is so genius. It is so simple, so fast and has changed mine and my family's life so radically. If you don't do it, you aren't serious about getting rid of your anxiety.

I now have regular work again and socialize like I used to and I think I am a truly great mother. Everything is so good again thanks to Charles and the support staff at The Linden Method; I now have a second chance at my life."

Regina Weaver,
Provo, Utah

"I remember being anxious when I was quite young. I was scared to do a lot of things that other kids thought it was quite normal to do.

As I got older it got a little bit worse. I was missing out on parties and things with many friends and colleagues. Then, when I was in University, I experienced a few bits of anxiety. It got a lot better after a while and I was leading what you'd call an 'almost normal' life.

Then, when I started my first job, I started having these extreme attacks. They'd go on for a day or two and then they'd disappear, but it was causing a lot of problems in my life and it was really difficult for me.

By this time I was really suffering and I was having to spend a lot of time at the doctors trying to get some reassurance. My panic attacks, they were getting so bad I was terrified to leave the house, it was really frightening.

My mom, the only place I would let her take me was to the doctors and back. It was really terrifying. The doctor put me on some anti-depressants and I stayed on them for about three weeks, but I just couldn't stand the side-effects, they were really awful, so I had to go off.

After things got really bad, a friend told me about The Linden Method. So, I ordered the Method pack and I started work on it right away. The relief was instant. I really related to Charles' story and that helped so much. I felt like a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

Now, three months later, I only have memories of my panic attacks and my anxiety and I just can't thank you enough for that."

Natasha,
Canada

"Everyone knew me as an outgoing, funny sort of guy with no hang-ups but inside I knew that I was being torn to bits by so many things that happened to me when I was a kid. I was putting on an act, horsing around to cover up my anxieties and I had been doing this all through school, college and right through my marriage.

My kids thought I was great, my wife thought I was a big kid; she saw my anxiety as part of my personality but I saw it as a big problem and I sort of knew that it would get out of control one day but I had no idea how to prevent it.

My anxiety started to escalate after I lost my job as a heating engineer. Within a few days I was getting short of breath and so shaky I was given Prozac and a sedative, but I think that made things worse. I just felt really tired all the time and things didn't feel as real as before. I was living in a dream world.

I was diagnosed as having 'Generalized Anxiety Disorder' and they gave me even more pills!

I had obsessions about hurting myself or my family and had these horrible thoughts about killing them, I knew I never would but the thoughts were so real. My wife became scared of me when I confided in her about the thoughts I was having; she thought I was psychotic and to be frank, I thought perhaps that I was too.

I decided to see a professional and commenced treatment with a CBT therapist which made sense during the sessions but I experienced no positive affects even after six months. I tried a few alternative remedies but again, no positive affects at all.

A friend from Michigan called me on the telephone and I reluctantly spoke to him. During the conversation he told me how he had met with Charles Linden in an airport lounge and subsequently bought The Linden Method for his teenage daughter who had been suffering for 12 months and had found The Linden Method had completely erased her anxieties. I admitted that I had been suffering too and asked him where I could find The Linden Method. I went to the Charles Linden website and ordered the download version of the pack but then upgraded to the printed version two days later, I found it simpler to carry with me when I went out.

In the pack, Charles mentions that you can switch off the inappropriate anxiety like a light switch if you know how... that is exactly what happened to me. Within two days, I was anxiety free. Now I can't say this will happen for everyone but what I can say is that this material was the key to my recovery and it proves totally that what Charles says is true.

It would be doing every sufferer an injustice if they didn't get the opportunity to use The Linden Method. I am sure there are other devices out there that help too, but I can only speak as I find and what I found was a fast and simple solution that revolutionized my thoughts over night. I owe The Linden Method my life because that's what it gave me back; it's the best investment in yourself you could ever make."

Mark LaBella,
Loveland, Colorado

"I was a shy child and my brothers used to tease me about it all the time and I just became worse and worse, as I became a teenager. I remember being too scared to leave my room sometimes. When I left school to go to college I had improved a little but the anxiety I felt as a small child sort of stayed with me - and yet it was manageable through college.

I was taking my finals when all hell broke loose. It started with a racing heart and palpitations, a little dizziness and just some strange thoughts, but soon it cascaded into panic attacks - I became more and more obsessive about the strangest things like whether my clothes where creased, tidiness. Anxiety seemed to be taking over my life.

I went to the doctors and started taking Valium and anti-depressants but the symptoms increased and I couldn't continue with my studies. I dropped out of college and went back home where I really became reclusive... my parents didn't know what to do to help me and I didn't want to be seen let alone get a job or even socialize. The panic attacks were just dominating my entire life, I could hardly stand, I would tremble and I ended up losing a lot of weight.

Seven years later, my mom was looking on the Internet for information about treatments and she discovered Charles' program. She bought it thinking that she would be returning it soon after, but she made me sit down and read about it. I couldn't leave it alone. It just made so much sense to me, everything clicked into place. It was almost like someone had given me the final piece of a puzzle and the whole thing became clear. It's so easy to do - Charles has this way of making you feel at ease and sort of 'pulling the fear out of you' with his words.

I started implementing Charles' instructions immediately and my panic attacks just stopped. I can't tell you what happened but over night they just stopped waking me in the night and although when I was awake the anxiety was still there, it was much lower than it was before and the panic attacks were gone completely, and have stayed away ever since. I think the message got through to the subconscious part of me and that's what controlled my panic attacks.

Charles program is the key to complete anxiety elimination, just as it says on his web site. It's no big secret and now I feel crazy for taking all those medications when they were just wrong for me and the disorder I was fighting.

I just hope every person that hears what I am saying now will trust me when I say "try this". If you don't you may never find the solution you need. My mom trusted it for me and I am so glad that she did.

The Linden Method is so clearly the solution to anxiety disorders. I can't tell you how using the Linden Method, just over eight months ago, has changed my life forever. Now I have a job and even a steady boyfriend, an apartment and a car; I have a whole new life."

Donna Meyers,
Flagstaff, Arizona

"March 2001, my mother died after a long illness, during which I was her primary care-giver. I was relieved that she was finally at rest but the loss, it still hurt. What was really more damaging for me was just the fact that I had this large 'hole' in my life. The combination of that and my grief seemed to tip me over the edge.

The stress of working nights and caring for my mom had ruined my relationship with a lovely girl who was devastated by the stress of my lifestyle and she left me six months ago. During all of this I started to feel strange at times but I never in the world put it down to anxiety.

Just after mom died I experienced my first panic attack. I was at the attorney's office and had just found out that my mom had spent every last penny of her money and the house had been refinanced; it was the last straw.

I was rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack but, of course, all tests came up negative and I returned home with a packet of tranquilizer pills.

I became very frightened and my anxiety escalated quickly. I experienced a panic attack every day, I mean, sometimes twice a day. I became restricted to the house. I stopped driving and felt trapped, unable to pay the bills, unable to work, unable to think past the constraints of my own body. I began thinking I was having a nervous breakdown.

The local mental health team visited me after a neighbor reported my situation to them and a charity that had worked with Charles Linden's Team bought me a copy of The Linden Method pack. I was so grateful that somebody cared enough and I immediately started to study the material.

It was great to read about another man suffering like I was, it was so reassuring that even strong, intelligent people suffer in this way.

The material was so simple to read and implement and the immediate affect was a sense of total relief. I was elated. It was as if someone had lifted the weight of the world from my shoulders.

The solution is so simple if only someone could have told me earlier, I wouldn't have suffered these last two years.

I now work with the community project that supplied me with the Linden Method pack. Some of the people we work with are anxiety sufferers and I am always recommending The Linden Method and feel privileged that I can just have a hand in helping them to get their lives back.

This Method is a godsend. Thank you so much Charles."

Dean Lueck,
Olympia, Washington

"My parents were much older than my friends parents and didn't really understand young people, so when I started getting pushed around at school, they did nothing to protect me or even contact the school. I was being bullied by older kids because of my size. I was bigger than other kids in my class and I guess the older kids felt tougher by pushing me around.

As the years passed by my anxiety levels rose to a point where life was just manageable for me, I would just make it into school but I always felt like I was living on my nerves. Things got tough when my sister moved to the school and I was then put on anti-depressants by my doctor who thought that I was suffering from depression. I just became worse and worse. I went to see a counselor a few times but they just raked up old memories that I felt were relevant to my situation.

At college I suffered a massive panic attack whilst addressing the class. All eyes were on me and I was finding it harder and harder to speak until I felt a wave of panic engulf me and I hit the stage. I felt unwell from that day on and my panic attacks became worse and worse. I started staying at home and life became more and more restricted.

After I left college I did manage to get a job at a local bank for a while but the managers were constantly telling me off for the time I kept taking off. I eventually gave up the job and stayed at home.

When I found The Linden Method I cried. Reading about Charles' experiences made me realize that I was not alone and ten minutes into the manual I realized that I would be well again. Now, just three months later, I've put all that misery behind me. I'm now back at work, enjoying life, without panic and anxiety. The Method is so easy to use and so sensible. I just wish I had found it seven years ago.

Thank you all at the Linden Center for giving me my life back!"

Matt Montgomery,
Laramie, Wyoming

"I did experience panic attacks and they were very sporadic, sometimes I would experience them once a month, then they'd go away, then, all of a sudden, they would come back again.

When I was stressed I found that I had a panic attack basically. If I was thinking about anything, if I was stressed with work - anything stressing me in my life then it would bring it on.

The Linden Method was very successful, it was very easy to follow. The Nine Pillars were great. I found that, as soon as I did it and I read all the booklet and I listened to the CD's, I felt like I was cured."

Natalie Bellamy,
UK

"My anxiety, I feel, started as quite a young child really but was fairly mild, so that it would be affected by, perhaps, an examination at school or a new situation I was going into. I found that as I went into my adulthood, it became a little bit more severe, so that it would sometimes affect me doing day-to-day activities.

I think what happened is that I became used to that level of anxiety, so it becomes normal in your everyday life. Then it started to affect me more and more, as I 'enabled' it, I suppose, to take over. So then I would develop quite severe feelings of panic.

I would experience symptoms such as difficulty swallowing, feeling 'aware' of my breathing and my heart rate, very very sweaty and just a feeling of dread and panic inside. I remember one day driving out of the village that I live in, actually getting to the boundary and having to come back home, bursting out crying to my husband, saying I just can't go past that boundary. On a couple of occasions it was so severe that it actually stopped me in my tracks and I felt that I just could not step any further; I became very shaky, very sweaty and very tearful.

If found, firstly the story of Charles Linden's life, very very easy to read and something that I related to very easily. I think that putting into practice the relaxation, visualization and diversion really for me is also really important, but it's not something that I feel I have to practice now every day - it's remembering key factors in Charles Linden's Methodology and just remembering certain key points; for instance, things like dietary advice and learning how to live your lifestyle, to help control the symptoms, I also found very useful.

I think now I just feel that it's me who's in control of my life. I tend to go out and grab opportunities that come to me. I've joined an art class at college, I'm doing some voluntary work as well as my own work that I do for a living. Just enjoying life really and actually taking opportunities that arise to me that I would have probably been quite scared of doing before, so I feel quite refreshed."

Lynn Mullins,
UK

"I began experiencing anxiety when I was at school, I was probably about 13 or 14 years of age. I was always a perfectionist. I wanted to be the best, I wanted to do really well and get top results in all my subjects. One year I hadn't done so well in my exams and the following year they introduced the SAT examinations. I became very, very anxious about the exams, made myself ill and experienced depression. I just thought that I couldn't get through these exams, they just became 'the world' to me. I used to run home from school crying to my mum. I hardly ate - it really, really affected me.

Coming up to the exams, I actually experienced my first incident of Depersonalisation. Obviously, back then I didn't know what it was, it was very, very scary for me. I couldn't concentrate, I felt very detached from reality. People would say things to me and I would always have to feign emotions because I wouldn't feel anything. It affected me through my school years because I was always having time off. I didn't feel able to concentrate on my subjects at school and it really, really frightened me. I felt like I was in a 'void', slipping into a black hole. I always use the analogy of 'slipping into a hole' and I was trying frantically to get back out of the hole, into the light, into reality and normality. But it was so, so difficult.

Throughout the years, sometimes I would even cut myself to try and feel some kind of emotions. I'd throw things around the room, I would just lie in bed crying, it was just such a difficult thing for me to deal with.

I think the root of my anxiety was the fact that I always pushed myself so hard to do well at school and it was always the thought of failure. My dad also experienced anxiety and he did in fact have a nervous breakdown when he was 18. He was working under very pressurized conditions, he was doing some technical/graphical drawings and because he was doing so well, his bosses said to him "Right, you can take over a managerial post." As he explained, it just got too much for him and he had a nervous breakdown, so I suppose there is that in the family. My grandfather also had a nervous breakdown because of my nan's physical health, so to me I think it was the pressure I was under at school and really the thought of failure.

From the age of about 14 when I did experience the symptoms, I was visiting the doctor and I had a very 'pat on the back', "you're a lovely girl, you shouldn't be worried about things..." you know, very patronizing really, they weren't really understanding what I was going through. The doctor did finally refer me to a specialist. They did a physical examination and came up with the idea that it was a 'mental illness' and over the years I've seen countless psychiatrists and psychologists, taken anti-depressants, for example Prozac, Stelazine as well (which I found out recently was actually a psychotic drug which could have long terms side effects - which was quite scary!) Also Lithium, which is used in batteries! I had to regularly have blood tests to see that the levels hadn't got so high that it could be toxic in my blood stream.

So, those are the conventional medical experiences that I had and visiting psychiatrists and psychologists. Also I did try other avenues. I tried Hypnotherapy, visiting a nutritionist, raiki as well, I did level one raiki and also had raiki myself. Aromatherapy massage, things like that. So, I felt like I was exploring every avenue that was available really, to try and get myself better, always trying to keep positive that there would be something eventually that would help me.

Basically, I was off work, I had a period of depersonalisation. I was really trying to do something that would make me better and I was having a look on the Internet and thought I'd do some research into anxiety and depersonalisation and I came across a website for The Linden Method. I started reading through it and had a look at some of the stories that people had written and thought, I can identify with this, which was quite reassuring. I spoke to my partner about it and thought this sounds like something really positive. I spoke to my parents and thought, I've got nothing to lose in buying the pack.

I think it was a period when I had been doing some sketching when I just started to feel differently about things and then I noticed it at work. Certain situations that I would have reacted with anxiety or I would have felt symptoms, I would have felt dizzy, feelings like I was out of control... I just felt like I was handling things a lot better, I felt more positive, I had more energy and just generally a nicer person to be around. I think my partner probably had experienced a lot of my snappy moods, when I was anxious, about silly things really, that weren't important. Generally, I just felt so much better about things.

I think people at work had probably noticed, as well, a difference in me. My partner certainly has, other friends and family, so it's really made a big difference. Now, I feel like I'm not looking towards the past; that I can actually look forward to the future and living a life anxiety-free which is fantastic.

I found reading the manual really useful, because straight away, reading Charles Linden's story - it was someone I could identify with, someone who'd been through similar experiences. That, straight away, gave me an enormous sense of relief. To me, I'd always thought that depersonalisation was something that was very very rare, that not many people had experienced it, that it was some kind of alien condition. That really reassured me.

I found the whole theoretical basis of the Linden Method really interesting. It just made sense to me. Everything clicked into place really, thinking anxiety isn't a mental illness - it is a behavioral condition - it made perfect sense. I found other areas, such as diet, useful as well. Relaxation, breathing, things like that. The DVD, as well, I thought it was great. Seeing other people who'd been through the Method, their own experiences, because that also reassured me that I could get through this.

I just feel now, now that I know I haven't got anxiety any more, it's not like this constant burden. I always felt like I was carrying this weight, that it could happen to me at any time. I could be out and have a panic attack - I didn't really experience that many panic attacks over the years but I did on the odd occasion, which was frightening. It was just great not having to look over my shoulder and think "e;am I going to have any symptoms" and be constantly worried about things and living in fear of fear. Now I just feel that I'm a normal person and I can just get on with my life."

Clare,
UK

"Since childhood I've always been anxious. About ten years ago I really started suffering with anxiety and panic attacks, but sort of got a little bit better. On a couple of occasions I've actually been to the accident and emergency room, convinced that I'd suffered having a heart attack which, of course in the end, turned out that I hadn't. These panic attacks would come out of nowhere. I would be home relaxing and suddenly my heart would start racing. I would call the emergency services and be taken to hospital and feel really stupid afterwards. My obsessive thoughts were really really scary. Mine manifested themselves as a fear of harming other people.

I discovered The Linden Method while browsing for treatment for anxiety disorders. I had been seeing a psychologist for a number of years, I never really felt I had got anywhere with that and I was very frustrated. After I got the pack, I started reading the manual. I felt an immediate relief in knowing that I wasn't the only one suffering with anxiety. The improvement in my condition was gradual and happened over several weeks until the point where I am today, where I am completely anxiety free."

Martin Jenson
Denmark