The Daily - Our Fear Facer Makes a New Friend

This week, “The Daily” is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened since they appeared. Today, we introduce Ella Maners, 9, from our kids’ episode on facing fears, to Barbara Greenman, 70, who heard Ella’s story and felt compelled to reach out. Guests: Julia Longoria and Bianca Giaever, producers for “The Daily”; Ella and her mother, Katie Maners; and Ms. Greenman, a listener who used Ella’s tips to confront her own fears. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading:Ella’s fears of sickness and tornadoes were taking over her life — until she went to summer camp. How the University of Florida is helping children learn to deal with obsessive-compulsive and anxiety disorders.

Duration: 38m
Broadcast on: 31 Dec 2019
Audio Format: other

Background reading:

Ella’s fears of sickness and tornadoes were taking over her life — until she went to summer camp. How the University of Florida is helping children learn to deal with obsessive-compulsive and anxiety disorders.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

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For the New York Times, I'm Ella. This is the Daily Kids Edition. Today, we are talking about fears and how to face them. It's Sunday, September 29th.

I didn't mean to be really close to Ella. Hello? Michael? Hi, is this Ella? Um, that was my mom talking but now it's me. Is that Michael? Hi, Ella. Hi. Are you wearing headphones? How does it feel? Great. All right, cool. And then... my colleague Julia Longoria traveled to Nashville, Tennessee to record our conversation with Ella Manners and her mother, Katie Manners. It feels okay? Yes, sir. Are you calling me, sir? Yes, sir. You don't have to do that. I appreciate it, but... Got it. Okay. How are you hearing me through this microphone? I'm not actually hearing you through the microphone. I'm hearing you through the phone, but then eventually a lot of people are going to hear you through the microphone. I don't get it. Yeah, I don't get it either. I thought that we might begin with just a couple of really basic questions. How old are you? I just turned nine. And since you're in Ella, your bedroom, I wonder if you could describe a little bit of your surroundings, just a couple of things in that room that means something to you. Everybody in here. My bunk bed and my stuffed animals. Can you tell me about those stuffed animals? I got a unicorn named Uni and Bumbun is my favorite, which is a bunny. She has OCD. Bumbun has obsessive compulsive disorder. Yes, sir. I mean, yes. So Ella, I know that you have been through a lot this last year, so I wanted to talk about that with you and with your mom. Does that sound fine? Yeah. Let me start by asking you about your biggest fears. What are you most scared of? Throwing up tornadoes, fires, wing decks, monsters, and going upstairs by myself or in the garage. And among those, because that's a fair number of fears, what would you say are the biggest, the things that you're most afraid of? Getting sick. And like tornadoes, we have like tornado watches here. And the worst thing is our tornado siren is right beside our house. This dangerous storm will be near. That's still around 7.40 pm central standard time. Take cover now. So you can hear it like really clear. It's loud. It's really loud. Oh my god. It's a twisted. It's a twisted. The apocalypse is coming. That's just kind of where her mind goes. But we have never had a tornado actually hit our house. That's good. Yes, sir. Yes. Obsessive compulsive disorder is not what I imagined it to be. Pictured mainly the compulsive side of OCD hand washing over and over checking locks or things like that. And with Ella in particular, her OCD focuses more on the obsession. Obsessive thoughts of vomiting of tornadoes. Ella's compulsion is actually avoidance. She will do anything to avoid the situations where vomit tornado could happen. OCD is just telling you that scary things are going to happen to you. It took what Ella had a fear of vomit tornadoes and just made that fear just enormous. When I found out that I had OCD, I feel like it changed my life a lot. How so?

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