Former Four Corners reporter and five-time Walkley award-winning journalist Liz Jackson turned the camera on herself last night to tell her emotional story of living with Parkinson’s Disease.
The documentary, called ‘Sense Of Self’, was aired on ABC’s Four Corners, and dealt with the symptoms of Parkinson’s, how it has changed how she sees herself and what it is like to experience a panic attack.
Liz Jackson’s diagnosis came on completely unexpectedly. Though she was looking forward to her retirement after working for 20 years at ABC, and about to focus on a healthier lifestyle, 18 months after she retired, she was diagnosed with the disease.
Of the diagnosis and the changes she noticed, Jackson told ABC News, “Once I was diagnosed, some of these changes made more sense, but I felt I was no longer the person I used to be, my sense of self had diminished.”
She also explained that she battled with the decision to create the documentary, as she wasn’t sure she wanted the world to see. One of the most confronting elements of the filmmaking was capturing a full-blown panic attack, and Jackson said that this was particularly difficult to watch back.
“The first time I saw the rushes of my panic attack in the doctor’s surgery I was appalled. I had no idea I looked so bad and so mad, like a half-crazed, underfed animal in the presence of a malignant predator, with a long lonely drool of saliva falling from my lips into my lap.”
However Jackson also explained that making the documentary did ‘wonders for her sense of self’, as it allowed her to educate people on how this disease actually affects people.
“I knew virtually nothing about Parkinson’s when it was first put to me that I might have the disease. I did not know, for instance, that people with the disease are 50 per cent more likely to develop dementia than those without it.
“I was also unaware of its connections with panic attacks and pain. I believed we would only succeed in making a good, honest film by showing the wide-ranging and unpleasant manifestations that come with the disease, and I was wary. Would I be placing too much physical and mental stress on myself?”
So far, she has been extremely pleased with the result and the response it has received.
You can watch the full Four Corners program on ABC iview.
