Iron Man Issues

by Iain Lowson

I watched Iron Man 3 last night again. That's two and a half times now. Enjoyed it very much. An impressive trilogy, really, or quadrilogy if you include Avengers. Guess we should. My only issue was with the panic attacks, specifically Stark snapping out of them.

The first attack you see, the one in the diner, is pretty good. Stark, despite being in the cocoon of the suit, has to flee the scene. That's a pretty good representation of the reality of a panic attack. Stark's trigger is anyone speaking about New York, the wormhole thing, aliens, all that. I'm content with that, as everyone has different triggers. I had a trigger location at one time - a particular street in the Glasgow University campus where the Gaelic lectures took place. The rest of the time, it was never so particular. Just a build up and then a flake out. Stark is a character who compartmentalises his life intensely, so I can easily imagine a 'key', such as someone mentioning the New York incident, opening that particular box for him, triggering an attack.


A well played 'piping hot mess'.

I know it's a film, and that reality doesn't intrude much, but the remaining panic attack scenes are pure Hollywood hokum. Panic attacks are a physical manifestation of a mental state. Stark exhibits the physical signs of an attack (and Downey Jnr. does an excellent job, it has to be said, of portraying them) but the script then calls for him to be able to switch them off. He has revelations, little epiphanies, that allow him an instant recovery. I can suspend disbelief, sure, but it does make me slightly uncomfortable. I worry, more or less, that those who have never had a panic attack might believe this is possible. It's really not.

Let's assume for a moment that someone who has anxiety attacks gains the skill of being able to talk themselves down from an attack. That is possible. I've done it myself, and so have many, many others. It's something that happens as you get better, as you start to get a handle on your own negative thought processes. It's never an instant thing. It's not a switch. To follow that analogy, it's more like a tap you turn off, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. Sometimes it even gets stuck for a while, and you have to wrestle with it. Anyway, enough of that analogy. Putting aside the mental control aspect, there's the physical side, and this is the bit that Iron Man 3 gets quite badly wrong. I understand why it does, though, as the reality would break the film.

When you have a panic attack, your body floods with adrenaline. Not just once, either. You get adrenaline hits again and again, over and over. Remember the worst fright you've ever had. The one you get when a car nearly hits you because you weren't looking when you stepped out into the road. The one you get when someone jumps out at you and you really weren't ready. The one when the mugger pulls a weapon and the threat is suddenly horrifyingly real. That kind.

Now forget having any control. There's no training, there's no instinct, there's nothing to protect you. You are panicking. You can't see the car, or the person who jumped out, or the mugger, but you know the threat is there. Somewhere. Everywhere. Sometimes, the person having the attack has a specific trigger, though it may not have anything to do with the real reasons for the mental state that brings on the attack.

For Stark, the New York thing was the first time he really had no control. How did he get out of the wormhole? He survived by luck, and after he had resigned himself to dying. For a control freak, there can be nothing more terrifying. While New York was the trigger, the thing causing his mental state was his inability to deal with the understanding that he didn't have as much control over his life as he thought he did. Oddly, his relationship with Pepper is a huge part of that, despite Tony believing her moving in with him was helping. He has invested a great deal, given himself to her. She is a part of his life, and he can't control her or his feelings for her. He struggles to protect her, true, but at the same time he is struggling against his need to protect himself from the impact she is having on him. This is nicely embodied when the Iron Man suit drags Pepper off Tony when he's having a bad dream, a panic attack in his sleep.


Restful sleep is something an anxiety sufferer can often only dream of. 

Sorry, I digress.

As I was saying, in a panic attack the body floods with adrenaline. Each stray thought that lingers on the trigger causes another flood of adrenaline. Each one is a punch in the heart. You feel it. Your every sense is running at maximum resolution. Your brain is processing information at its fastest possible rate. You are ready to deal physically with whatever the threat is, fight or flight. Fight or flight. Fight or flight.

But it's all in your head.

You can't fight it and you can't run away from it.

Frankly, it's exhausting.

When you do finally get hold of your thoughts, you are bloody knackered. For a while, until the adrenaline finally leaves your body, you're also more than a bit hyper. Physically, you overreact for some time, and any event that normally triggers a little puff of adrenaline will instead trigger a new flood. You're knackered, which gives you the shakes, but also full of energy, which gives you the shakes. You're a little clumsy, edgy, emotionally volatile. It's a winning combination, I can tell you.

The fact that Stark can't sleep is a nice touch. That's a common thing with people who have panic attacks. The most terrifying thing in the world is often to be alone with your own self. At night, when you're drifting off, your mind wanders from thought to thought, and very often it will touch on a trigger, the ones you consciously ignore, avoid, or suppress all day. Boom! Adrenaline rush, wide awake, tired, might as well get up and do something until it all wears off. When things are really bad, it's not unusual for an 'anxious person' to have to reach utter physical and mental exhaustion before they can finally switch off and sleep. It's never truly restful sleep either, meaning you wake up tired and even more prone to the negative thought processes that trigger the whole not sleeping thing. Which is really fair, don't you think?

I'm not really criticising Iron Man 3 for the way it portrays Tony Stark's mental health issues. In fact, I'm utterly delighted to see the issues it highlights being right up there, front and centre. When Stark physically (and mentally, to a lesser degree) switches off the effects of a panic attack, that's when I have the most problems with the film. As I've said, though, I get why. It's difficult to save the world from a prone position, while shaking so much you seem to blur. It wouldn't make for the funnest film ever. Artistic license is a wonderful thing, just be careful it doesn't tinge your perceptions of the real world and the people in it.


(On a related note, after I wrote this post I found an article by a professional type covering the basically same things I do, and which has a bunch of useful links off it.)