Issue date: 5/11/06 Section: Student Life

Media Credit: Jennifer Hietpas Senior Lynn Gust holds a plant in a terrarium, a type of portable greenhouse, outside of Davies Center Gust and her husband, Les, used to sell the terrariums by the hundreds as a small business venture.

Senior Lynn Gust is not a woman who brushes injustice off quietly. She plans to go to graduate school so she can speak up for Native American treaty rights. She stands in vigilant silence to protest the Iraq war.

But day to day, she said, she still feels panicky sometimes. 

Ten years ago, Gust, now 53 years old, was diagnosed with a panic disorder known as agoraphobia. But she's pushed herself not only to stand up for the things that matter to her, but to go to college in order to fight for others.

Looking at her feet
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, agoraphobia is "an extreme fear of being in public places or open spaces from which escape may be difficult or embarrassing."
 
Gust said she feared being in public, especially in stores and marketplaces, without a family member. She would go to the grocery store with her husband of 34 years, Les Gust, and tell him, "Please don't leave me."

"I would hold his hand," she said.
She said she used to have a panic attack almost every time she went out alone.

"It's like having a heart attack," she said, "Your heart races; the floor looks like it's moving up and down."

Gust said she attributed the panic attacks to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, a condition from which she also suffers, or to a thyroid problem. But when she went to a therapist at the age of 42, she was diagnosed with agoraphobia.

She said her therapist told her a chemical deficiency caused the condition and that it wasn't her fault. She was prescribed Xanax, but she said she rarely takes it anymore.

"Why should I take something that's addicting and distorts your mind?" she said, adding that because of her ADHD, the Xanax makes her feel "hyper" instead of calming her down.

Gust said she learned ways to cope with the attacks.

She got in the habit of looking at her feet, looking up and then moving on.

"I kind of made myself do things," she said. 

Long before seeking treatment, Gust took a stand for pacifism.

"I've done this since I was 15 and protesting the Vietnam War," she said. 
She said her husband often came to demonstrations with her.

"He kind of pushed me a little bit," she said, "And I know he's always there."

Looking up
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Gust said, she felt even more need to make her voice heard.

"I knew Bush was going to do something," she said. 

With four other women, she started a local chapter of Women in Black, a group that holds silent vigils to protest war and violence against women.  According to the group's Web site, it has chapters all over the world.

"(At first) We were booed," she said, "and now it's been three years since Bush said 'Mission accomplished.' "

Gust is also active in Veterans for Peace (she said her husband was a conscientious objector) and the Western Wisconsin Peace Coalition. She often participates in the peace rallies held on Garfield Avenue. She said she thinks that if the signs affect even a few people, she made a difference.

"We don't really think in this country," she said.  "We do what we're told; we believe what we see on the nightly news.

"A good American questions what the government's doing. You don't just go blindly by with whatever's going on. If we did, we'd be Germany under Hitler."

Gust's 31-year-old son, Forrest Gust, said his inspiration comes from his mother and she pushes him to have his own ideas.

"(If) she's inspired by something, she goes out and she does it … when you grow up with that, you see it as a viable option," he said, adding that he thinks her activism helps her deal with her panic attacks.

"I really think, for her, going out and doing these things has helped her more than anything else," Forrest Gust said.

Looking ahead
Gust, who is part Native American, said she is pursuing a degree in American Indian Studies so she can negotiate Native American treaty rights. She attends UW-Eau Claire part time, she said, because she finds it more manageable.

Gust has been studying for six years and said she hopes to finish after one more year. She said that though she's had a few close calls, she hasn't had a panic attack in any of her classes.

"Every day, I knew I could leave," she said, adding that she sits in the front of classrooms just in case she feels the need to duck out.

"Every day I kind of have (wanted to leave)," she said. "But if it's classes that I really, really want to learn, it helps."

After she gets her bachelors degree, she said, she wants to attend graduate school in Arizona to study law as it applies to indigenous peoples.

Her goal, she said, is to help Navajo Indians stop the impending development of coal mining, which she said destroys natural water environments the tribe still holds sacred, even though they could use the money.

"That takes a lot of guts to go without food, water, electricity, and not tap into that," she said.

Moving on
Gust said she hasn't had an attack since last fall. She said she wants people to know that agoraphobia is more common than most people think.

Her husband said she has definitely made progress.

"I'm very proud of her for going back to school and taking the steps she's taken and continues to take," he said.

Forrest Gust, who had moved out of the house before Gust was diagnosed, said his mother has really come out of her shell in the last 10 years.

"I see her changing, and I see her involved in so many different things," he said, "I look around, and no one has a mother quite like that.

I look to her future. I think that her best years are yet to come."

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