Page 79 - AVN January 2021

“The more I’ve been open about mental
health and my own struggles with PTSD,
the more I’ve had people reach out to me and
thank me for being open about these things.”
“And the more I’ve been open about mental health and my own struggles with PTSD,
the more I’ve had people reach out to me and thank me for being open about these
things. It made me realize it’s a topic I need to address.”
Violet says the mall incident happened about five days before the 2020 AVN Awards
Show, which was on Saturday, January 26 in Las Vegas. She and Breton were enjoying
“a girls’ day” at the mall when someone fired off several rounds, injuring six people.
Doll recalls on her last day in Vegas she experienced an episode called derealization.
“It’s a form of disassociation,” she explains. “It was a really bad experience. I had
extreme anxiety and paranoia. I thought maybe I was drugged. After getting about five
hours of rest I started to feel like myself again and I knew in that moment I had to go
speak to a psychiatric professional.”
Even before what happened at the mall, Violet says she has overcome many personal
challenges to get to this point.
“I had a lot of traumatic things happen to me throughout my life. I’ve had a pretty
rough life, but I just figured I survived it, I’m fine. I went to therapy in my teen years. I
was misdiagnosed with things, I was medicated for things. I did things a lot of differently
before. But now I realized I’ve been struggling with PTSD all of my adult life and probably
much of my childhood.
“I think in recant years many people are starting to realize the impact that trauma has
on your mental health.”
In November, Doll transitioned from her weekly Behavior Therapy sessions to Exposure
Therapy as she continued her treatment program.
Exposure Therapy involves “being exposed to your emotions regarding the event,”
according to Doll.
“PTSD is often from avoidances,” she adds. “It’s like I know what happened to me
but I’m avoiding feeling emotional about it.”
“I’m just kind of in the beginning phases of it,” Doll said at press time in late November.
“There is a lot of protocol involved.
“Tomorrow will be a more in-depth discussion related to past trauma. I’m nervous. I get
extremely nervous before I go and I get tempted to just cancel. It’s a bit of a struggle but
I’m committed to it. I believe in it and I I’m going to stick to it. I see the same therapist
for both. We shifted from Behavior Therapy to Exposure.”
V I O L E T D O L L | 1 . 2 1 | A V N . C O M 7 9