To give you a bit of background, I'll take you back to 1999 when I was just twenty. A promising music student with all the drive, focus and determination you could want.
I was in the department first thing raring to go, and the last to leave at the end of the day. I practised up to 6 hours a day and on top of that I had my lessons, coursework, lectures and then there were the numerous bands, choirs and orchestras that I belonged to. I didn't socialise that much and I didn't party. I was serious about this and determined to make a career performing with orchestras and chamber groups. I loved it. It was my life.
I was a model student - conscientious, ambitious, hard working and dedicated to my craft. On the flip side, my personality could be described as rigid, perfectionistic, highly strung, anxious, uptight and eager to prove myself.
It's fair to say I was a workaholic..
Something happened at the beginning of the academic year in 1999 - My final year. I'm not really sure what triggered it but I began to get severe stage-fright. Sure, I'd gotten nervous in the past and managed to control it, but I'd never had anything like this. Suddenly it was uncontrollable and crippling. During one fateful concert in Birmingham (and one of my last) I was affected so badly I ended up throwing up all over my instrument.
Rather embarrassed and mortified by the whole episode I decided enough was enough and went to my doctor who prescribed beta-blockers to control the physical side-effects of my stage-fright.
It was wonderful! With the beta-blockers I could play a concert the way I practised in the practice room - no nausea, no freezing sweaty hands, no shaking and for the first time I felt I could be myself on stage.
The year went on and my work intensified.
Concerned family members began to take me aside and told me I was doing far too much and that it would all end badly. I refused to listen. I needed to do that work to maintain my high grades. They didn't know what they were talking about. I'd been doing this for years and everything was fine. And it was..for a while.
I continued to do well, with my trusty little pills accompanying me to concerts, but I noticed I was beginning to become a bit lethargic and flat at times..usually a couple of days after the last concert. I didn't take much notice and just attributed it to being tired after the concert.
Soon I began to be afraid of the feelings of nervousness and fear and as time went on I took the beta-blockers before every concert, every lesson and eventually even to get out of the house in the morning..I became addicted to them and relied on them to be be able to do the smallest of tasks.
It took me a while to notice a link between the pills and an odd black feeling in my chest, but it was happening too frequently for it to be a coincidence. It also linked in with the lethargy I was feeling and the more pills I took, the worse it got. Everything went downhill very quickly.
I was too scared to tell the doctor who prescribed them to me in case he took my little magic pills off me and I'd be unable to perform. I felt completely helpless, alone and very scared. I didn't know what was happening to me. I wanted to talk to somebody, anybody, but I couldn't own up to the shame of being reliant on beta-blockers to get through a concert.
Unable to talk to my teacher about the performance anxiety and the pills I decided to go herbal and tried tons of Bach flower remedies to see if they helped, but they didn't. I felt like a total failure and a fraud. There is a huge stigma about performers taking beta-blockers for their nerves, it happens more than you would think, but it's frowned upon.
By Easter 2000 I was a wreck. I didn't have enough energy to cook and I lost 45lbs in a matter of months. All my energy had been zapped. I could just about muster enough strength to get to the campus but my practice had fallen to one hour a day or even less. I started skipping lectures and not handing in coursework. When my instrument got too heavy for me to hold I lied to my lecturers I needed time off as I had a bout of glandular fever. I slept for 2 weeks. To be honest I didn't give a stuff if I failed my exams or not.
I didn't seem to have any emotions any more and felt shrouded in a thick grey fog which I couldn't see out of. I didn't know what was going on. It was terrifying.
I started to act out of character. I couldn't sleep and I'd get up in the middle of the night and have a bath, or go out for long walks in my PJ's. I even went missing for a few days which I have little recollection of.
We lived in a very old house built in the 1600's and I became convinced that the black, sick feeling in my chest was because the house was haunted and I was sensitive to it. (I always felt a bit better when I got out of the house).
I began to hallucinate. I thought yellow spiders had invaded my bedroom and absolutely certain that there was dog poo in my bed - I could smell it, but despite looking I never found it.
The black feeling in my chest grew in to a heavy stone and I felt dead inside. If I wasn't sleeping I was crying and when I walked, I shuffled with my head towards the ground. I didn't have the energy to hold my back up straight.
I didn't have enough motivation to be suicidal or concoct an elaborate plan, but I did cross roads without looking. If I got hit, I got hit. I didn't care.
I felt cut off from the rest of the world, trapped in a strange bubble. People began to look grey and when I saw their mouths moving in slow motion, I heard no sound coming out. When I saw the sun in the sky giving off warmth I couldn't feel it. It meant nothing to me.
Personal hygiene went out the window when washing my long hair, brushing my teeth, drying myself and getting in and out of the bath became too much physically. (I resorted to using baby wipes - the best invention ever!)
I didn't have the energy to talk to people and I avoided them in case they asked questions. I was probably quite rude - I didn't care what people thought of me and I cut people off or just walked off when they were talking to me. It was hard to even crank my mouth in to a smile and I couldn't be bothered. All I could think about was getting home to my bed to cry or sleep.
It's hard to describe the exhaustion I had. My body felt like a lead weight and it was literally too heavy for me to move. I felt I could curl up in the middle of the street and just sleep.
I began to think I was losing my mind. I eventually managed to drag myself to my GP surgery. Things came to a dramatic head when I collapsed in the Doctor's office in floods of tears and hysterics saying I didn't know what was wrong with me and maybe I was depressed or something but I couldn't take it any more.
He made a quick phone call, abandoned his morning surgery and drove me in his car to the nearest psychiatric hospital where I was admitted immediately.
Hospitalisation was a relief and I slept for weeks. Much later on I tried to come to terms with what had happened.
The university were very nice about it all. I was too ill to sit my final exams but because the rest of my work had been very good I was given my degree anyway for which I'm very grateful.
On reflection...
At the time I never told the hospital about the beta-blockers, and they never really tried to get to the bottom of why I became so ill in the first place.
Out of curiosity I did a little experiment about 3 years ago where I wanted to see if the beta-blockers had had the effect on me that I suspected.
I knew it was a bit risky but I took only one, and sure enough a couple of days later I felt the old familiar 'black feeling' and lethargy returning which took me weeks to recover from.
I asked my consultant if these pills had a link with depression and it turns out that they have the adverse effect of severe depression in a very small percentage of people. Okay..so that particular mystery was solved, but to be honest I believe the breakdown probably would've happened anyway..
A few months ago I found a diary from 1999 with my Uni schedule which had all my practice, rehearsal and concert times as well as my courses. I flipped though it and though "My God...How could I have sustained this for so long? How could anyone sustain this?" It's no wonder those closest to me voiced their concerns. They were right. It did all end rather badly.
What I thought was putting me ahead came at a terrible, terrible cost and it ruined any chance of a professional career I might have had.
My perfectionistic and rigid personality didn't help either.
I still have an uneasy relationship with classical music but this is a huge improvement from retching every time I looked at my instrument. I eventually swapped it for a different instrument, one that had no associations with the past. I don't play that much these days though. The enjoyment of playing and listening to classical music is no longer there.
Going to concerts still makes me very sad, especially if any of my former colleagues are playing. It emphasizes the huge sense of failure I felt during the aftermath of the breakdown. I felt I had let everyone down after such a promising start.
After all that I've just said, it might sound strange for me to say this, but having that breakdown was probably the best thing that could have happened to me! It wasn't apparent until many years afterwards, but it's true.
Why? I hear you ask...
Well...It happened for a reason, and I learned some difficult but valuable lessons from it.
- I learned the importance of the Work/Life balance. If I'd eased up, had some fun and allowed myself the chance to relax, things would have been different. I'm not weak or selfish if I want to take time out for myself.
- I've learned to say "No", (Very liberating by the way!!). A lot of those things I did at university were because I believed people would think less of me if I didn't do them.
- I learned to talk to people about what is going on. In hindsight I would have told my teacher about the problems I was having and he may have come up with things to help. I also would've told the doctor about the effects the pills were having on me. He probably would have just changed them and prescribed therapy to help with the stage fright. - There is always an alternative.
- I've got more perspective in my life now. I believe there's more to life than work, and I find it distressing to see the workaholic culture that's expected these days. I've seen so many nervous breakdowns and break-ups of marriages due to workaholism, and I'd rather have my health, happiness and family than a high-powered, stressful job.
- I've learned it's not a weakness to ask for help. Once I got over my initial embarrassment, I encountered many kind and generous people who were happy to give me the help I needed. I don't think I would have got by without them..
- I am very aware of my health and the triggers that cause me to go downhill. Some would say I'm too cautious about this, but they're not me and they've not been on my journey. Since the breakdown I don't deal with stress very well, and my resistance and energy levels are much lower. It's frustrating, but I just have to be a bit more careful with what I take on.
- I am not superhuman! I know my own limitations and what my body and mind are capable of.
I'm not ambitious any more. Most people around me find this hard to understand, but again, as long as I'm healthy, happy and working at something I enjoy, I don't really care about getting up the career ladder.
I can still be a nervous, anxious individual sometimes and yes I still get worked up about the crappy little things, but having been about as low as you can get, I'm not afraid of the bigger picture any more. Somehow, things will work out..maybe not in the way I expected, but often something much better comes along instead.
Hopefully I will never go through anything like that again, but I am thankful for all those valuable lessons I learned.
I don't think I would be the same person today without all those painful years.
