Catie LaffoonIn a personal essay for Glamour, Grammy nominee Julia Michaels details her ongoing struggle with anxiety.
The singer says she’s been suffering from panic attacks and crippling stage fright since she was 18. She even admits to having a “massive panic attack” onstage while performing “Issues” on TV for the first time live at the Billboard Music Awards this past May.
“The hug you see me go in for to my keyboard player was actually me turning to her saying, ‘I can’t breathe!’” she writes. “I walked offstage and crumbled into a ball in a backstage hallway.”
Another time, she was participating in a writing session with Ed Sheeran and producer Benny Blanco, when she became so overwhelmed that she ended up in the bathroom hyperventilating. She credits Benny, who also suffers from panic attacks, with helping her through it.
“It was the first time someone had stood in front of me and understood me,” she says.
Julia says she’s been seeing a therapist to cope with her anxiety and has learned that rationalizing with herself helps her calm down.
“For example, when I get anxious before I go onstage I think to myself, ‘Why?’ And then I think to myself, ‘Oh, it’s probably because that one time when I was 12, someone really close to me told me I couldn’t sing, and I’ve held on to that,’” she says. “But that was a long time ago. I’m OK.”
She adds that she’s made great strides with her mental illness this year.
“I may not know a lot, but I know one thing for sure: This is the most alive and free I’ve ever felt,” she writes. “Pouring out these emotions, facing my fears, and confronting these things I’ve never been able to before is making me stronger every day.”
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