Breaking down in tears, a gutsy and honest Carrie Bickmore revealed the true extent of her battle with anxiety and panic attacks in an emotional on-air reveal last week.
The beloved TV and radio personality was speaking out in a bid to help others who might be going through something similar.
“I’ve suffered from anxiety and panic attacks since I was about 20,” the 43-year-old confessed to the shock of her audience on the Carrie and Tommy show. Co-host Tommy Little admitted being rocked to his core when she first told him years ago.
CARRIE BICKMORE’S SILENT STRUGGLE
Despite being a Gold Logie winner and having a hugely successful career in TV and radio with legions of fans who love her for her heart-on-her-sleeve approach, the mother-of-three says she felt “shame” and “embarrassment” over what was happening to her and so she kept it “in her own head”.
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But seeing some old footage of herself on Rove Live triggered Carrie’s desire to speak out because all she “could see was anxiety and I was just permanently in a state of anxiety on that show”.
Carrie, who graduated from Curtin University and landed a gig as a fill-in newsreader on Perth’s 92.9FM straight after, says that’s when the panic attacks first started.
LIVING IN A STATE OF PANIC
“I had to stop reading the bulletin part the way through. I just pretended I was having an asthma attack because I didn’t really know what to say. I didn’t really understand what had actually happened at that moment,” she remembers.
“It was weird because I’d always been so confident, you know, I did drama at school and I was always the one putting myself out there. But something switched in that moment, and from then, it was like, ‘Game on.’
“The threat of an attack would come every time I’d go on air when I was reading the news. So that was every 15 minutes doing traffic, I’d have it in my head that I might have one.”
STRUCK BY TRAGEDY
In the background Carrie was dealing with a lot.
Her first husband Greg Lange, who she met and fell in love with while working at the Perth station, was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2001 – the same time she took on the newsreader role on Nova FM at age 21.
“It forced me to grow up very, very, very quickly. It was a really scary, hard time and that was for me, let alone what it was like for Greg,” Carrie told Perth College of the shocking news.
Carrie and Greg married in 2005 and went on to have son Ollie in 2007. Sadly, Carrie suffered a life-threatening haemorrhage after giving birth, which sparked anxiety when she got pregnant again years later. Tragically in 2010,
Greg lost his battle to brain cancer at just 35.
Despite everything she was dealing with and the ongoing attacks, Carrie was too afraid to tell her friends, family or colleagues, because she felt it was “too insignificant”, and she feared that she might get the sack.
She even turned down job offers – and almost didn’t take the role on The Project because of her anxiety, but sometimes her brain would tell her “not to let the anxiety win” and she’d lean into the challenge.
LIFE CHANGING
Carrie finally sought professional help, which was “life-changing”. And while she still has attacks, they are far less frequent. Carrie’s emotional share prompted an outpouring of support.
Dannii Minogue applauded her, “What a brave conversation and it will help so many people. Well done.” Julie Goodwin also congratulated her, “So important to talk about just like this. You’re a brave and special human.”
Carrie adds, “I feel proud of myself for getting through it. For a long time, it defined me and now I try to think of it differently. I try to think of it like a visitor who has come to stay and occasionally overstays its welcome, but is fleeting, as opposed to who I am.”
