Carrie Bickmore reveals secret 20-year health battle
Carrie Bickmore has broken down on-air as she candidly spoke about her 20-year battle with anxiety.
The TV and radio host revealed she has secretly battled anxiety for the past two decades years, which often prompted panic attacks throughout her career while co-hosting Rove Live, The Project, and her current radio gig on the Hit Network’s Carrie & Tommy show.
For the first time ever, Bickmore revealed the extent of her mental health battle in an emotional on-air discussion with co-host Tommy Little on Monday afternoon.
“I’ve suffered from anxiety and panic attacks since I was about 20,” the 43-year-old began in the segment.
“It’s hard, actually, to describe what I felt. It was like shame, I think, [also] embarrassment. I don’t think I really fully understood what was going on in my own head. I think talking about it almost made me feel more anxious, so I just kept it in my own head.”
She admitted that while reflecting on her time on Rove Live between the years of 2006 and 2009, she realised she felt anxious most of the time.
“I just saw in the vision of me on Rove Live and all I could see was anxiety and I was just permanently in a state of panic on that show,” she told Little. “I saw that girl in the vision, and I just wanted to reach through the phone and hug her because I was like, oh my God, that was terrifying.”
Bickmore said every time she did her regular segment on the show, she was on “the verge of a panic attack”, which became the norm “every single time I went on air in any capacity on TV and radio for a good decade”.
“Sometimes, I’d have the panic attacks while I was on air reading the news and I would disguise it as shortness of breath or my quavering voice with coughs or laughs or technical difficulties,” she admitted.
“I kind of never know when they were going to come, so I was constantly on alert – hyper vigilant, I guess – in case one was around the corner, so it’s just like all I could think about.”
Bickmore revealed that her very first panic attack hit her when she was just 20 years old and was in the middle of a live radio bulletin n Perth radio station 92.9.
“I had to stop reading the bulletin part the way through. I just pretended that 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 recalled.
Her private battle also got in the way of her career choices, with Bickmore initially wanting to turn down the hosting gig on The Project because she was “so scared of doing something new”.
“There were so many jobs over the time that I’ve said no to and I look back and I think, ‘Oh my God, where could that have taken me?’ Incredible opportunities because I was worried that something would set me off and that I’d be humiliated forever,” she confessed.
“But then I also look back and I think for some reason, sometimes I’d want to like lean into the challenge and, and my brain would say, ‘No, don’t let the anxiety win, like you can do this.’ And that’s why I said yes to The Project and ended up doing it for 14 years.”
Carrie's honest admission was flooded with comments of support form her famous friends and colleagues, with Dannii Minogue writing, "Wow this has just blown my mind. I have been in your presence many times during live broadcast and you absolutely rule. Your laughs and stops draw us all in. What a brave conversation and it will help so many people. Well done."
Image credits: Instagram / HIT FM