Dr. Stagefright, or How I Sort of Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Performance Anxiety (almost)

An abridged personal history of being scared on stage

Just a warning that this is a long post that talks a lot about mental health. If, for some reason, you want something even LONGER and in depth about my battle with performance anxiety, you can see it at my personal substack here.

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Touring, for me, has always been a bit of a mixed bag. With most of the mix leaning towards negative. Blah blah living the dream. I can hear the skeptical jeers already. But I am serious. You might be surprised (maybe not?) to find out that I have long suffered from a pretty intense form of performance anxiety. It’s something that has held a lot of sway in my life, and has led to a lot of pain, as well as important personal discovery. It, and my broader mental health journey have also led me to some big swings in terms of personal philosophy. For example, I don’t personally really believe in free will. WHOA. Hold on. Wild statement to just drop in there, but hear me out. Mainly, I don’t believe in free will, in part, because every time I get on stage, my sense of how ‘in control’ I am is always outmatched by a gripping fear of failure. Which is a fear embedded deep in subterranean truths of my unpredictable childhood. Routinely feeling like I have been thrust into situations that are fundamentally worth-defining, regardless of any demonstrably concrete indicators to the contrary.

I know. Sounds hard. Touring and performing in general is hard for anyone, let alone people with a history of mental illness like me. But, I will say, this past European tour was less difficult than ever for me, from an emotional standpoint. Though far from perfect - which is more than OK! It means I am getting better. And taking wins where you can get them is part of that process. In fact, I felt a couple of my favourite moments on stage, possibly ever, on this tour. That would not have been in the cards were it a few years ago. Mostly cause, in the past, mired in depression, I would be routinely and automatically self-punishing and isolating. Questioning my every action. My every mistake in music and any relational missteps with my band mates and anyone else in my touring party. Lot’s of shame and negative self-talk, leading to an overall net-negative experience. Do this for years, and it can be so very demotivating and, seemingly, existence defining. It’s so ubiquitous to daily experience that it becomes indistinguishable from reality.

You might be asking why I’d stick with it, then, if it was so painful? Well, I think only musicians this deep in it will really understand how much it can mean to you. And finding a way back to more fulfillment in music was a prime motivating factor. I have always known, in my depths, that I had to work through my issues because of just how much playing and creating music means to me. So, I did what I could. I pushed on, learned about myself and what I could about the nature of human thinking, and tried my best to get better. In any case, before you and your brain punt me into the trash heap of histrionic motormouths, let me lay out my case for this trash fire of a personal philosophy.

If you're like me, then for reasons beyond your control, you faced some difficult stuff growing up. Without getting too in the weeds, I will say that while I have consistently had many caring people in my life, and those who have done their absolute best to nurture me best they can, I also faced early development in challenging circumstances that had me sacrifice my agency and authenticity to earn safety. Circumstances that taught me that I am not enough as I am to deserve attendance or regard, and that I was inherently burdensome. That I should either hide myself, or be the ‘perfect one’ so that, at the very least, I don’t insult those around me with my presence. Which made me fear my every action for the threat of punishment.

When you are put at risk this way, through these forms of neglect or abuse (emotional or otherwise) early on in your life, before your brain is capable of handling that risk, you start to develop methods of survival. And this becomes your casual way of being. A brain can become quite accustomed (like in a fundamental ‘this is the basis of all reality’ sense) to the idea that these behaviours will keep you safe existentially. Because your brain’s main job is to keep you safe, it’s these ‘high stakes’ that make the cycle of these painful coping methods feel so normal to engage in. Even if it causes you pain.

As result, in the long term, you learn protective behaviours like people-pleasing, or avoidance or dissociation. Invisible and toxically self-reinforcing. Cyclical and self-feeding. You develop a hypervigilance for threats to your belonging. You are absorbed in trying to predict these threats, and learn how to hide or writhe in inauthenticity to avoid them. You learn to ‘do the most’ because you never feel like you are enough. You develop a fear of, and deference to, others opinions - real or presumed. You learn to change or hide who you are and how you feel in order to not be abandoned. You become hesitant and indecisive - untrusting of yourself to not fail those around you. And you punish yourself when the distraction of all of this leads to ‘failure.’ These are the behaviours that were taught to me by a history of responsibility being mislaid on a younger version of myself. Self-doubting, self-critical, reserved, and not wanting to be seen for the ‘rough hewn mistake’ I embody.

Doubtful, for example, of how you might handle the next fill, or transition to another section of a song. The problem is, in performance, hesitating or avoiding the next passage isn’t an option. So, the distraction of this self-doubt ensures a mistake. But, you push through, and repeat the process, with the surmounting emotional consequence of repeated self-punishment. And, again, because these processes are meant to be protective, however emotionally injurious, your brain doesn’t register it as a threat. It’s baked in - an automatic fall back, particularly in moments of anxiety (which, I might add, is startlingly deterministic from a behaviour standpoint). And then, avoidance and isolation has you keep all the resulting pain to yourself, so you aren’t a burden to others. Closing the loop. In short, my own developmental environment led to the formation of certain reflexive, seemingly irresistible behaviours and character traits that helped me cope with scenarios in which I didn’t feel safe, emotionally or otherwise. In this case, scenarios where I might be seen, judged or punished for a misstep. Traits that extended through adolescence into my adulthood. Thus: performance anxiety, and perfectionism.

What’s worse, is that lack of sleep or rest (a major impediment to resilience in the face of depression or anxiety), is a major factor on tour. It also tends to worsen symptoms of ADHD - like it does with mine. Added to the cumulative effects of routine re-traumatization (through exposure to the main contributor to performance anxiety: performing) you can see how living with this is at least a bit of a distraction. If not practically unsustainable without doing further damage to your mental health. As is probably obvious, this has had major implications for my relationship to myself, and to my work, and to the people around me in general. I am sure it has cast me as grumpy or dispassionate or difficult or downright unreachable in some people’s eyes. And, you know what? Fair. Nonetheless, I am not going to get better by continuing the cycle of self-punishment.

The upshot of all of this is, strangely, that embracing the determinism of your developmental environment provides quite a sound rationale for being kinder to yourself. To understand that your behaviour is ultimately downstream effects of downstream effects, kind of lets you off the hook a little bit. It leaves a little more room for understanding, and a little less for self-punishment. And this is kind of the key to getting better. Building a path toward being more understanding of yourself and your supposed ‘mistakes’, and away from self-punishment. My advantage (especially in matters of mental health) was that, somehow, somewhere inside I knew that how I treated myself wasn't quite right. And this gave me the curiosity to look for why that might be, and what I can do about it. I owe this ‘advantage’ (or faith, yuck) to a few key factors. My mom - who modeled compassion and empathy to me. Julia - who gives me the consistency, patience and acceptance that was missing from the "thin soup" of regard that I, by and large, lived in growing up. My friends (and yes, band mates) - who routinely pushed me to question my overwhelmingly negative view of myself. And my therapist.

Therapy has been a big factor. Especially cognitive therapies based in mindfulness. I know, you don’t need another commercial from ‘Big Mindfulness’. It always amounts to some flighty feely bullshit. And it kinda is. But, that’s the point. Being softer with yourself than your pain and inherited self-concept has allowed you to be. But, what initially sold it to me, most especially, is that cognitive and behavioural therapies based in mindfulness have empirically-based methods and results. Science likes it, so I like it. Plus, many of these therapies are accessible, with great starting points for people who cannot yet afford to pay for full-time therapy. So, I’m telling you, as a born cynic and skeptic, because I do it and am getting better: compassionate self-inquiry works. It’s BECAUSE behaviours like anxiety develop due to factors beyond our control that we can work to understand them and show ourselves some grace in response to the resulting behaviours. This isn’t self pity. It’s active, intentional grace and unconditional understanding of our pain. A concerted re-conditioning through the lens of self-compassion, that gives ourselves what we lacked early on. An effort in building agency and a felt sense of efficacy, and a relationship of trust and refuge with yourself, that ultimately helps disarm maladaptive anxiety and put it to rest. This has been the key to starting to diffuse my toxic relationship to myself through perfectionism, and my performance anxiety. It’s a lot of work. But I am telling you, if nothing else: even just learning how to care about how you yourself are doing, in and of itself, is a huge step.

Anyway, simple answers. But definitely not easy ones. You can read my full essay on this at the link above for further exploration. The point is that keeping curious helps. There are surprising options everywhere for self-discovery. Building this relationship to yourself and your emotions is a path through so many difficult things. And don’t let anyone tell you that perfectionism is simply a necessary part of excellence. It isn’t. Full stop. Miss me with that toxic shit. Excellence involves a concrete and conscious, self-compassionate curiosity, employing non-damaging self-talk to encourage yourself toward improvement. Perfectionism is personal progress held hostage by self-punishment, the fear of failure that leads to that punishment, and the shame that results from that failure. It is, by definition, unproductive. I am ready to abandon it, as soon as I can. And I think the only real path forward is pretty obvious. Honestly, is there a better antidote to innate perfectionism, pernicious self-doubt and self-punishment, than the act of self-regard inherent to actively searching for any reason, at all, to not treat yourself that way? I’d say probably not.