WIN a full MasterChef Professional Stainless Steel Cookware Set
WIN a full MasterChef Professional Stainless Steel Cookware Set

IMAGE

Social Pictures: Boodles celebrates its new partnership with Punchestown Festival
Social Pictures: Boodles celebrates its new partnership with Punchestown Festival

IMAGE

It may appear tiny from the front, but this Ballsbridge cottage on the market for €750,000 is surprisingly spacious
It may appear tiny from the front, but this Ballsbridge cottage on the market for...

Megan Burns

This picturesque West Cork home with separate basement apartment is on the market for €695,000
This picturesque West Cork home with separate basement apartment is on the market for €695,000

Sarah Finnan

‘The Easter holidays are a fresh kind of hell when you have kids and a job’
‘The Easter holidays are a fresh kind of hell when you have kids and a...

Dominique McMullan

Annutri co-founder and award-winning businesswoman Anita Donoghue on the power of a positive mindset
Annutri co-founder and award-winning businesswoman Anita Donoghue on the power of a positive mindset

IMAGE

This Clontarf home was reconfigured to streamline the layout and maximise its views
This Clontarf home was reconfigured to streamline the layout and maximise its views

Megan Burns

6 classic movies worth watching over Easter
6 classic movies worth watching over Easter

Jennifer McShane

The friend zone: How to navigate finding friends as an adult
The friend zone: How to navigate finding friends as an adult

Sarah Gill

Supper Club: Fearne Cotton’s haddock burrito, punchy salsa and homemade guacamole
Supper Club: Fearne Cotton’s haddock burrito, punchy salsa and homemade guacamole

Meg Walker

Image / Living / Culture

Ellie Goulding on fame, gym obsessions and ‘debilitating’ panic attacks


By Jennifer McShane
15th Aug 2021
Ellie Goulding on fame, gym obsessions and ‘debilitating’ panic attacks

We are quick to judge those in the public eye for seemingly having it all. We scoff when they ask for privacy and even more so when they announce news on their terms in an attempt to control the narrative. Fame can be suffocating as singer Ellie Goulding knows all too well.

Goulding revealed she suffered “debilitating” panic attacks and an addiction to exercise at the height of her fame.

The singer who recently had her first child with husband Caspar Jopling has shared details of her struggle with mental health in her new book, Fitter. Calmer. Stronger (out September 2nd).

“My low days used to be ridiculously low. I just couldn’t find a way out of them. I often felt as if I was failing because when I felt down I wasn’t being productive,” she said.

“My 20s felt like a combination of complete euphoria and utter terror. My main thoughts seemed to run like this: This isn’t real. Is this real? I don’t deserve this! This is a complete fluke. Did they get the wrong person?”

She also said her gruelling schedule of TV shows, interviews and travelling to “three different countries in one day” left her suffering “debilitating panic attacks.”

“It was like being strapped to a space shuttle. I was performing live on TV, going to awards ceremonies and sometimes flying to three countries in a day.”

It was, she says, a “dream career” but she said her panic attacks began slowly, and writes of experiencing a panic attack on a photoshoot and a live TV show, which she still cannot watch back. “To this day, I have never watched that show back. I’m scared I will spot the terror in my eyes,” she continued, according to The Sun.

She said she felt shame and confusion over her ability to cope, she received cognitive behavioural therapy, which she says was life-changing.

Her sanctuary became the gym, but this proved to be another extension of a coping method, leading to a poor diet and what she calls “an obsession” with counting calories.

It seemed that all I could think about was when my next workout was going to be. It became my prison.

“I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was using exercise as a crutch. I couldn’t control many things around me, but I could control how much I exercised. Exercising too much led me to start eating poorly.”

“Rather than seeing food as fuel and making wise decisions, I’d eat rubbish and think I could just burn off the calories. In my case, it wasn’t about weight and being super-thin, it was about distracting myself from how I felt.”

Her new book candidly reveals the step stones to her mental health journey as it is now.