BY JESSIE WANG, LEAD WRITER (COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL AWARENESS)
Sydney-based musician and charity worker Jessie Wang is a mental health advocate and studies psychology at the University of Sydney.
Trigger warning: This story features in-depth discussion surrounding the topics of mental health and anxiety.
We all know a career in the music sector is challenging. We worry about budgets and income. We adopt perfectionistic tendencies. We experience concert stress. And these are just some of the things that make us vulnerable to mental ill health.
Yet, mental health is still a topic to which judgement and shame are commonly attached. Many musicians feel the need to hide mental ill health, and pretend everything is all okay as they take to the stage or spend another day in the studio.
That’s why, in this series, we want to share artists’ real journeys with mental ill health. We hope these stories will start more conversations about mental health, and that people in the music sector will support each other through these very common yet heavily stigmatised experiences.
In this interview in our new series Mental Health Sounds Like…, we chat with pianist Akiho Suzuki.
About Akiho
Classical pianist Akiho Suzuki recently graduated with First Class Honours in a Bachelor of Music (Performance) from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She started piano lessons at the age of 7. In 2011, she was accepted into the Open Academy Rising Stars program at the conservatorium.
During her studies, Akiho received scholarships and awards including the Bessie Cook Piano Award, Clarence Addison Turrill Scholarship, Felix Switzer Memorial Award, John Cassim Award for Music, and the Hendersons Traveller Scholarship. She has performed at various venues throughout Sydney including the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall and St. James’ Church, as has appeared as a soloist with the Eastern Suburbs Chamber Orchestra.
Outside Australia, Akiho has performed in Spain, Austria, and France. She has played in masterclasses with many internationally acclaimed pianist, and also has a special interest in Spanish piano music, which she’s studied with several Spanish professors.
Akiho has a deep interest in psychology, which she studied for some time at the University of Sydney. She is particularly interested in music performance psychology, including issues surrounding performance anxiety, effective practice methods, and mental wellbeing of musicians. She recently completed her Honours research thesis on effective piano practice, and hopes to undertake postgraduate research in this field at some point in the future.
Hi Akiho, thank you for your bravery in sharing your story. Tell us a little about your journey with mental ill health.
I never really experienced any serious mental health issues throughout my childhood or adolescence, though I was always a bit of worrier. My tendency to worry and feel stressed became more and more severe after I started studying piano performance at university. For a long time, I didn’t think anything of it because I thought: ‘Everyone gets stressed, it’s normal.’ But over time, it started to control every aspect of my life.
My feelings of stress and anxiety were related to piano — I had an intense fear of not being able to have a piece ready for a performance. This fear started in the first year of my degree, when I ended up pulling out of a performance last-minute because I was not ready. This incident did not have any serious external consequences — it was a small concert at uni, they found a replacement, and everyone involved was cool about it. Nonetheless, I felt like I was a failure and became scared of repeating the same experience.
Over the next year, this fear intensified to a point where my thoughts were constantly occupied by anxiety about piano and the pieces I had to prepare for upcoming performances. This was occurring from the moment I woke up in the morning til the moment I fell asleep. I could not enjoy anything in my life — I constantly felt like I was suffocating, and sick in the stomach. I felt exhausted, yet couldn’t sleep at night because my brain was always busy worrying. I practised ridiculous amounts of hours every day, often really early in the morning or late at night. In hindsight, I realise that most of this time was spent on very ineffective practice.
I rarely went out to socialise because it felt like I was using time which could’ve been spent practising. When I did go out, I just felt anxious and guilty.
I started to become obsessed with creating more time for practice. I took the bare minimum number of subjects at uni, turned down all accompaniment jobs, and cut down considerably on my tutoring students. I also often cancelled students’ lessons, sometimes at the last minute. I believed that these things would reduce my stress levels, but they actually made it worse.
I rarely went out to socialise because it felt like I was using time which could’ve been spent practising. When I did go out, I just felt anxious and guilty. I also started developing kind of a phobia for certain pieces and composers which I thought were beyond my skill level, even though they were not necessarily so, and avoided playing those pieces.
Gradually, I started to believe that I was incapable of playing the piano and started having frequent breakdowns because the thought of not being ready for a performance, or giving a bad performance, evoked very intense feelings of fear in me. It felt like it was the end of the world, even though I knew that it was irrational.
I somehow made it to the end of second year, thought it was a real struggle. I had to defer my performance exam, and I also remember semi-breaking down during my accompaniment exam. I didn’t feel any better even when the holidays started, despite the fact that I didn’t have any performances coming up. I was scared of what I would have to go through in the year which lay ahead. That’s when I realised that I couldn’t take this anymore and decided to quit piano. This was absolutely heartbreaking for me, since piano had been my passion and love since I was 7 years old. But I realised that it was destroying me and I felt like I had no choice.
Tell us about your journey to recovery or management of the symptoms you have felt.
When I decided to quit piano, I contemplated starting a new degree but my mother and piano teacher suggested that I take a break, so I took a year off studying and went volunteering and travelling in South America. I did not see a piano for more than six months, which had never happened in my life since I started playing. I had a fantastic time and felt better while I was away. But when I returned to Sydney, the mere thought of going back to my music degree made me anxious.
I came to accept that I was never going to be able to perform again or return to a serious study of music. I started a science degree, which I found interesting and enjoyed, but I missed the piano a lot. And, more importantly, I felt like I had failed myself because I never finished my music degree.
Eventually, I decided to give music another go. I decided to finish the degree, and then come back to science afterwards.
After coming back to music, I actually enjoyed playing the piano and performing again, which was a pleasant surprise. The two years away from it had actually made me step back and realise how irrational my fear and anxiety were. But soon after, I started to constantly feel nervous and anxious for no particular reason. I still can’t be sure why, but it may have been because I had a very strong association between that feeling and piano.
It worsened over a few weeks until one day I ended up in hospital after a major panic attack. That night, I was diagnosed by a doctor, for the first time, with generalised anxiety disorder. I started seeing a doctor and recovered over the next few months, with major help from medication.
Today, I would say that I experience a healthy dose of stress — enough to get me motivated and working, but never to a point where it would hurt or inhibit my piano playing. I have also learnt to not be too hard on myself — yes, I’m still a hard-worker but I’ve definitely toned down my perfectionistic tendencies because I’ve realised, through my own experiences and help from others, that perfectionism is destructive.
The anxiety and panic attacks do still come back sometimes, but I am slowly learning to deal with them and I also now know that it’s okay to experience that at times.
What have you found to be the most positive support networks or systems offered to you?
I have always been fortunate enough to be surrounded by supportive and caring family members and friends, who have looked after me through my lowest points. But the biggest factor which created a positive change in my life was definitely taking a break from music for two years, during which I travelled then studied science.
Being away from piano made me see everything from a new perspective.
It sounds rather cliché, but being away from piano made me see everything from a new perspective. I realised that there is life outside music, and that I could choose to do whatever I wanted, and this relieved a lot pressure off myself.
I have found physical exercise to be the best antidote for when I am feeling really down or anxious — it really makes a huge difference. For me, swimming has been the most effective, and on many occasions it managed to turn a really awful, unproductive day into a more bearable, kind-of-productive day.
I have also found yoga and meditation to be very helpful, and I still practise them. Meditation has helped me in many ways because it allows you to step back and observe your thoughts and feelings without judging them. It also fosters mindfulness, which has helped me with other things like practising efficiently and dealing with performance anxiety.
What’s a misconception about mental ill health that you would like to destigmatise?
For me, the idea that mentally ill people are weak or attention-seeking is definitely a misconception which I would like to see destigmatised. I feel that people often do not go to get help because they feel like their problems are not that bad, and that they should be strong enough to work through it on their own. I certainly felt this way for a long time. I thought that I was experiencing the usual ‘stress’ that everyone goes through, except that compared to other people, I was weak and all I had to do was ‘toughen up’.
I think the ‘weakness’ misconception is particularly prominent in the classical music world. It’s kind of seen as a weakness if you suffer from mental health issues, and implies that you don’t have what it takes to be a top performing musician if you have these ‘weaknesses’. This is definitely not true. There are so many famous performers who have suffered or suffer from mental ill health! I really hope that by talking about these issues more, this perception is eradicated.
What can the music industry do to support those experiencing mental ill health?
Make professional support readily available for all musicians.
I also believe that the people providing this support should have some knowledge or experience of what it is like to be a classical musician. Over the past few years, there have been many occasions when I had a very strong desire to see someone like that, but I could never find anyone. I have had sessions with a few counselling psychologists and, while they were useful in their own ways, I really wanted to talk to someone who understood the effort and pressure involved in being a performing musician.
I hope that the issue of mental health amongst musicians becomes a common topic of discussion.
Looking at the big picture, I hope that the issue of mental health amongst musicians becomes a common topic of discussion and a well-researched area. It should be something which is talked about more frequently amongst musicians, and I also believe that these issues should be discussed at conservatoriums and taught to music students.
Considering that most musicians will end up teaching at some point in their careers, I think it’s important that everyone, whether they have experienced mental ill health or not, has some knowledge about the issue.
As a musician who has experienced mental ill health, what message would you like to share with other musicians who have experienced or may be experiencing this in their lives?
You are not alone!!
I know so many musicians who have gone through or are going through mental health issues, of all different kinds and differing severities. I don’t believe that my story is special — I think it’s quite common for musicians to experience some mental health problems because it’s such a tough, competitive world out there. We are constantly putting ourselves out on the stage in front of people to be judged, and often we are perfectionists who are really hard on ourselves.
I think the most important thing is to talk about it and support each other.
Say thanks to our writer Jessie Wang for facilitating this conversation
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Disclaimer: This story should not be considered as formal mental health advice or support. Please contact your GP or visit headspace.
