Battling Stage Fright and Beyond

July 31, 2006

Re: Fear-less-ness

My name is Sheila Dugan, and I am a voice teacher in St. Louis, Missouri (www.SheilaDugan.com). I am a great fan of Aaron Lazar. Aaron has asked me to write a guest piece for his blog about panic/anxiety disorder, because I have it and manage it every day. I am delighted to do this, and I sincerely hope that what I write will help someone else to manage this very inconvenient disorder.

I am not a medical professional, but I AM an individual who has dealt with the consequences of panic disorder for my entire life and helps clients, daily, to overcome the results of anxiety. I have included some sites that you might find helpful in your research.

I was finally correctly diagnosed as recently as 1994. When you read the information given in the listed sites, you will notice that panic disorder is a fairly “recent” diagnosis of a GROUP of symptoms that can be neurological, cardiac, respiratory, gastrointestinal, and psychological in nature! It is very hard to be a singer/performer trying to overcome so many mis-firings of your body’s electrical systems while trying to build a career. Struggling through all of that, without a correct diagnosis, the panic disordered person shuts down, and their world becomes more and more closed in, while they try to remain “safe” from another unexpected “attack.” In the sites I have provided for you, you will read how the fear of “being out of control” is worse than the inexplicable episodes of “panic.” This is true for many panic disordered people…and may I add that it eventually gave me great comfort to know that I was not alone in my responses to this disorder.

I quit performing. I was and still am a very good singer. I won everything I competed for. Trying to perform inspite of this disorder became an overwhelming, exhausting task…not worth the effort. Since there was no diagnosis, and no help as I was coming up professionally, I started teaching voice instead, at the encouragement of my wonderful voice teacher, Dale Moore. Teaching was a natural next step for me. I am an accomplished pianist, and I began teaching piano to young children (at the suggestion of my piano teacher) when I was fifteen years old. My voice teacher encouraged me to start teaching voice at the age of twenty, and by the time I was twenty-one, my students were winning so many NATS contests, I was hired to teach on the voice faculty of Southern Illinois University. I did not have my first degree yet.

The symptoms of the then undiagnosed panic disorder became worse in my twenties and thirties. I fought back. I did a lot of things to survive this limitation. First: I DID NOT turn to drugs and alcohol to end the pain and frustration. Second: I found ways of organizing my mind and choices to fight my way through the inconvenience.

I became a Silva Mind Control (now called Silva Method) graduate. I took Robert Fritz’s DMA course…later called Technologies for Creating, and became a certified instructor of this course, and taught it here in St. Louis for four years in addition to my voice teaching. (A point of interest to me is that Katie Agresta, John Lloyd Young’s voice teacher in New York is also a certified instructor of this course.) I studied Structural Consulting with Robert Fritz at MIT. Yes, MIT, in Boston. These courses are centered around the creative process as applied to your life, and how you make choices for you life.

I used hypnosis to help me deal with the anxiety, and eventually was trained in hypnosis by a certified hypnotherapist. So, I did as much as I could without the use of drugs at the time to help myself through a really awful period of time.

By 1994, I was FINALLY correctly diagnosed, and was given a drug I still take to this day. Propranolol. Propranolol is the generic form of Inderal. It is a beta blocker, and considered a “smart drug,” meaning, eventually, you can reduce the dosage over time. If you are a performing singer/ actor/ or public speaker, I recommend that you check with your physician to see if this drug could help you deal with your anxiety disorder without going to anti-depressants. This is a drug that is safe with few side effects. I am not a doctor, but I can suggest that if YOUR doctor is wise, he will let you find YOUR correct dose (without taking too much…for instance starting with a 10 mg dose, and adding 10mg each time you take it, to figure out what dose you actually need, is a safe way to test how the drug acts in your body. Do this weeks BEFORE your event, so you know what to expect.) If you and your doctor decide that you should take the drug, be sure to take it about 1.5 hours BEFORE the event at which you have to sing/speak/or perform. The drug only stays in your system anywhere from 5 to 8 hours.

The last thing I would like to suggest for now is to check out whether you have allergies to FOODS, or INHALANTS. Panic/anxiety disorder can be a CHEMICAL RESPONSE to something you are PUTTING IN YOUR MOUTH, OR BREATHING INTO YOUR RESPIRATORY SYSTEM!! If not a direct cause, allergies can exacerbate your experience of fear, panic or anxiety.
Remember: human beings are basically BAGS OF CHEMICALS!! We can INGEST or BREATHE in chemicals that can make a mess of the subtle systems of our bodies. I have just been treated for these things, and my panic disorder continues to subside…and I am so grateful for that! I am driving, and singing, and living my life without the restrictions of the past.

You can meditate. You can “feel the fear and do it anyway.” You can seek a “spiritual” approach. I am telling you that there ARE ways of conquering these imbalances. Be proactive and seek ways of creating the great health you HAVE to have to succeed in your performance career. Now there IS a diagnosis, and real help.

Feel free to contact me through the email address I offer in my website (www.sheiladugan.com). If I can direct you further, I would be glad to try.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you so much Sheila for your honesty, courage, and heart.