Social anxiety disorder

Identified as an extreme fear/panic related to social situations. This can include parties/events/concerts/rehearsals in which speaking to others is required. It can lead to isolation, depression and the inability to realise your longer term goals as a musician.

Generalised anxiety disorder

This means having regular or uncontrollable worries about many different things in your everyday life. Because there are lots of possible symptoms of anxiety, this can be quite a broad diagnosis, meaning that the problems you experience with GAD might be quite different from another person's experiences. 

Generalised anxiety disorder can feel like a full-time job. Waking up clouded with anxiety can become people's normality. For artistic people it can cause intense and irrational fears around the worthiness of your work, whether your practice is thorough enough and whether you are working hard enough.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Obsessive and intrusive thoughts, often of a dangerous, violent, sexual or bizarre nature, which cause severe distress and are managed through performing either mental or physical compulsions. This is a disorder experienced by many musicians and we are committing to focusing more discussions around OCD and musicians.

Panic disorder

Panic disorder is the experiencing of severe panic attacks without a clear trigger, and subsequent anxiety surrounding the possibility of another attack occurring. Often related to performance anxiety, this can be a common occurrence for some musicians. It can also become worse when living in a city, dealing with noise, traffic and taking public transport. Also experienced in places which are more difficult to 'escape', attacks can be experienced when watching concerts or performances.

Performance anxiety/dissociation

Experienced by most musicians in performance situations, this can range from slight tension or 'excitement' to total and debilitating physical and mental panic. Also linked to dissociation or feeling 'disoriented' on stage, performance anxiety can cause performance to be a terrifying place, often causing memory slips and physical issues that don't occur in practice. Also possible when performing in an orchestral setting, anxiety can be related to 'making a fool of yourself' such as fainting, vomiting or shouting out during a performance. This may also be related to OCD.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Often related to discrimination and harassment, but also experienced following many stressful and traumatic situations, this disorder is characterised by experiencing flashbacks or nightmares which can feel like you're re-living all the fear and anxiety you experienced at the time of the traumatic events. Involvement with an abusive teacher or past abusive relationship/situation can be triggers for PTSD.