ON PANIC ATTACKS… With Jamie Laing and Fearne Cotton

Panic attacks are wide-spread in today’s society, and yet remain something we rarely talk about openly. So it’s vital that we normalise an experience so many of us share - because talking about it is often the first step towards understanding, accepting and working through it. Jamie Laing and Fearne Cotton both came on How to Fail back in 2019 and spoke so honestly about their own experiences. Jamie reflected on the early days of Made in Chelsea, when he experienced panic attacks for a full year. Fearne shares how she still experiences panic attacks today and the stigma that can surround them. Hopefully this conversation feels reassuring, validating and helps to normalise a topic that has remained unnecessarily taboo for far too long. Listen to Jamie’s full episode of How to Fail here: swap.fm/l/QXKrzzpg5hULgBpXWMBY Listen to Fearne’s full episode of How to Fail here: swap.fm/l/UT0WhcQT43TY0hDtgnFW 🔗 LINKS + MENTIONS: Elizabeth’s Substack: https://theelizabethday.substack.com/ Join the How To Fail community: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content 💌 LOVE THIS EPISODE? Subscribe on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts Leave a 5⭐ review – it helps more people discover these stories 👋 Follow How To Fail & Elizabeth: Instagram: @howtofailpod @elizabday TikTok: @howtofailpod @elizabday Website: www.elizabethday.org Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Elizabeth Day?

  One of the things I hear a lot from listeners is how tiring it can be when your mind just doesn't settle. And I can only imagine this feels even heavier with intrusive thoughts. It's that quiet sense of being worn down by something you never asked for and never wanted, but just can't seem to switch off. If you struggle with this, I want to tell you about NoCD, because it's a resource that genuinely helps people. NoCD provides specialised treatment for OCD. And what I appreciate about their approach is how human it feels. You're matched with a licensed therapist trained in ERP therapy. That's Exposure and Response Prevention. And over time, you learn skills that help your OCD symptoms become manageable, so you can live more of the life you want to live.

• 0:45Elizabeth Day?

  If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NoCD can help. Book a free 15-minute call to get started at learn.nocd.com/fail. Confession time. I have a tendency to postpone certain decisions for far longer than is sensible. Not the big life decisions, oddly enough, those I can usually handle. It's the smaller ones that somehow become disproportionately complicated. For me, rugs fall squarely into that category. I've known for a long time that a rug can completely change how a room feels, but I've always found sizing for a space tricky. That's why Ernesta appealed to me.

• 1:26Elizabeth Day?

  Ernesta makes designer-quality rugs, custom-cut to the exact dimensions of your space. So instead of making do with something that's close enough, you're choosing something made specifically for your home. I also love the fact that you can order five oversized 12 by 12 samples for just $10 before committing. And Ernesta's design team will help with sizing completely free of charge. Visit ernestacom and order five samples for only $10 and you'll get $50 towards any rug of your choice. That's ernestacom.

• 2:09Elizabeth Day?

  Panic attacks are far more common than many of us realise. The NHS estimates that around one in 10 people will experience a panic attack at some point in their lives, and NHS England reports that women are more likely to be affected. And yet, despite how widespread they are, panic attacks remain something we rarely talk about openly. Many people carry a quiet sense of shame or misplaced embarrassment, as though it's a secret they need to hide. But I believe it's vital we normalise and experience so many of our share, because talking about it is often the first step towards understanding, accepting and working through it.

• 2:50Elizabeth Day?

  That's why I'm so grateful to my friends Jamie Laing and Fern Cotton for joining How To Fail and for speaking so honestly about their own experiences. Jamie reflects on the early days of Made in Chelsea, when he experienced panic attacks for a full year. Fern shares how she still experiences panic attacks today, the stigma that can surround them, and the way she now manages and copes. I hope this conversation feels reassuring, validating, and that it helps to normalise a topic that has remained unnecessarily taboo for far too long. First up, here's Jamie.

• 3:31Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, because I think I saw in an interview that, given that when you started doing Made in Chelsea, you had panic attacks for a year.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it wasn't so much that. What it was, was, well, I did have panic attacks. I basically, I started doing this TV show, Made in Chelsea, and it started at the very beginning where I was at Leeds University. And I also was one of these guys who didn't really know what I wanted to do in life. My stepfather said to me, Jamie has so much energy, if you harness it, he can do great things. But I was, never really knew my place. And I find that's the problem with the education system, that if you aren't good at history or geography or maths and those things, you kind of are seen as a failure. And I was very good at sport and all those kind of things, but I wasn't very academic, because I wasn't interested in it. So I was always seen as this kind of failure guy. So then I went and joined, I went to Leeds University, and I was offered this TV show.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  I remember I went on holiday with one of my best friend's mums, a girl called Sophie Tanner Laing, who actually is head of Endemol Shine. And I was on holiday with her and she said, Jamie, what are you gonna do with your life? And I said, I was about twenty years old at the time, and I said, I'm gonna be a TV presenter. And she said, you're not. And I said, why? And she said, well, you're too posh. You can't be a TV presenter, there's no way that's gonna happen. And I went, okay, well, I've been offered a TV show with my friends about being posh. And she said, don't do it, it'll be the worst idea in the entire world, reality TV is this, it's that, it's this, it's that. And I said, well, I'm gonna go and do it then, because you told me I'm not gonna go and do it. And I went on to this TV show and started Made in Chelsea and all those kind of things. And it was great fun. However, what happens with doing a TV show, I suppose, is that you're suddenly hit with

• 5:02Speaker 01

  some sort of fame, whatever, however miniscule, however z-list people wanna call it. It's, you know, you get some sort of profile. You also are twenty years old and you are going partying and all these different things. And with that combined and that pressure, not really knowing yourself and not really knowing what you want to do and always being seen as a failure, I had this anxiety built up in my body. And after filming for the first six months, I suddenly started having these panic attacks. And the problem with the panic attacks was I'm such an open person and so kind of outgoing and all these kind of things. And suddenly from going from this incredibly outgoing, open person, I then felt that I was trapped in my own body and I didn't wanna leave the house. And I didn't wanna see people and I had social anxiety because I thought I would have a panic attack whenever I went and saw someone.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  So it was a really horrible moment and it lasted for about a year, but I just didn't tell anyone. Because if I told anyone, it became a reality. And so it was really quite horrible, but you learn so much from those kind of things.

• 5:59Elizabeth Day?

  I've got so many questions that spiral outwards from that.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Sorry, by the way, I talk so much.

• 6:03Elizabeth Day?

  It's amazing, you're the ideal guest.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  If I keep talking, I apologize.

• 6:08Elizabeth Day?

  Because so many people come on to this podcast and say that they felt they failed at their twenties. And I think that's because, as you rightly identify, you're trying to find your way in a world that is confusing because you've left full-time education and you're still working out your own identity. But to play out your twenties on screen must have just been a whole heap of. Anxiety.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  It's a it's a weird one and you know and people talk about how reality shows and you know people are talking about these suicides and things like that are going on reality TV and and in fact actually suicide is the biggest killer for males under forty five. And that's happening in all industries. It doesn't matter if you're a baker, a butcher, a reality star, it's happening all over the place. It's just because you have some sort of profile that it's sort of shown across. But it's weird because your twenties, I think, is about finding your identity and finding out who you are, as you said. And for me, I had no clue who I was, really. I thought I did. Thought I knew everything about me, but I knew nothing. You also then are playing a part on a television show and I was being myself, but then you have the ups and the downs and these kind of things and.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Also, there's no stability in it as well. You know, you could suddenly, the show could stop, they could do all these things and then what do you do with your life? And so with all those pressures added up, it was really quite. I sound like I I working down a mine. I mean, I got to hang out with my mates and got paid to do it. It was pretty sweet, but at the same time, it was just a combination of things, but all of my anxieties and health things. Happened from when I was a kid. And so I had to understand myself and I was trying to blame it on going out too much or doing this or doing that, all those things. But in fact, I had to really discover actually who I was. And I think the thing is, you know, Socrates said, right, there are two levels of happiness, lower level and higher level. The lower level is wealth.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Fame, power, those kind of things. And that's what I thought I wanted. I thought I wanted to be rich. When I was a kid, I was like, oh, no, I'm gonna go and. Be driving a Ferrari when I'm twenty five and this kind of thing. And I thought that's what success was. But in fact, the higher level of happiness is what Socrates says, is the one you want to go for, which is. Empathy, friendship, love, kindness, all those kind of things, doing good. And I had to learn throughout my twenties, then in fact, the thing that's gonna make me happy isn't. Being wealthy and being famous and all those kind of things and all those things that you think are gonna make you happy and you climb to the top of the mountain, you get there and you realise they're actually not make you happy. What actually makes you happy is having strong relationships with your friends, being empathetic and having

• 8:34Speaker 01

  self-awareness and doing good and having a purpose. And the most important thing I had to learn was I had to find my purpose and I couldn't find it throughout my life. I didn't know what I wanted to do and that's why I started to have anxiety and things like that.

• 8:48Elizabeth Day?

  Do you think you've found your purpose now?

• 8:50Speaker 01

  I think I have, yeah, I think so. But I've been really quite lucky because I was able to discover what I wanted to do because I came from a family who gave me an allowance and I went to a boarding school that taught you to stand up in front of a crowd and be able to give us, you know, talk. I didn't have to go and work in the local Asda to pay my rent or look after my family or do those kind of things. I could sit on my butt and kind of go, okay, I'm 21, what do I really want to do? I could do this reality show, do this, I'll do that and figure out what I wanted to do. And I figured now that my purpose in life is to, I just love entertaining and whatever form that is, I don't mind,

• 9:32Speaker 01

  but as long as I can continue to do that, I will be immensely happy. And, you know, the key is, you know, when we're younger, we're asked these things, if you had one wish, what would you wish to be? And people go, oh, I wanna, you know, be the richest person in the world or this, or those kind of things. Oh, I wanna have 40 girlfriends or whatever it is. But now, actually, everyone's wish, what you find out, is just to be happy. And that's what I had to figure out.

• 9:58Elizabeth Day?

  And how did that manifest itself?

• 10:01Speaker 02

  In a lot of ways, but the main one, having a disordered relationship with my body and food for 10 years. And it's so strange because I even feel, you know, nervous talking about it because I haven't. And I think I've got to the point, which is why I wanted to talk today, that I talk the talk and I love being honest, but I don't 100% walk the walk because... I haven't gone there. You know, I've definitely talked about a big period of depression that I've had and I've talked about that prolifically. And panic attacks, which was really scary to talk about because I still get them. So there's all sorts of weirdness going on with that when you're still experiencing them.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  But this one is a strange one because it's been like this sort of weird secret that I felt a little bit embarrassed about, a little bit ashamed of. A little bit worried, like I'm still worried now, like what are people going to think when I tell this story and share this side of myself? I have a weird worry like I did with talking about the depression, that people won't hire me to work. Like silly stigma that I still attach to all of these situations that I know loads of people are going through. But the main problem I had and this sort of weird new release that I invented for myself was to have bulimia.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  I had that for on off a good decade of my life. So the beginning of my twenties, it was quite intense. And sort of ruled everything. And then in my later twenties, it was more like a bad habit I would kick into if something. Emotional was happening or if I felt out of control, it would be my go to thing, but it wasn't as regular. And another reason why I've been nervous to talk about it is, you know, I've experienced so many times how the press will jump on things I say. And then take them out of context and use wild headlines. And the one kind of thing I I have to talk about is the reaction that I've had to that period of my life.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Has been my thirties, which have been all about health and looking after myself and eating extremely well. And healing and recovering and being really on it with my health. Because I denied myself the pleasure of cooking and food for so long that it's now become my everything. So it's really important that that side of my story is also really communicated because it's something I'm so passionate about. And I know because I read a lot of articles about it, there are so many people out there, men and women, going through this situation with disordered eating, bulimia, and feeling like they'll never ever get out of it. And I don't define myself by being a bulimic, I'm not.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  I, for the last eight years, have been very studious with food and very careful about how I eat and how I cook and how I talk about food. And I feel really good and recovered. I hope I'm not being naive by saying it, but I do feel like that. It was a period of my life, but I'm not in it anymore. It is the past. But it does signify a big chunk of my life where I failed at being me because I'm just me these days. So whatever anybody thinks or says, that's their issue. Back then, I felt I couldn't be me. It had to be something wildly different. And that became my little secret to contain it, I guess.

• 13:34Elizabeth Day?

  That's such a beautiful way of putting something so difficult. And thank you so much for that. Because I know how much it will speak to so many people, myself included. I know people very close to me who have lived with that condition. And I think the reason it's so hard to talk about and the reason that there's still unfair stigma attached to it is because we're expected to be perfect. And you're expected, particularly in the job that you had, to kind of have it all and to have it all without seeming to put effort into it. And so it feeds into this narrative that you have to be in control. And I think that one of the misunderstandings about disordered eating,

• 14:19Elizabeth Day?

  bulimia and orexia is that it's about. Your physical presentation to the outside world. And actually, my understanding is it's a lot about control when you feel out of control.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  Yep, that's exactly what it was. I didn't recognise that until a lot later down the line. But for me, partly it was something that no one knew about me because I felt at times very overexposed. Partly that was, I take responsibility for that, but it was still the case. And also about control because I had this first chunk of my life, which was very normal and I was doing normal family things. And then the next chunk of it overnight switched up and was just bonkers at times. So it was a way of feeling like I was calling the shots and I was in control. And it's sad to look back and see that it was obviously the absolute opposite of that. I felt so out of control that it came to abusing my own body.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  And it took quite a while physically to kind of move on from that, but mentally a very long time. I will still have unkind thoughts about myself on a physical level because there was an element of that in there as well. And that's something that I remedy by doing the opposite, eating a really lovely meal or doing some very gentle yoga. You know, I used to, I was never the sort of person that binged and then puked up after. I would eat relatively regular meals, but then still go and get rid of it all and have, it felt like a release. Like every worry, every problem thought was just like gone. It was like a little bit of euphoria afterwards.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  Of course it wasn't, I want to be very clear about that, but at the time, the mental state I was in, it did feel like that. I was exercising, you know, like going running to the gym and like pounding my body. And now it's all about being gentle and being kind to myself and. Exercising when I feel like I want to and doing it so I'm energised rather than exhausted. And eating so that I'm vibrant, energised, have energy for my family and I also have shame attached to the fact that I purposefully hurt my own body. When I'm so grateful for my health today, I can't tell you, like, absolutely the main thing I'm grateful for every day is I wake up and I'm here. I have a healthy body, like, thank God.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  And to think that I damaged it on purpose, you know, I do have some shame attached to that. And I guess that's why I've also found it very difficult to even admit, like, sometimes I feel like, did I make it all up? Like, did it really happen? Because I've never talked about it, you know, even to my close friends. I haven't really felt like that was a place I wanted to go to. And I'll go there, you know, I like being honest, I like putting it out on the table, but this one has felt, I don't even know why, just too spiky to deal with.