\n<\/p>\n
Things came to a head on tour, where her stage fright went into overdrive and she suffered “just terrible, terrible anxiety”.<\/p>\n
“I become sensitive to sound, so it feels like you’re screaming at me if you’re talking normally,” she says. “I can’t process questions very well. I act twitchy and weird, and it seemed to get worse with perimenopause.”<\/p>\n
She says her behaviour became a “nightmare” for her team. Pressed for an example, she explains: “If you asked me whether I wanted still or sparkling water, I’d say, ‘That’s a question, and I can’t answer questions right now’. <\/p>\n
“How diva is that?”<\/p>\n
Well, it’s not exactly Mariah Carey demanding baskets of puppies and forbidding eye contact, but Imbruglia was shaken up.<\/p>\n
The day after one concert, she told her co-writers David Sneddon and Anu Pillai, “Guys, I think I’m going to have to quit my job because I can’t cope with how I’m treating people before the show.”<\/p>\n
They helped to talk her down, putting her fight-or-flight instincts into context.<\/p>\n
“What they helped me realise is that I was trying to stop the behaviour with willpower, and if I just relaxed into it and said to myself, ‘You know, you’re about to perform in front of a lot of people, it’s natural that you’re nervous’, maybe I wouldn’t be resisting it as much.”<\/p>\n
The impromptu therapy session inspired a new song, Upside Down, external<\/span><\/a> – but Imbruglia is understandably frustrated that perimenopause isn’t more widely understood, saying many women are rejected by their GP when they seek HRT treatment.<\/p>\n “My mum never talked to me about it,” she reflects, “but looking back, I know she had a really bad one.<\/p>\n “Her anxiety was off the charts, too, and I have a lot more compassion now, because she had four kids. I’ve only got one.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n