Lumley: Breakdown made me fear snipers were out to kill me
JOANNA Lumley has revealed how a sixmonth breakdown left her crippled with panic attacks and fearing assassins were trying to kill her.
The Absolutely Fabulous star, 70, said her ordeal began after she thought she saw snipers levelling rifles at her from the boxes of a West End theatre where she was appearing.
The episode at the Garrick Theatre in 1971 left the actress struggling to breathe and unable to leave her home. ‘It was a complete nervous breakdown,’ Miss Lumley said. ‘I then quit that play, ran away from the play. It was a Saturday morning.
‘I got up in the morning and went and sat in the corner of my bedroom and I thought for about an hour and then I went straight – like a deserter – I went to the station.’
The actress – then in her mid-20s and raising her son, Jamie, as a single mother – fled to her parents’ home in Kent to recover.
She said: ‘I was off for six months. I was pretty badly shaken up. My nerves were gone. I didn’t dare go to the shops. I had a really ropey old time. I was spending all day thinking, “How will I get through the day?”.
‘I had those panic attacks when you think, “Breathe in, breathe out, just keep breathing in. Study the flowers. What colour are the flowers?” Anything to stop your mind going mad. And I thought, “I’ve got to get out of this, how do I?”.’
Miss Lumley said she would imagine worst- case scenarios in order to give her the confi-dence to leave the house to go shopping.
She told The Times: ‘I would imagine the worst thing that could happen at each stage. If I fell over on the floor, what would happen? Always the same answer came back in my head, “Somebody will help you up”.
‘I will fall over on the floor and I haven’t got any pants on and I knock over a pile of drinks and they smash. Now what? The same answer, “Somebody will help you up”.’ In 2011 the actress, who previously described the ordeal as ‘a bit of a wobbler,’ told Lord Bragg on the Living The Life Sky Arts series she believed her breakdown was caused by money worries. She said: ‘It was Marmite on toast for breakfast, lunch, tea and supper. There was nothing else to eat, we were so poor. I couldn’t see how I would manage to be a good enough parent to my darling boy and how I would actually get through life.’ Hypnosis and talking herself through her fears eventually enabled her to reason herself back to health and attend auditions again. She went on to win a string of TV roles that made her a household name, including Purdey in 1970s series The New Avengers and Patsy Stone in Absolutely Fabulous, a role she has just reprised for the film version.