‘MY LIFE HAD SPED OUT OF CONTROL’

Knee-buckling panic attacks, ER trips: One woman shares her terrifying journey to the brink of madness

MAGGY van Eijk was a successful journalist in her 20s when mental illness threatened her life, prompting multiple visits to the ER and nearly destroying her career. Now 28 and working at the BBC, the UK resident recounts her harrowing journey in her new memoir, “How Not To Fall Apart” (Tarcher Perigee, out Tuesday). Here, she tells The Post’s LAURENSTEUSSY about her struggles with anxiety, depression and borderline personality disorder — and how she turned her talent for crafting online listicles into a tool for self-care. A lot of people think that a mental breakdown means this big, life-altering action. But for me, it was complete stillness on a quiet morning in May 2015. When I woke up, it was like my limbs were made of stone. I laid there for hours, unable to move, caught in this catatonic state. My life had completely sped out of control. My co-workers and my family tried calling me, but I was in this black hole where I couldn’t move or think.

The next day, when I returned to my London office, where I worked as a social-media editor for BuzzFeed, I felt trapped. Outside, on my lunch break, every item on the street looked like a tool I could use to hurt myself: a piece of glass, a window I could smash, a bus I could jump in front of. I texted work that I couldn’t come back and went to the ER.

I was just a hollow bit of flesh. After years of struggling to care for myself, I had reached my lowest point.

As a teenager growing up in the Netherlands, I had seen a psychologist for self-harm. But things started spinning out of control when I was in college in Bristol, England. I was at my first big music festival, Glastonbury, watching Amy Winehouse play. I was singing along when all of a sudden my knees started shaking. I turned to Jell-O and crashed to the ground. My boyfriend at the time dragged me to the medical tent, where the nurse suggested I lay off the ecstasy.

“But I’ve never done drugs in my whole life,” I wanted to tell her.

When I returned to Bristol, I found myself fainting while riding the bus, or in the student union. I finally went to see a doctor, who diagnosed me with generalized anxiety disorder and prescribed SSRIs [a class of antidepressants] to help treat my symptoms. I started to see a university counselor, who helped me manage what I learned were actually panic attacks.

I continued to have problems, though. After graduating, I landed the job at BuzzFeed. It was my dream position, but I was constantly on edge. A slight criticism in a work e-mail would make me feverishly apply for jobs on LinkedIn because I was sure I’d be fired imminently.

My personal life was also in shambles. After the sister of my boyfriend of 2 ½ years asked me to be her maid of honor, I immediately ran to the bathroom to throw up.

“You don’t deserve this, you’ll mess up, you’re not good enough,” I told myself.

I sabotaged the relationship with my boyfriend, picking fights and filling my life with plans that didn’t involve him. It got to the point that we broke up, I moved out of our apartment, and his sister no longer wanted me to come to the wedding.

My breakup had completely shattered my identity. I found myself sleeping on people’s couches and started drinking and partying.

Shortly after, doctors tacked on depression and borderline personality disorder diagnoses. Borderline makes it hard to regulate my emotions and causes me to react quite extremely. Relationships are hard because my mind fundamentally believes I’m not deserving of love.

One day, I spotted my ex with someone else in our favorite breakfast place. That night, I pressed the lit cigarette I was smoking into my skin. I did it again the next smoke break, and again after.

By this point, I was on the verge of losing my job. I would go into the office wearing the same thing I had worn the day before. I stopped caring about my work, and my managers were noticing. After the cigarette incident, I continued to self-harm for several months, going in and out of the emergency room.

When I had my mental breakdown in May 2015, it was as though my mind and my body had said, “Enough!”

After my trip to the ER — my sixth visit — I was forced to tell my managers the truth: I’d been suicidal and needed help.

They agreed to let me work from home every now and again so that I could have private phone consultations with my therapist. Around this time, a co-worker who had noticed that I wasn’t quite myself took me out to lunch and shared that he was bipolar. He gave me some tough-love advice.

“You have to be your own carer, because if you don’t do it, no one else will,” he said.

From that lunch on, I tried to be a better advocate for myself using some of the skills I honed as a writer at BuzzFeed — namely, by making lists every day. The practice helped me feel organized and gave me a sense of control.

Some were meant to entertain my brain and help me get some headspace, like “all the hikes to do around London.” Others were a way to climb out of a state of mind I might experience later: “things you could do instead of self-harm.” I would share some of them on BuzzFeed, and that seemed to help other people as well, which made me keep going.

I’ve found a lot of comfort in writing and talking about my condition online, but I haven’t been ashamed to ask for help. I also continue to take SSRIs to help manage my illness. Last year, I began to feel more in control of my life. I met a partner who is very supportive, and we’re expecting a baby next month. I see a therapist from the maternity ward who talks through strategies specifically aimed for pregnancy and bonding with my baby after.

When you need support, you have to go out there and get the help you need. You have to call various mental-health services and get yourself an appointment. But in between, I use this tactic of making lists to help me get through the week. I’ve realized how much all of the little things make me feel alive, and how much I want to stay alive. I’m proud of how committed I am to my own aliveness, even if some days, it just means crossing, “Watch two episodes of ‘Grace and Frankie,’ ” off my list!

Maggy van Eijk, 28, chronicles her struggle with mental illness in her upcoming book, “How Not To Fall Apart” (inset).