My panic attacks are part of who I am
The Bake Off star tells AMY PACKER of his struggles with anxiety and how he has learned to live with the condition
MANY former Great British Bake Off contestants would say that their time in the tent went past in a blur. But for Michael Chakraverty, who was among the 2019 intake, there are moments of the competition of which he has literally no memory.
The 26-year-old from Perthshire, who has lived with anxiety and depression since his teens, experienced a panic attack during a particularly stressful technical challenge.
“I don’t really remember the minutes of the panic attack because you just don’t,” he explains.
“I remember it going dark and then suddenly Noel (Fielding) was beside me, just gently talking me through it while Sandi (Toksvig) stood directly in my eye-line behind a camera and refused to move until I was okay.”
Looking back, Michael, who lives in Stratford-upon-Avon, is proud rather than embarrassed of the incident.While the show’s producers didn’t sensationalise what happened – choosing not to air the minutes of the attack itself – Michael took the opportunity to start a conversation about anxiety on Twitter after the show went out on Channel 4.
“Panic attacks are part of who I am and I felt it was important for people to see someone experiencing one but not letting it stop them,” he says.
“One of my coping techniques is to break time down into five-minute chunks and that worked for me, so watching the episode back was tough but there was a sense of pride, being able to say, ‘I did that’.
“Yes, I made some awful beignet soufflés, but I didn’t come last. In fact, David (Atherton) did and he won the whole show, so let’s just point that out!” laughs Michael.
“But for me, I had struggled but still completed something.
“Success for me, in that instance, was finishing the task despite the circumstances.”
As someone who has lived with mental health issues for almost a decade, simply applying for Bake Off felt like a victory. “There are days when I can’t leave the house,” says the RSC theatre manager and fitness instructor.
“I find my front door quite challenging sometimes because outside are lots of unpredictable variables. But other days I’m able to go out and I have a smashing day and can be quite a social butterfly.
“There are two sides to mental health and hopefully people saw that when they watched the show.
“I’m not a miserable person, I’m a fun person. On Bake Off I was having a laugh and messing around most of the time, so I can have depression and anxiety and also still be happy.”
As well as breaking time down into manageable chunks, Michael has found exercise and talking helps with the tough times.
“The main two things – and I’m really reluctant to do them when I need to most – are exercise, running in particular, and finding the bravery to message someone to say I’m having a really low day.
“I have some amazing friends around me who will just listen and they won’t try to find solutions. Just knowing there is someone else out there, even if they just send me back a text saying, ‘Thinking of you’ makes all the difference.”
Michael hasn’t always found it so simple to ask friends and family to listen. “In my late teens I began to feel anxiety and it was around the time I started to think about coming out,” he explains.
“There’s a lot of, ‘Who do you identify with, how do you identify?’ and lots of thought processes I didn’t feel there was a way to articulate.
“My parents are so incredibly supportive and almost in as many words were saying, ‘If you have a boyfriend that’s fine’.
“But I still didn’t feel able to articulate what I wanted to say, even in that safe space.
“I was 18 and surrounded by so many caring, open people who I knew wouldn’t have a problem with it, but I worried the things I wanted to say would become a burden on them. It felt very lonely, so I called the Samaritans.
“Talking to them meant I didn’t have to feel like a burden.The words that you say won’t change any relationships and I found that incredibly helpful.
“It’s an amazing thing that they are there to listen, 24/7.”
THIS experience is one of the reasons Michael has leant his support to the Samaritans’ Brew Monday campaign, which is aiming to turn the idea of Blue Monday
– allegedly the most depressing day of the year – into a positive by encouraging people to get together with family, friends or colleagues for a chat and a cuppa on Mondays throughout January and February.
“It’s really easy to slip into loneliness, even when you are surrounded by friends,” says Michael.
“Brew Monday is looking to help people move on from the usual script of, ‘How are you?’, ‘I’m fine’. “It encourages people to check in on each other and give others room to express how they are actually feeling.We can be so focused on social media – which is anything but social really – scrolling through galleries of images of parties you aren’t at, bodies you will never have, holidays you aren’t on, people you don’t even know.
“So much of social media is focused on what we don’t have that we lose sight of what we do.
“Brew Monday is about bringing us back to the people we do know and who do care.
“Most of the time, those who are struggling aren’t looking for their problems to be solved because feelings can’t really be ‘fixed’.
“All they need is to voice how they feel and explore those feelings, so people shouldn’t be worried they aren’t ‘qualified’ to help. It’s just about starting the conversation, reaching out to someone and saying, ‘Right, tell me more’.”
● Find out more about Samaritans’ Brew Monday at samaritans.org/ support-us/campaign/ brew-monday/
● You don’t have to be suicidal to contact Samaritans. Whatever you’re going through, you can speak to a volunteer 24/7, 365 days a year. Call for free and in confidence on 116 123 – even from a mobile without credit – or email jo@samaritans.org