Crash Course

Pressure and perfectionism were the perfect storm for journalist Georgie Dent, who recalls her own breakdown and reveals how the same characteristics that make some young women susceptible to burnout can be the source of self-care

- Georgie Dent

It was just after 10pm on a Sunday in September 2013 and I had just stepped off the set at Sky News, oblivious to the storm I’d just been caught in. As the acting editor of Women’s Agenda, I had been invited to be part of a panel to discuss the weekend’s stories. That day, I had anxiously waited to receive the topics we’d be discussing during the hour long live-to-air program. I read all the weekend papers back to front, I scoured the web, and then, when the topics came through, I knuckled down and read the 12 or so stories that were listed.

The issues we’d be discussing ranged from Tony Abbott’s sleeping quarters in Canberra to an essay former prime minister Julia Gillard had written for The Guardian, to Syria, to gun control, to the Labor leadership, to lowering the legal age for teenagers to serve alcohol. That Sunday, while wrangling the girls and going about our day, I thought at length about the issues. I wanted to be prepared.

The [program’s] conversation was heated, as I had expected, but I thought I had kept my cool and held my own. I was almost always in disagreement with the three men I sat with, but neither the host, Paul [Murray], nor my two fellow panellists were nasty, and they were very friendly as we left the set and I bid them goodbye. As I walked away, Paul called out, “Ignore anything ugly on Twitter!”

I knew my boss, Marina [Go], had been watching, along with Mum, Dad and my husband, Nick, and I was eager to get their read on how it went. But as I reached into my handbag, I noticed my phone was off, which struck me as strange: it had been fully charged an hour earlier when I had turned it onto silent. Once I was in the car, I plugged it in and waited for it to come back to life. The text messages that popped up alerted me to a problem.

Well done G. Ignore the haters. Love Dad