Months ago, I had what I can only describe as a breakdown.
The trigger was a conversation. I handled it well. What happened afterward surprised me.
I had seen versions of this happen to other highly capable people: they remained calm and effective during a crisis, then deteriorated once the immediate problem was over.
I understood that this could happen but I had never experienced such a gap between what I could still do and how distressed I actually was.
That is why I am writing about it today.
What surprised me was the trigger. I have been in dangerous situations. There are things in my past that I would have expected to destabilize me far more than this did. Yet here I was, falling apart after a conversation about my personal life.
I will not go into all the circumstances surrounding the conversation. I was already carrying more than usual, and the conversation introduced uncertainty into something I had been counting on. It reached into my life and my family's future, well beyond anything I could resolve during the exchange.
I had prepared for the exchange. I knew the facts, had information the other person did not expect me to have, and understood where I had room to push.
When the conversation began, my chest tightened and my heart rate increased. But I could follow what was being said. I noticed inconsistencies, adjusted my position and decided when to press a point and when to leave it alone. By the end, I had defended my interests.
From the outside, you would have seen someone in control.
Then I went home.
I found that I could barely speak. I went for a walk and fell apart. For roughly four days, the distress was sometimes so intense that I struggled to reconcile it with how I had behaved during that conversation.
I had years of experience functioning under pressure. I had taken that as evidence that I absorbed pressure well.
If people rely on you, there may be very little room in the day to notice how you are doing. You answer the calls, handle the meeting and make the decisions. Everyone has good reason to believe you are managing. You may even believe it too.
What they cannot see is how much effort this now takes, what happens when you stop, or how much capacity you have left for the next decision.
In what follows, I'll look at what helped me stay composed during the conversation, why the thinking continued long after it stopped helping, and how being able to work concealed how distressed I was. Then I'll turn to what this means for anyone making important decisions under pressure... or relying on someone who is.