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Sitting across from her, you’d hardly believe it: Miriam Meckel seems so alert, witty and charming. And yet it was only a year ago that the 42-year-old suffered a total mental and physical breakdown. Before that Meckel had been living in the fast lane, rushing around the world for 15 years. Then came the crash. In September 2008, after several weeks abroad, she returned to Berlin to host an event on the US presidential election. When she woke up the next morning, she couldn’t even stand up. “It felt as though I’d taken an overdose of sleeping pills and uppers at the same time,” she recalls.
She was aching, breaking out in cold sweats, just sitting there and sobbing. Although wholly incapacitated, however, she sat down at the computer to check her e-mails. When she discovered 50 unread messages in her mailbox, she broke down. Her partner, television presenter Anne Will, took her to see the doctor, who readily diagnosed her condition: burnout.
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