Let’s Talk About Burnout

Agnetha Fältskog is a Swedish singer, songwriter, and producer best known as one quarter of ABBA. She was known for her obsession with control and perfection during recording sessions.

Agnetha clashed with producers and other artists. She rejected major collaborations, including a rumored duet with Phil Collins, leading some to view her as arrogant.

Then she disappeared. She retreated into isolation in the Swedish countryside.

Behind the scenes, she suffered from panic attacks, breakdowns, and emotional turmoil.

ABBA was offered one billion dollars to reunite. She was the holdout.

ABBA is one of the most successful pop groups in history.

The inside is always different from the outside.

Fältskog developed a fear of flying that intensified during ABBA’s 1979 US tour, when the band’s plane en route to Boston, Massachusetts, ran low on fuel, encountered a tornado and made an emergency landing. Because of this, throughout her solo career, she preferred bus travel.

She was involved in a bus crash on a Swedish motorway in 1983.

In 1994, her mother died by suicide after jumping from the balcony of her apartment in Jönköping. Her subsequent depression deepened a year later when her father passed away.

In 1997, she began a relationship with Dutch forklift driver Gert van der Graaf. After she ended the relationship in 1999, he stalked her at her home, leading to a court issuing a restraining order and his deportation to the Netherlands in 2000. He returned near her home in 2003, was arrested and then barred from entering Sweden. When that ban expired in 2005, Van der Graaf was seen again near Fältskog’s estate in Ekerö within months.

What looks like defiance from a distance can be survival up close.

If you need a break, take it. You don’t have to explain yourself.

Protect your peace, even if it confuses people.

Step back when you need to. Return when you’re ready.

Or don’t.

Your life isn’t a press release.