Eli Müller talks grief, anxiety and his greatest revelations.
The middle child in a family of three boys, Eli Müller spent his early years “playing sports, breaking windows, annoying the neighbours and getting into trouble”. He grew up in Tauranga in the beautiful Bay of Plenty, New Zealand and was the kind of kid to give anything a go. Inspired and excited by a diverse range of different activities, he literally tried everything which brought both enjoyment and a feeling of displacement.
“I developed an independent streak early on and was often found pulling things apart or trying to build others. This led to my father calling me ‘the fiddler’ because everywhere we went, I couldn’t help but get my hands on anything that was new or that I didn’t understand. My parents tried to direct this more practically – I remember getting a DIY electronics kit one particular birthday and old computer parts in the house were mine to do with as I chose. The only rule was ‘batteries only, nothing plugged in the power socket’.
I played a lot of sports, mostly soccer, tennis and bodyboarding, and as my grandmother and mother were both ballerinas, I ended up learning a bit of ballet, tap, jazz and contemporary as well. This led to me participating in some dance shows and musicals, which I loved, but gave up as I started my early teenage years. My love of music was undoubtedly influenced by these times and I still really enjoy classical music. I also began plucking away at a guitar around this time and did lessons for a few months, but they didn’t stick. I continued plodding along learning a song here or there on my own.
By the time I reached high school I found it was hard to find friends with the same diverse interests so I deliberately partitioned my social life into people who loved sports, those into science and technology, and a cool kids crew that liked to party.
I never really felt I belonged in any of these circles but they were kind and awesome people so I didn’t spend too much time worrying about it. By the time I reached university, I was starting to get a real feel for who I wanted to be and kept my focus and grades up in classes on theoretical physics while balancing that out with going to the gym, playing soccer and basketball, playing video games, surfing, partying with my friends and playing the guitar.
I found all these things challenged me in different ways and I flourished when I got a little bit of each. There are countless angles to the human experience and I’ve found a few that I love which have become a part of my character.”
A neuroscience researcher, Eli shares with us the complexities and beauty of the brain, his personal experience with loss and anxiety, and his greatest life lessons to date.
BC: At just 16, you tragically lost your best friend in a car accident - one that you survived. What do you remember about that time?
EM: My best friend Jordan was staying over for the night and we decided to join a convoy of friend’s heading to a spot to hangout. As we entered the motorway, we overtook our friend’s car and I remember waving out to them from the front passenger seat, smiling and laughing. It had just drizzled and a light film of water was on the road. As we approached a medium left turn, we were going too fast. I remember Jordan trying to regain control, the car spinning clockwise and seeing headlights flashing towards my door. The next part is a bit of a blur - flashing red lights, smoke and being drenched in water. Two different family friends were in nearby houses, heard the impact and came running out to investigate. Our car’s fuel tank had ruptured during a head on collision with another car and the petrol ignited. The left rear wheel of our car was pushed up against the back of my seat and I was trapped. Two men came running to my aid, pulled me out of the windscreen and rolled me in a puddle to put out my burning hair and clothes. They saved my life.
Next thing, I’m in hospital. My face and arms are covered in bandages, my hair is singed and full of melted plastic. My little brother and parents arrive, and we all burst into tears when we see each other. I asked my father if Jordan was okay as the doctors kept telling me he didn’t make it. He pushed back the tears and emphatically told me he hadn’t. That’s when it finally sunk in - he was gone.
A day or so later, I left the hospital and asked to visit Jordan’s family. I remember getting out of the car and my legs feeling weak and starting to give way as I walked down that familiar driveway. Jordan’s whole family was there and we embraced each other, sitting where we stood and mourned. The pain of my loss was immediately replaced by the pain I felt for Jordan’s family - why did this happen to such a beautiful, loving family? Nothing made sense.
One of the men who saved me visited my home a week later. I remember my father striding right up and hugging him, overwhelmed with emotion and softly saying “thank you”. I came to learn that my parents had been told of the accident in the late evening hours, with police knocking at the window asking to come inside. On the slow walk to the front door, my father concluded I must be dead. The accident had wide reaching affects on many people and each of us carries unique scars from it.
BC: How did this impact you at the time and how did it show up later in your life?
EM: I internalised a lot of how I was feeling. I didn’t confide in those around me or reach out for support. It felt as though life had lost a lot of its meaning and I had no real direction or motivation. When I eventually returned to school, people treated me differently - not in a bad way but all my interactions had this extra emotional baggage. Other students, and even my friends, would often look at me like I might have a breakdown at any moment - even when I was feeling fine. It was really unnerving, but thankfully it passed. The following year at school, I was sitting in the back seat of my friend's car heading to our dance formal and I remember thinking about Jordan and how I wished we got to share so much more of our lives together. I felt a hole in my chest and staring out the window in the dark I started to cry. This was my first real moment in understanding grief.
“You never really move on from it, or forget it, it becomes part of you. To love someone means you’ll miss them and to miss them means you love them.”
I don’t treat my grief as a distasteful experience but as a reminder of why someone is special to me. I feel grief every time I think about Jordan but I still laugh and smile about the times we shared - chasing each other with the hose in a water fight, riding our bikes down dirt tracks, staying up all night talking about nothing - I’m so grateful for them. And I’m comfortable now with the fact that the smiles sometimes come with a tear.
A few years after Jordan passed, I also lost my grandfather to a car accident and I remember thinking how familiar the pain was. I felt less blindsided by my grief as I knew why I felt this way. I accepted it and could begin sharing my feelings with those around me. These moments of heartache are part of me now, they have reshaped how I view my own life and what I want from it. They made me realise the universe doesn’t owe me anything. The meaning of my life is only what I make of it and who I get to share it with. I now try to pursue things that really make me happy and enjoy my time with, and give back to, those I care about.
BC: For those who know you best, it’s no real surprise that ‘the fiddler’ went on to become a scientist. What inspired that career path?
EM: I always thought my general curiosity for things would lead me to university but as my high school years came to a close, I felt less and less certain about what I wanted to study. It didn’t help that everyone told that you needed to know what career you wanted before you went to uni - I can honestly say I’ve only recently been able to answer this question.
After high school, I spent a gap year working so I could gain my bearings. I’ve always loved film – myself and a couple of friends used to make home movies of ‘Jackass’ stunts and I would spend hours editing it on a friend’s computer - so I considered studying to be a director or visual effects artist. But I also loved science - particularly physics. It could tell stories that spanned the entire universe - from the smallest things ever observed, like neutrinos and quarks, to the largest, like black holes and neutron stars.
I remember thinking how Einstein was considered a genius but beyond his famous E=mc^2 equation, I had no idea what for. I searched the internet and found pages on his theories of special and general relativity. I read a bunch of things about space-time curvatures and strange equations that I didn’t understand, but I knew I wanted to.
I made it to uni and after my Bachelors Degree, I started a Masters in Physics. My Honours courses were a fairly lonely affair and I found the latter part of my thesis trying. I decided I wanted to make something people would ‘use’ so I took a job as a junior software developer in the financial sector, though after eight months I quickly learned this wasn’t the career for me and started applying for PhD scholarships.
Fast-forward a few more years and I’m now a neuroscience researcher at The University of Sydney, working on understanding the flow of human cognition, arousal, Parkinson’s disease, dementia and the mechanisms underpinning consciousness.
BC: As a scientist dedicated to understanding more about the brain, what do you hope for the future of mental health and the way we approach it?
EM: Well I certainly hope - and I think we’re making great progress here - that the negative stigmas of mental health are a thing of the past.
“Just like other organs of your body, such as your heart or lungs, your brain runs on a delicate balance of biochemistry. This shapes the only reality we’ll ever know.”
Subtle shifts in the balance of neurochemicals form a vital part of healthy brain function and whilst they allow humans to do wonderful and complex things, they also present sensitivities that expose us to disorders such as depression and chronic anxiety.
We shouldn’t turn away from discussing mental health any more than we talk about heart or lung health. Science is making great headway in understanding mental health and its disorders and there are many exciting and groundbreaking treatments on the horizon.
There are also many things we can do for ourselves to maintain a healthy mind; our brains are dynamic and can be shaped deliberately or by our environment throughout our lives. I hope in the future we start to consider our own environments and can be more deliberate about our thoughts.
BC: How does anxiety show up for you and how has it impacted your life?
EM: When I’m anxious about something, I’ll sit around thinking about whatever it is I need to do and not actually get it done. I’ll spend hours thinking about every angle of it, looking at different constraints and running through different scenarios. I’ll wake up in the night thinking about it, how I should have done it by now and my whole mood will come down. It’s a vicious cycle.
There were courses at university I struggled to even begin studying for because I wasn’t getting the material in lectures and thought that meant I never would. When I worked as a software developer - a job I wasn’t formally trained for like my colleagues - I would lay awake at night thinking about how I wasn’t getting through my work fast enough because they had misread my abilities and I would be overwhelmed by the tasks of tomorrow. It made me miserable. And undoubtedly a less capable student and employee. But I found little ways to keep moving forward and these have developed over my life as I began to understand myself better.
BC: What are some of the tools you use to manage anxiety?
EM: I am by no means perfect in this regard; I have better and worse days in managing my anxiety. Some days, for whatever reason, I’m unable to get a handle on it at all so I start working on making sure tomorrow is different. When I do make progress, I find a healthy diet and regular exercise, some ocean air or a surf, music and time with my friends and family helps.
If I do have one solid piece of advice, it's that I always feel better when I seek comfort externally. Talking with my partner, my friends and my family, and finding a nice piece of nature always seems to work. I definitely don’t recommend trying to just think your way out of anxiety.
“Self-reflection has served me well throughout life and helped me grow as a human being, but it sits at the very core of what makes me anxious. For that reason I try to look outward for reprieve.”
Plus, the best times of my life have come from sharing experiences with people I care about and trust. I try to mix up what I do to feel better - trying something new, doing something I love - and I try not to stand still because that's a door I’ve already opened.
BC: What do you wish more people understood about anxiety?
EM: Mild anxiety serves an ecological purpose that motivates us to change our behaviour or remain alert to particular things in our environment. However, in extreme cases it can be debilitating and demotivating. Like most things, especially moods and emotions, anxiety comes on a spectrum and there are healthy bounds to it. The trick is not to let it run out of bounds for too long. When it does, I try to remember it's not a permanent state of being or a fundamental law of physics. It's like the tides of the ocean - it will come and then it will pass. I don’t need to let it rule my life or shape my reality forever. And if I identify my healthy bounds, I can be proactive and get ahead of it before it can get a foothold.
BC: What kind of role has therapy played in your life?
EM: A large deficit in managing my own mental health in the past has been the absence of therapy. But I think it’s vital to get an external, and experienced, opinion on your life and your feelings. I’ve been lucky in that my friends and family have provided a lot of careful listening and advice over the years but I think talking with someone who doesn’t know you intimately can provide a lot that is often taken for granted.
Many of us go to the dentist every year, we get regular check-ups with our doctors, we shouldn’t be hesitant to go to therapy. There are specialists for every organ of your body. The brain is no different; we don’t have to navigate everything on our own.
BC: Reflecting on your life so far, what are some of the greatest lessons you’ve learned?
EM: There is no snapshot of me in time that is the perfect version of myself. I have the opportunity to grow, evolve and experience in new ways.
“We are never the same person as we were the day before.”
Take care of, and be comfortable with, yourself - you’ll spend every day of the rest of your lives together. Just as you have to nurture a relationship between two people, you have to nurture the relationship with yourself.
It’s okay to have an ‘off’ day - but tomorrow doesn’t have to be one too. I like to remind myself that nothing lasts forever and that's what makes it valuable. We each get to borrow a bit of energy from the universe and then we have to give it back - meaning comes from choosing how to spend yours.
Interview by Bonny Co. | Images Si Kirk | Connect e_j_muller