I am very open about my mental health issues. Too open, some might say.
Ok, fine… I literally never shut the hell up about them. The reason for my being that way, is that I think it’s important for other people suffering from mental health problems to actually see that they’re not alone, rather than just being told it over and over again. For those lucky enough not to suffer, it’s important to know that a lot of people do, and you can’t just “pull yourself together”. If that’s a namby-pamby-bleeding-heart-liberal view as far as you’re concerned, then you might want to save yourself 5 minutes and look away now, because this post (well… the majority of this blog, really) is going to annoy you. SOZ.
My own, delightful, ‘cocktail of crazy’ comprises of Anxiety and Depression, stemming predominantly from, according to a very brilliant therapist who helped me a LOT, “worryingly low self-esteem”.
Before I go any further… I know that ‘cocktail of crazy’ is offensive. I know it’s able-ist language. I would never use it towards someone else, but the way I treat myself is, you will soon come to realise, very different to the way I treat other people. This is going to sound bonkers to you (there is the unhelpful language again), or if it doesn’t now, it will as this blog proceeds, but the first time I realised this was a few years ago.
I was tidying up in the kitchen and I dropped a glass, which smashed. It wasn’t an expensive glass, it wasn’t a glass that had belonged to my dead grandmother. It was a bog-standard glass. As I stood staring at the broken glass, I felt a massive surge of anger, and started screaming at myself, “You stupid, clumsy, incompetent fucking idiot! What is wrong with you? You stupid, fucking moron!” These are the exact words I used. I know they are, because I have thought about them a lot. The Husband was in the bedroom making the bed at the time, and as soon as he heard my (some-might-say-over-) reaction he rushed through to see what had happened. “I smashed a glass, I’m a fucking idiot.” He looked upset. “Please don’t talk about yourself like that, I hate it you talk about yourself like that, you do it all the time”, he said. “But I am” was my very witty, mature reply. He then pointed out that the previous night he had done the very same thing, and my reaction had been “Don’t worry about it, accidents happen. We’ve got too many glasses anyway, we could do with clearing some out.” And he was right. Not only was that what I had said to him, that was how I had felt. I hadn’t been saying it to make him feel better (though, he probably wasn’t that bothered about it anyway, because, you know… accident… anyone… cheap glass… yada, yada, yada), I was just stating a fact.
I am a perfectionist, and a control freak with high standards. I don’t think the first and third of those traits are bad things…. The second… well…. I’m fairly certain that’s a “quality” I possess which most people would gladly have me lose, but whatever. They can do one. I don’t like Donald Trump, but you don’t hear me complaining. I know these traits are not exclusive to people who suffer from anxiety. And they’re certainly not exclusive to actors, but another thing I know, is that they are very unhelpful in the brain I like to think of as my own, and they are certainly not helpful in the World of Acting.
“I don’t agree!” I hear some of you cry, “it’s very important to have high standards and expect perfection, if you don’t, how can you hope to improve?” Correct. This is my feeling, also. But how I treat myself, and how I treat others when those standards are not met, are two very different things.
If I cock up an audition, or worse, a show, I hold on to that for a very, very long time. By “cock up a show”, I don’t mean completely blanking on stage, and running off crying, when I realise I’m standing there naked, when I’m supposed to be wearing a nun’s habit… I mean forgetting one line, or not managing to get my hair perfect after a quick costume change. Something that, if done by a colleague, I would forget about in the bat on eye, if I’d even noticed it in the first place. You see? Double standards. To labour a point: I still remember going on stage with a white bra-strap showing under a black night dress, because I’d forgotten to bring a black bra (2004); a line I forgot which was integral to the plot, despite the fact that I replaced it with a slightly different line which had the same effect (2007); almost missing my entry cue and walking on about 10 seconds later than I should have (2015) …. And every other time I’ve made a mistake, no matter how unnoticed it went by the audience.
Instead of letting me enjoy the things that went right, the little cartoon-mini-me with horns, a tail and a pitchfork jumps onto my shoulder and screeches into my ear “OF COURSE YOU FUCKED UP! You’re a dreadful actor, if you were any good at all, this stuff wouldn’t happen! Why are you even doing this? You’re taking up space in an already overcrowded industry, do everyone a favour and just piss off!”. Meanwhile, the poor little cartoon-mini-me with wings and a halo who is trying to point out the good things I did, and remind me that dealing with things going wrong on stage is actually something I thrive on and enjoy, is having the shit kicked out of her behind the bike shed.
Let’s all enjoy that mental image for a minute [….] Ok, that’s enough.
That little bastard one is much louder, pushier, and chattier than the little angel one… And when Anxiety gets back from the holiday she’s been on, and settles down on the two-seater sofa on my shoulder (Shut up, I’m enjoying this visualization), the Little Bastard doesn’t wait to see if the Little Angel is tired from all the flying around, trying to get me to listen to the good stuff. Little Bastard jumps straight onto the sofa, sprawls out leaving no room for Little Angel, cracks open a beer and tells Anxiety why it’s a good thing she’s home. She’s informed that she should really take fewer holidays, because I’m a shit person, and I’m stupid, and I’m ugly, and annoying, and dull, and everyone is better than me in every conceivable way, and if Anxiety keeps selfishly disappearing off to Mauritius, who’s going to keep me in my place? Then Anxiety gets all…. erm… anxious(?)… and can’t deal with the problem alone, so she gets on the phone to her good mate Depression, and invites him over for some quality Netflix and Chill time… you get the picture. It’s a bit shit.
At drama school, we did a lot of Clowning. Quick aside for those who are not actors, and now have a mental image of me wearing huge shoes and a Comic Relief nose: what clowning is, is the art of being on stage, and allowing yourself to be open and vulnerable. In an attempt to find the best way to describe it, I did some googling, and found an article where it’s described as “the art of being you, and not being afraid to make mistakes… a clown relishes their failures as much as their triumphs” and let’s be honest, what makes good comedy is the failing part. The success… well, that’s just pompous, and it’s only funny when the person being pompous is prepared to admit that pomposity is their failure…. Anyway… I digress.
In these classes we had no scripts, no props, and (to start off with) no direction other than “Entertain Me” (Hello Mark, if you’re reading this!), as the weeks went by, games and exercises were introduced which helped the process along a bit and made it easier. Some days, I jumped up raring to go when volunteers were needed (they were always needed), and other days there was absolutely nothing in the world that would get me on that stage. When the Clowning module came to an end, and we’d done our internal showcase, we all sat around discussing what had worked and what hadn’t, and someone commented on something that I had done which got a big laugh (I can’t remember what it was obviously… although I can definitely tell you what I did that didn’t get a laugh, because.. well.. you know). I asked The Tutor (don’t know why I’m anonymizing him now, I’ve already said his name… probably because I’m an idiot…) why he thought it was that I had this “sometimes I’ll do everything, other times I’ll do nothing” thing going on. Poor guy, what a stupid question to ask him, but I did, and he looked me straight in the eye and answered without hesitation. “Because you want to be too good, all of the time. You want it to be perfect, and you don’t want to fail. But what does it matter, if you fail? What’s going to happen if you get on that stage and you’re not funny? Nobody is going to die. You’ll get on the stage again tomorrow, and that time you will be funny. And the more you fail, the more you find out what doesn’t work for you AND what does. What people remember is the stuff that does work. And nobody will be dead.”
He was 100% right. I don’t want to fail. Because deep down somewhere I believe that if I fail I’ll prove to myself that it’s the Little Bastard that knows me, not the Little Angel (yes, I’m back on that). And that is problematic in the World of Acting, because you’re setting yourself up to fail not only repeatedly, but publicly. EVERY. SODDING. DAY.
But do you know something? The times when you don’t fail…. Oh, my giddy aunt, there is NOTHING in the world that feels so good. And those times when you do fail …. Well…. like a wise man once told me, “nobody is going to die”.
… So this is what I tell my Anxious Self when I’m getting into character to play the part of a Confident Actor before I walk into the room to audition for whatever role it is that I’m auditioning for… Even if you ARE shit, nobody is going to die. And if they do…. Well, hopefully it will be a Trump supporter.
Does it always work? No, of course not, but often it does.
And when it doesn’t, there are a lot of people around me who I treat a hell of a lot better than I treat myself, and are willing to take me out and pour gin down my throat to numb the pain and try to drown that Little Bastard, pitchfork and all.
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CBT Tip for those who suffer from low self-esteem: Carry a note pad round with you, and when you do something good, however small, make a note of it. Is it cringetastic? Yes, but does it work? It does actually. Good luck! x
This post was originally published as ‘The Anxious Actor”
My Name is Not Debbie 