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I make myself very unhappy
Hi - I picked up on your column, recognising a fellow Brit and also someone I don't think will be too hard on me; I'm open to the idea that my problems are pathetic and self-inflicted, but would rather not hear it right now. I have a problem with negative thinking and low self-esteem that I think colours my entire life, and is peaking now as I have finished my A-levels and my life is really beginning. I have always been involved with theatre and acting, and it has taken me through personality changes that I now consider a gradual downward spiral, mentally. At first, I was a happy, confident and energetic girl who was attracted to the glamour and image of the theatre and cinema, and as I started to audition for and win more and more leading roles it came to my attention that I must be pretty good. This continued into my teenage years, peaking at around fifteen when I was the lead role in a school production and had a follow-up article printed in 'The Stage' - I was elated to think that I was achieving what I thought was my dream. From then on, however, I began to become extremely insecure. My main friendship broke apart - (it had been destructive anyway) - and I started to isolate myself and lose contact with people. Around the same time I attended a National Youth Theatre course, which floored me as a person and left me a mess of insecurity and doubt. I don't think this ever went away. I started feeling sorry for myself and thinking big thoughts about my psyche - but I really don't think this has been the main contributor to the lethargic, depressed, negative and insecure state I am now in; though I do think about my own personality, I am also constantly looking at other people and comparing myself with them, envying their happiness and energy. I am still forcing myself into acting, possibly in the vain hope that some old fire of excitement and ambition will be rekindled and I will become the solid, happy, self-assured person I used to be. But every rehearsal is a chore; my heart sinks and I want to run away when I have to play 'drama games' as I find them terrifying, and I want to crumple on the foor when I watch the other actors performing openly, smoothly, enjoying it and enjoying working together and exploring interpretations, joking. I feel like an emotional cripple and can hardly believe I have changed so much. No one who knew me as a child could have imagined I would be such a teenager. I wish it could be put under the 'hormones' label - how reassuring that would be - but I know it is a deeper problem in me. I know that the annually repeated 'you need to have more faith in yourself' I used to get every parent's evening is true and is a major factor in the way I hold myself back and seem to have destroyed myself from the inside. I'm not sure what I want to hear, perhaps I just wanted to write this all out. I have a boyfriend and it causes so many problems; he is an actor and has a part in the play I'm in right now, so he has become an object of jealousy and hatred and frustration that I am really directing at myself but find hard to deal with. I resent his talent and the joy he gets from it, I resent myself for ruining everything, I resent National Youth Theatre for getting up my hopes then crushing me, and all the time I am too tired, lonely, sad, lost, to resent. I think of finding something new as a hobby ('hobby' is such an inadequate word for something that really can affect your life to such a degree) but letting go of drama would mean letting go of the one thing my stupid head still imagines could lift me out of this and give me status and make people like me. It all sounds so small and trivial when written, but drama is just one example of the way things have just headed downwards for me in the last few years, and I think the actualy problem is the way I think and feel, which is just embodied by my relationship with drama. I make myself very unhappy. Please reply, I don't know what I want, I don't know if advice is what I'm after, I would just love another person's reaction as there is no one else I could tell all this to.
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Maybe give some free advice about: Mental health?
I am so sorry to hear how you are feeling and thank you for trusting me to help. I in no way feel that your problems are pathetic and self inflicted.
The trouble is, the career you have chosen is one of the worst for knocking self esteem. I have a daughter who is an aspiring actress and she can get down at times over this. Directors chose people not always just for how they act but for how they see the person fitting their vision of the role. My daughter says it helps her to remember that, when being rejected for a role, she probably just didn't have the right colour hair, eyes, shape etc.
Theatre schools seem to have a strategy of knocking people down and building them up again, (a bit like the army). It can be very tough to accept this and not take it personally.
Do you feel perhaps, that acting has become a way of validating you as a person? It can be a very powerful feeling, standing on stage and being applauded by people who don't know you. It is more powerful to be rejected and harder to take.
Actors are, generally, very insecure people, they quite often go into acting as a way either of trying to be someone else, as they are not happy being themselves, or to try to win the approval they felt was missing from their lives.
It now sounds as though you have got into a vicious cycle of self doubt which is needing validation, which only comes if you put yourself into the position that gave you the self doubt to start with.
If you love drama and can't see a way to leave it but, at the same time, feel it is destroying you as a person, why not teach it? Maybe in a young peoples theatre group? In this way, you should be able to regain the confidence you used to have, you would have some control over your life again, and you would be doing some good. Helping possible stars of the future realise their dreams, whilst encouraging them to accept the harsh reality of an actors life, would also give your life meaning.
If you do this and start to become the 'old' you again, maybe with new found confidence, you could try again, if that is what you really want to do.
In your current state, it is not hard to see that you would resent your boyfriend, as he is epitomising everything you want to be. It is also quite normal to feel resentment to the National Theatre if they did not fulfill your hopes. Try to remember things they said to you, try to put a constructive twist on them, and make those comments work for you not against you. Easy to say, really hard to do, I know.
Maybe talking things over with a councillor could help if there are deeper issues here?
I'm quite sure you are a very talented young lady, you have love and a deep compassion within you. It would be a huge shame if this problem continued to affect your life. You have taken the first step by admitting you have a problem. I do hope you are able to seek the help you need to resolve.
I wish you the best of luck, and if you need to talk again, please feel free to come back to me.
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