ramblingsofmyanxiousmind-blog

[ramblingsofmyanxiousmind-blog]

blog post five. | theatre work, or, lack there of.

work in the theatre industry is hard. its hard to come by. its hard emotionally and it can definitely be hard physically.

I never thought I was going to leave uni and have it all line up for me. I knew I wasn’t that great, i knew I hadn’t interned with the right people and I knew I didn’t have that look or spark people look for. But most of all I knew that 9/10 times, that just doesn’t happen.

I’m in a slump at the moment. I haven’t had a proper theatre job since I was ‘fired’ from my last one. I say fired because I’m not really sure what else to call it. Anyway, I’d been on the show for 6 months. Toured with it 3 times. and then in a 45 minute coffee meeting I was taken off of it. Since then I haven’t been able to find work.. or been able to get it. In the past 5 days I’ve essentially seen 4 separate shows slip through my fingers. four brilliant opportunities are gone.

1. Show number One. Is with the woman that fired me off the last show (that one ^) - I'm not sure I wanted to work with her again yet.. Not because she took me off the last show, but because of the way it all went down. She told other people before me, and I know she waited over a month to do it, given that I’ve had it confirmed that she knew before the lst season of the show. That means (to me) that she didn’t trust that I’d do that season of the show without promise of a season after that. I feel like she doesn’t trust me. And as she’s a director its important for me to trust her and for her to trust me. She rung and emailed me asking if id do the job for her, and they were both dripping with sweetness and I’m reminded of exactly why I love her and love working with her, but how am I meant to let go of this sting? The point is I can’t do the show anyway because I’m in Hawaii for the dates in June anyway. 2. For job two I was recommended by someone for a job helping at auditions (its a pretty easy job) for a big company that does musicals in Melbourne - I sent my resume in 8 hours later and get a reply 2 days later saying the position was filled. I thought that maybe it was a blessing, maybe I was finally going to meet people and work my way up, maybe I was even going to get to work with this company. And of course it was filled.

3. oh and then there’s the fact that I got /asked/ by a company to work on a show - I wasn;t sure what to do straight away so I delayed a day in replying since I had also been offered show #4 a few days earlier. I deliberated and made a decision that #3 would be better and so I accepted... and then she took three days to reply to me saying the position was filled. 4. And as I said above, I said no to show #4 because I thought I was going to be working on show #3. Not only that but the thought of working on this show was freaking me out. It needed me to be a lot more technically minded than I am. And the pressure kinda got to me, which is part of the reason I said no.

So, now I’m left with no work for the next two months when I had thought I was going to be pretty busy. And I’m not saying that it’s not my fault, I know it is, but what kind of people ask you to work a job and then give it to someone else and not tell you?

I guess it’s not only that, but I’ve been left feeling as though maybe i;m not right for all of this. Maybe I’m not meant to do it. Maybe I’m meant to be doing something else with my life.. It is so hard for me to pick myself up after things like this happen. For me to tell myself that it’s all just timing and bad luck, that it has nothing to do with my abilities. But how many times can you do that? I had thought I was going somewhere, I’d had a brilliant year last year working on shows, getting paid and doing things I loved while supporting work that motivated myself and others to be better. And now I’m sat in my pyjamas wondering whether I should bother anymore. What do I do now?

[ramblingsofmyanxiousmind-blog]

blog post four. | blackhole.

I'm a fuck up. I'm a black hole. I feel myself slipping and I want to pull everyone down with me. I'm writing this is the shower because I'm alone. And no one would come for me. Is this why I do it? So that I'll cry and someone will come and tell me it's OK? Am I attention seeking? I don't even know anymore because I guess it could be? But if it was then why would I cry to the point of not being able to breathe. Why am I pushing everyone away and then getting myself more worked up when they won't help me. I know if I treated them better things would be different. I've been in the shower for an hour and my hands are like prunes, but I like the way the water runs off me. I got shitty at two people before going into melt down. But all of this really has very little to do with them. My housemates a good guy.. I just feel pushed out, which is connected to the larger problem. - I feel alone. - none of my friends make an effort or feel as though they want to talk to or even see me anymore. - I feel I'm being replaced by all of my friends. - I keep saying stupid shit to them in a hope that maybe I'll destruct things before they can. - my job sucks. I'm thankful for it but I hate it. I hate getting up at 530am to spend 4 hours packing other people's shopping - I'm not going anywhere. - my dad is in a toxic relationship and it's putting a divide between us. - I can't write. I don't know where it went but I can't find my muse. - my friend can't rely on me because I can't find the muse to write and I'm afraid of losing the only real friend I have. - my mum's putting pressure on me to take another job. - I can't get any theatre work. - someone else is working on a show that was mine for six months that I had taken away. - I'm overweight and hate the way I look - I just make enough money from my job to pay rent and eat - I rely too heavily on my boyfriend. I feel like I've sucked so much from him. I'm afraid he'll get sick of it one day and leave. - I'm turning 24 this year and I feel like I've accomplished nothing with my life. - I worry about everything. To think I had a breakdown because I was afraid I upset someone is a shallow way to look at it.

[ramblingsofmyanxiousmind-blog]

blog post three. | friends.

M. I’m not sure if she’s my friend or not anymore.. I don’t know if she keeps me around out of necessity. She’s pretty ‘buddy’ with my housemate. And it hurts me. I messaged her yesterday telling her I was sad and lonely, and she didn’t offer to come over, or to call me. She told me to bake cookies. and there was nothing more to it. Am I supposed to put my hand up and wave it at everyone and say “Hello! I’m drowning in my own head and in my own thoughts. I feel alone and isolated and I don’t know how to fix it!” And her fucking boyfriend keeps commenting ‘ew get a room’ on everything  Austin tags me in. When they can’t fucking keep their hands off of each other for two minutes when they’re with out people. I am sick of seeing their fucking PDAs every fucking time I have them over. 

A. my best friend.. my drama friend.. I’m always there for her.. always. And I feel like I’m sincerely drowning at the moment and she’s no where. She messaged me this morning because someone toxic has finally left her life. A boy who, a year and a half ago strangled me because I ‘punched’ him in the stomach - why? because he refused to leave my friend alone. I woke up the next day with bruises on my neck. And while I know I hit him first, he truly meant to do me harm. And what did my A do? She didn’t do anything. She said ‘I’m not involved’ - and then when it came round to NYE three months later I invited him to my house because she couldn’t bare to be without him on NY. He said nothing to me, when the condition was that he apologise to my face for attempting to harm me, I had already apologised to him. 

And the point is, today - a year and a half after he tried to strangle me - he’s finally out of her life. And i still don’t understand why I wasn’t worth enough for her to let him go 18months ago. 

K. she moved back to Tasmania at the start of last year. She came back a few times in the year aand stayed with me every time. I’ve been left feeling used. She got a boyfriend in december, and waited three weeks to tell me when I’m meant to be her best friend. She didn’t even tell me when she was moving back until I messaged her asking. 

D. my house mate. I am so sick of it. I don’t know how much longer I can do it. I feel like I’m going cray. But he’s got a thing with M and her boyfriend. and I am so done with him inviting me places to see my best friend. He asked me this morning if I wanted to go with him to meet M at pancake parlor. I am all for them being friends and getting along. I don’t waant them to hate each other or fight. But I am sick of him telling me things she should be inviting me to. And he doesnt understand. Honestly, I feel like Diane is the only friend I have left. Diane lives in Canada, but we message each other a few times a week, she listens to me complain, but I’m trying not to so much at the moment. I don’t want to lose her. I don’t want to isolate her.. I can’t afford to feel like I’m losing another best friend.  I’m imploding. I’m losing my mind and I’m blowing up every friend ship I have along with it. I am not coping. I come home every day after work and sit on my ass and watch tv because thats better than looking outside. Its easier than contacting people who dont want to contact me. and its easier than talking about my problems or trying to fix them. 

[ramblingsofmyanxiousmind-blog]

blog post two. | unhealthy.

I worry about my weight. A lot. I’m only 5 foot 1 & I weigh approximately 82kgs - or about 180pounds. I look at myself in the mirror and wonder how I got here. I think I know.. its always easier to blame something or someone else. I think about how I’ve been on the contraceptive pill for nearly 5 years and wonder how much that’s changed things. I’m almost certain that it has. I stress eat. I always have. I find my way onto a diet and I can be on it for 3 weeks, a month, four days.. and suddenly something will happen and I’ll find my way back to comfort food - and then before I know it, I’ve been eating comfort food for a month, or two. I’ve never been small, but I keep looking back at pictures of me when I was 16 or 17 and thinking, ‘wow. To be that small again.’ I worry that it’s all more psychological than I like to think it is. Every time I start a diet I think, ‘this time I’ll do it! This time I’ve got the will power.’ And then before I know it the 3kgs I’ve lost come back again. I’m scared. I look at all of my beautifully thin friends, my size 10 (US size 6) friends and look down at my own size 16 (US size 12) clothing and it makes me want to cry. How do you finally spark that thing inside of yourself?

My cheeks are getting fatter.. I have two chins.. My legs have more cellulite than I care to mention.. And even when I look at the stretch marks and tell myself 'They’re normal. Everyone has them. I’m a daughter of thunder and lightning and that’s how I got these, and they’re beautiful.’ I want to sit in the bottom of my shower and cry. I want to yell and scream at myself, because there’s no one else to blame. I want to force myself to eat healthy and go to the gym. But how can you do that when your schedule differs from day to day and you have no one to help you? When your partner is as weak as you are - when he yields when you do. I’m afraid I’ll never be beautiful.

I’ve spent my whole life being teased for being fat. How do you fight the fear that you’ll never lose weight? I used to eat and then make myself sick - which started from about 7 or 8 years old and lasted until around 12. And I think back to that little girl and wish shed never gotten to that point - but right now, I can’t blame her. When people used to sing 'I Feel the Earth Move’ by Carol King, at you when you walked past. When your own step-dad used to tell you from the age of 7 that your legs were like tree stumps. When your own mum started telling you to stop wearing things because they were showing off too much leg. When your dad mentions he’s getting worried. When your sister is a size 10 and gets told by the doctor that she needs to lose weight. When all of your friends who are a good two sizes smaller than you complain that they’re 'fat’ or that they 'hate their legs’ And when society tells you to wear cloths that 'suit your body type,’ or, 'show less skin’

All of that should make me fight harder. But I find myself looking at other people on the street and thinking 'At least I’m not as fat as him/her’ - which I know is a cruel way to look at it. And I know I shouldn’t, because I don’t know their struggle or where they’ve been.

But it’s easier that trying when you know you’ll just fail again. And it’s easier than blaming yourself.

[ramblingsofmyanxiousmind-blog]

blog post one. | a cage.

I have no idea if this will help. but my mind has become an increasingly difficult room to inhabit. I find my anxiety is becoming worse and I don’t know what to do any more. I had originally pointed all of my problems towards stress. stress over losing a job, starting a new job, losing another and the threat of having nothing to occupy space during this entire year. 

I’ve started lashing out at people and am finding small things are bothering me more. I got mad at a friend for not telling me she’d changed her mind about a movie we were meant to see, an not just annoyed, but mad. I came home and yelled.  I’ve begun slamming doors more frequently - as though some how the combination of the loud bang and the motion of pushing it with such a force will help me to release something.  I’m apologising more - for getting mad or sad or angry.  Mostly I feel alone. And how can you fix that. I live with Austin, I see his face every day. and there are people here at least once a week. I’m not alone in that I have company. But I feel alone in my own mind. I’m the only person here and I feel as though I’m suffocating.  I got mad today because Austin tried to make me go to bed, and even though I’m tired, I am so tired all of the time, I couldn’t and I didn’t want to. And when he started to push it, I begun to smack myself in the side of the head with a flat palm - I don’t know why. Maybe it was to get Austin to stop asking me to go to bed, maybe it was for the attention, or maybe I just thought it would help. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t. 

I want to feel normal again, even though I’m not sure I ever was.  Writing this is giving me the shakes, thinking about it all makes me want to cry because I feel like a terrible person. I’m no longer in control, but if I’m alone in my head then who is. How do I fix this?  Or how do I get anyone to understand how much I feel like I’m drowning.  I know there’s a quote, “You are your own worst enemy” - and I have never felt like anything stuck to me more than that has in the past few months. I don’t even know how long its been.  I can’t unblock my brain and so I sit here on this couch, night after night, watching tv.. scrolling social media feeds and waiting for something to make me change.  And I know that change is supposed to come from me.  It’s like I’m stuck in a time loop - waiting for something to snap me out. Waiting for someone to say, “Who are you?” or “Where did you go?” I want out of this infuriating bubble.  I want to feel myself again. I’m crying out and waiting for someone to notice, to offer me this great piece of advise. And I know it’s never coming, so why do I keep on waiting? Why can’t I do it myself?