Most people, myself included, find the idea of a 5-month holiday luscious. It's not quite so straight forward when you do actually have things to get done in said holiday (don't we always?), and then you get confused about what 'holiday' means and what your priorities are and how you're hoping to feel by the end etc etc etc.

There's a Doctor Who episode where the Doctor is explaining why he likes to travel with companions - because he can't see the wonder in the universe any more. "When you make the whole of time and space your back yard, what you get is a back yard." I feel similarly about this 5-month break which is not a break; it seems there is a limit to the amount of time you can consistently feel on holiday. When you make holiday living your every day life, what you get is an every day life.

I'm currently in rural Wales visiting family, waiting to hear about extras castings (as ever), and trying to treat the week like a proper holiday. Time away. Don't think about work. I don't count extra-ing as work because I really love it, so I'm trying not to think about tour guiding, which I don't love. I'm actually getting pretty fed up with it tbh. But I feel slightly trapped by needing to have an employer to write references for future things, and the tour company boss is the only person who can currently fill that role so I have to stay on his good side. Not that he would have time to write any references anyway, so I'm not sure what I'm trying to get out of this...

I have changed my desktop wallpaper on my laptop to a summery image of a Hawaiian resort, because a) I grew up in Hawaii and find pictures of it comforting, b) it's a summery image and therefore maybe will help remind me I'm on a proper holiday, and c) I usually stress out a bit when I'm away and open my computer because I'm reminded of all the things I left behind, so I'm experimenting with avoiding that. We'll see. I am enjoying seeing it, at any rate, so I've achieved something.

But if the only way I can come up with to help me feel more relaxed is to change my desktop wallpaper, things are getting serious. Suggestions on postcards. x

After Oliver

It's official: Oliver Twist is OVER.

What madness. It still literally feels like a few days ago I was e-mailing the director, saying sorry I can't make the auditions but are there any small parts for me, I'll be around in July. That was 3 months ago. THREE MONTHS.

Time is going by so very fast, though I'm not sure what would need to happen for it to go by slowly. I keep feeling like I want time to stop, I don't want the future to happen yet because I need something to look forward to and if it's happening, that means it soon will have happened, and what the hell then?

On top of which I'm entering the post-play void which inevitably descends after each production. It's been such good fun and I'm so sad it's over; I always am, so it's no surprise, but the thought that I won't be able to go on that stage and be that character and do those scenes again is genuinely upsetting!

I'll just have to replace it by becoming even more obsessed with the Codeword in the i (and other papers too, apparently - maybe I should start buying those), and oh wait yeah maybe finish those short stories I told my friend I'd write ages ago? I do have plenty to keep me busy, and lots of active relaxing + healing as ever, but I'm going to be feeling that empty Oliver-shaped space for a while. Sadface.

Facebook => Envy

The nice thing about Facebook is that it allows you to keep up with what all your friends and acquaintances are doing.

The problem of Facebook is that it allows you to keep up with what all your friends and acquaintances are doing.

I'm supposed to be chilling out atm. Relaxing. Healing. Having a break. Which I've almost forgotten how to do, so it really doesn't help when I go on Facebook quite innocently and am then bombarded with all the shit my peers are achieving. You know, the Oxford types who write 4 plays, establish a travel magazine and direct Macbeth in one term, and then get a 1st. All these disgustingly energetic, healthy people who can do whatever the fuck they want.

And here's me, stuck at home trying to remember how to relax and stop putting pressure on myself, to stop setting targets and goals and forcing myself to achieve, achieve, achieve. What the hell would I be doing if I wasn't stuck here healing, you know? What if I was as healthy and happy as them? Their CVs are exploding, and I'm not jealous from a jobs perspective (although there is that), because it's not just having a full CV. It's having a CV full of stuff that I want to do. Stuff that I like to think I would be doing if I was running on all cylinders like they are. This revolves around acting and writing, mostly, though there are all kinds of other things too.

I know that if they're happy doing those things, that happiness probably stems only partly from the activities and achievements themselves, and partly from other life factors. But that doesn't shake the huge sense of injustice, of unfairness. Which is rare, actually, in this kind of context. I often resent what I've been through, I find it sad to the point of tragedy how much of my youth I've lost to it, but the "why is this happening to me?" sentiment is not one I'm that familiar with. Now I know why people whinge about it so much...

F*ck Mirrors!

I'm having a moment here.

I was watching a video about putting sticky notes on your mirror(s) with nice qualities about you, and then I started wondering what if I put a diagram of how mirrors work from a physics point of view, to remind yourself that that's all it is. Light bouncing off cells and surfaces and hitting your eyes upside-down and getting flipped over by your brain etc. How all it can show you is the outermost layer of your body as a living organism.

And then it occurred to me that this whole thing of 'you get what you give', 'you're a good person, people love you' etc is quite a nice parallel. Because you are reflected in other people. The way you treat them affects the way they treat you. The way they think of you might be totally different to the way you think of yourself, but then all they're going on is the way you behave towards them, and that's normally very positive. Because we're good at convincing ourselves that we're useless etc, but if you want to know what you look like, use other people as a mirror. Temperament, personality, honesty, integrity - all personal traits reflect themselves in other people, just the same way light reflects off matter.

So please, everybody reading this, stop obsessing over that piece of f*cking glass and go find out what you really look like. The end.

No rest for the wicked

Work is so exhausting!
That's what I have to say right now.

Working supposedly 1 day a week as a tour guide in Oxford but have been doing more than that as a sort of booster start. Every day I've come home I've been absolutely shattered; in fact today, I'm still shattered from yesterday. (Didn't help I forgot to take my meds this morning so have been half-asleep all day, but I'm not really talking physical tiredness here.)

I don't know why it's so draining. It's quite nerve-wracking, I mean, I have to take these groups round and pray that I do well enough to earn money, since their tips minus commission to head office is all the pay I get, so I really feel the pressure. And it's so disheartening and demoralising when you get a stingy group who give you nothing and you're like, well why did I just bother taking you round then? Not working next week at all that I know of, thank fuck! (Unless there's a sudden private booking that needs to be covered, I've just got my fingers crossed that there won't be...)

It's crazy how I'm just tired ALL THE TIME. But then, this is the first time I've actually given myself a break, with no goals (theoretically at least) to meet, for the first time in 9 years. So I need to reach targets with rehearsals and work and I'm writing some short stories as well (Doctor Who fanfiction ftw, megalolz), but I'm refusing to set tasks related to the Masters like learning vocab or politics or whatever. It's like when you don't realise you're tired until you sit down and then you can't get out of the chair.

Well, I've just sat down in my metaphorical chair having been on my feet for the last third of my life. So no wonder I can't even contemplate moving.

Managing Healing - what do you do?!

Hey everyone.

As you may know I came back from Russia in the beginning of April because I basically couldn't take any more - stress from my job, stress from other people messing me around, and all of that on top of other things I was trying to deal with to begin with. When I went out, I was still recovering from the huge amount of stress that is Oxford - and let's not forget that the end of that term was marked by an overdose - and had then been put through a pretty awful summer of uncertainty and frustration just trying to get to Moscow in the first place. When I got there, I spent the first couple of months starting to process the overdose, which I hadn't done until then, and that was obviously quite tough.

What it comes down to is that I hadn't had a break since my depression started, not a real break, not the kind of break that you leave feeling actually able to face life again. Any of the experiences that have fallen between 2004 and now would have warranted some healing time, but part of what's made it such a struggle is that I never get that chance, and every new trial comes before the weight of the one before has been lifted. I was kinda feeling like a huge Jenga tower - just about upright, but put one more block on the top, or take one out from the middle, and I'll collapse completely. That's what was happening. That's why I had to finally put my foot down and leave.

I know it was the right decision because as soon as I made it, something changed. I decided I was going to leave on a particularly horrible afternoon, and that evening I was going out to an English club. As I stood in the metro watching the train coming down through the tunnel, I suddenly realised that I had no desire to jump in front of it. Without even being consciously aware of it, that's what I had been thinking every time I stood on a metro platform for I don't even know how long. I had never been planning to do it, it's just that the thought always crossed my mind, in the way that when you pass a holiday advert you momentarily picture yourself on that beach. Realising that it had stopped was what alerted me to how fucked up it was.

I've been home for two months, and I really don't know where the time has gone. I wanted to use it for healing, but I don't know how to go about it. I'm torn between wanting to set myself tasks and goals, and feeling that actually the constant need for tasks and goals might be contributing to this mess in the first place. I'm not very good at letting things happen gradually, following their own course, even though they have been. I'm not nearly as depressed as I was, in fact I've been feeling much better; my eating and more importantly my attitude to eating has changed, and those are both massive results. But I was sensing that within weeks of coming back, so what have I done with the time since then?

I think the worry is legitimate because I'm starting a Masters in October and if I'm not ready for, if I'm not healed enough by then, I honestly don't know what the fuck I'm gonna do. But neither do I know how to ensure that the necessary healing happens. Aaaah!

Just back from a rehearsal, but for some reason I seemed to be having something of an off night tonight. It just happens sometimes - anyone else reading this who acts will know what I mean - it's not that you can't concentrate, you DO concentrate, it just has no effect! No involvement or engagement with the scenario or the characters, idk why. Maybe cos I'm knackered lol.

Got back late this afternoon from Wales, where I was visiting my family, chiefly my grandma on my dad's side. She lives in a little caravan in my aunt & uncle's garden, the idea being that she still has some degree of independence and so do they, but she turned 90 this spring and she broke her thigh recently so it's been a bit strained up there. She does need to be looked after, to a greater degree than she would like to think, so it's wearing the rest of the family down a bit; still, at least there are a few of them (my dad's 2 sisters and their husbands, and sometimes my cousins who don't live there any more but can be around). Given all that going on it was surprisingly pleasant, though the fact that I didn't do very much is probably connected lol. I was only there for one full day, in which we went out for lunch and then I went to the book club my aunties both attend for dinner, which was surprisingly interesting considering I hadn't read the book!

In other news I got an e-mail today from the research team at the hospital, who used to do regular assessments while I was receiving CBT for my eating disorder. I knew I was going to have an assessment around now because it will have been over a year since I finished the programme, I can't remember when I officially finished because we did quite a bit of hopping around and stopping and starting. I have a funny feeling this is the 2-years-after-end-of-treatment one, but that can't be right because I know I finished officially in 4th Year...anyway, soon I will have to go up to the hospital and be asked loads of awkward questions about my eating and my thinking and all that bollocks, which I'm not looking forward to, but I already know that my answers are going to be drastically different from what they were last time.
And there's something comforting in that.
x