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

Sometimes I don't know if I'm doing the right thing...

...and this is one of those times.

I've been in contact with this guy who is has written, and will direct and star in, a low-budget film. He advertised for amateur actors/actresses which is why I got in touch. And part of the whole low-budget thing means not doing anything through agencies, which is great in that it gives me a chance without an agent, but it also means we know nothing about each other.

Now, I've known from the start that this film will involve a sex scene, and initially I waved it off because I was really interested in the project and, you know, sometimes as an actor you have to do that and that's the end of it! The problem is, of course, that he wants to know before the auditions what the applicants look like, including what they will look like in that scene. i.e., what you look like naked. And fair enough - he knows what he's looking for and he doesn't want to invite people to audition if they're going to turn up and not look right. That's his prerogative as a director.

BUT. I'm just not entirely comfortable with this. If I had no doubts about the legitimacy of him and this project, I wouldn't be worried - but I do, so I am. It turned out, when I pushed with questions, that when he said there would be a sex scene he meant that we as actors would literally have sex, at which point I was in a way quite relieved because it made the decision easy: I'm not prepared to do that, so I'm not interested. Dilemma about whether or not to send him the photos he's asking for: over. But he ended up backing down, saying it could just be acted, and I could keep my underwear on if I wanted under the sheets, and all you'd see would be side shots, back shots and possibly (=probably) my chest. Now see, that's the kind of nudity that frankly every actor is probably going to encounter at some point anyway, so if that's all there is to it, then maybe I don't mind. He was very keen for me not to drop out, to get me in for an audition anyway, because I've made it clear that love for acting is my only motivator and he likes that. And I'm thinking that maybe I would go for a smaller part instead if I was offered one.

In the end, I sent 2 photos which are in no way 'sexy' (lol), but put it this way, he was wanting to make sure that I don't have some crazy skin disease/am not covered in scars (you have no idea how much I lol'd inside at that), and people see that much of my body every time I go to the beach in a bikini anyway. I did make sure that my head/face was not in them, juuuust in case - I wanted to make sure they were just photos of a body, rather than identifiable photos of me, if they're going anywhere via e-mail.

But the fact remains that his attitude doesn't really make me feel comfortable, and I know literally nothing about him and have no-one's word but his that he is who he says. His e-mail address doesn't even have the company name or his surname in, for fuck's sake, and he doesn't have a website either. He asked for some references for the plays I've been in, and I asked for some from him, which he said he'll provide after the auditions. Hmm. Maybe I'm worrying over nothing, but I can't shake the impressions of "I bet you're loving this, getting all these girls to send you photos of themselves", know what I mean?

Gah. I just don't know if I'm doing the right thing. Because if there's one thing I learnt from Russia, it's to get the hell out the first bad feeling you get. And I do have a bad feeling about this, but I don't know if it's worth persisting a bit further at least to find out more. I just. don't. know.

Madness never seems like madness to the mad

I've just been reading a really fascinating article on schizophrenic hallucinations by Yvonne Nahat. This is not something I have any personal experience with, but her writing is fantastic and it just draws you right in. There was a particular paragraph on madness that I got so excited about I had to tweet immediately! (OK, that doesn't take much. But STILL.) Because I can't say I know about schizophrenia, but I sure know a thing or two about madness, and it is so incredibly difficult to express. I think she hits the nail right on the head:

Would anyone have said to me "Yvonne you are ill you must see a doctor," I would have thought the person talking to me has gone mad and does not realize the magnitude of what is going on here! Madness never seems like madness to the mad. It is an unshakeable reality or a reality that shakes everything, things become rearranged, they reach a new order or constellation. The music from the Hurricane film is on: "Nobody knows what trouble I've seen.......he had to fight developing his natural right....a freedom bigger than life a freedom with many dimensions........I am the inescapable, the unintelligible, the unnegotiable, the unchallenged.....I AM TIME.... I hold no prejudice......you can't conceal me....cover me run from me ......I AM TIME.....many have wasted me but now you're facing me.......I AM TIME .......I can't even explain the pain.....imagine if your life were like a hurricane."

I think that should be put into acting textbooks, for those who've never personally ventured outside sanity trying to understand a character who frequently does. Maybe it's just me who finds that so eloquent, because I already know exactly what she's talking about; maybe somebody to whom that is all new would make no sense of it at all. But reading that felt like sitting down after 3 hours on your feet doing something stressful which you've now finished. Just... Aaaaaaaaaaah. :)

For the full article: http://www.archetypewriting.com/articles/psychology/Hallucinations.htm

(Not) Busy ... ?

I'm a bit confused by the last month or so. 3 weeks since I left Russia, and while I certainly have been much less stressed, I don't seem to have been less busy. I suppose it doesn't help that in the couple of weeks before I left Moscow I was doing practically nothing, having quit my job, and was worrying that my time at home was going to turn into one of those long drags of never-ending nothingness somehow filled with time killing. There's nothing worse than realising the week has ended and you've done nothing, and you think, what the hell have I been doing for 7 days?! (Well, ok, there are worse things, but within the topic of passing time and its relation to sanity, it's definitely right down there.)

So here's a breakdown of where the last 3 weeks have gone:

Week 1 - Holland. Lovely little holiday visiting my sister en famille, although it was exhausting after a very, very long journey back from Moscow. (38 hours without sleep is bad enough if you're doing nothing, let alone being busy the whole time.)

Week 2 - Had a cold for a few days, which was predictable, actually I'm surprised it took my body that long to get ill! And then I had to learn the 40-page, over-2-hour tour script for the tourguiding company I've joined and will be working for soon. It's a mammoth task, take it from me. I was, or so I thought, being tested on it, so it was quite stressful as well as time-consuming.

Week 3 - Masters interview. Again, took some preparation, mainly trying to remember how to speak French. In the end it went ok, and I should hear within a couple of weeks, but it certainly didn't allow me to just kick back and take a break! And now I have the *actual* test on the tour material this coming Monday, so this weekend isn't a big kick-back either. Sadface :(

I've been keeping a log of pretty much everything I do during the day, and then categorising it with the help of my favourite set of highlighters (stationery love :') ), and it seems that I have actually been mostly doing fun things. There have been educational, productive/constructive, necessary, and therapeutic things, but mostly just "fun". And in fairness, my stress levels have been much lower than you would expect them to be given the job and Masters stuff. But I still just feel like I'm doing nothing! Which I intensely dislike. Need to work out how to move forward from this. Suggestions on postcards. x

The Slow Fade

This keeps coming up, time and time and time again.

Friendships slipping away, closeness getting looser and looser until it's not there any more, shared experiences suddenly not appearing to mean anything.

I have never found a way of dealing with the pain of friendships slowly fading, and I certainly haven't found a way of dealing with what's upsetting me right now, which is the failure of what I thought was a solid bond. And it failed because, well, of me. Not entirely, but chiefly. I won't name any names here but a friend who I hold very dear I think saw the bad side of me, the me I am when I'm upset or anxious or just being a bit stupid, and it went on for a while so that I think it came across as 'the real me'. She was supposedly getting to know the real me, except I wasn't me. And nothing has gone wrong, exactly, which makes it worse - there's nothing I said or did which in itself I can apologise for. I just know that I wasn't great company, that I was quite selfish about some things, and now when we talk it's awkward.

I cannot express how much that hurts. I know I shouldn't worry, but I do, because it's fucking miserable.