TL;DR: Directing is fun, but I have anxiety and it's an uphill battle that I am winning, hooray
Now that I've been a director for a couple weeks, I've learned something about my crippling anxiety:
1. You can't have crippling anxiety when you're some kind of authority figure,
2. If you do, you better damn well not show it, and
3. This is harder than it sounds.
Directing is easier than I thought, especially with Jane around, and I've been loving this semester. I'm getting more confident, especially about ordering people around, every day. Still, I have to keep my anxiety in check. It's a struggle.
I just. In general, it's hard to recover from an anxiety disorder. Yeah, I have a mild variant of a disorder (not so bad as to never go outside, but bad enough to make me worry constantly and stay at home every once in a while just because I'm too overwhelmed). I'm constantly fighting it. I get tired of going into the world and obsessing over everything I say and do. I'm never comfortable unless I'm alone, and even then I can fuck up at any time. It's exhausting, and with more responsibilities to juggle at once, there are more things I can spontaneously fail at.
It's hard to explain how something like this feels to people, so I don't. I'm getting better at keeping my anxiety at a distance, and most of the time I try to hide it. This is partly because people might think I'm just overreacting (and I often am... but I can't always control it, thus the disorder bit). I also think that would be making excuses for my avoidant and awkward behavior, which I don't want to do.
Hell, I wish I could just relax, but I can't. I can't just snap my fingers and not care about what anyone thinks. It sucks, guys. When I'm alone and forget to take my medicine, I go over the day's social situations where I might have said something wrong or awkward. It's some kind of shameful, internal self-lashing. I try to stop, but it's terrifyingly compulsive.
Directing is stressful, then, for me. Not impossible, but hard to get through sometimes. I have to talk to a lot of people. I have to be authoritative, but not too authoritative. I have to be friendly, but not too friendly. I have to know what I'm doing, but also be flexible about my ideas. That's a lot of healthy balances to hit correctly.
Sometimes I'm afraid someone will hate me for something I say, directing-wise or conversing-wise. I know this fear might be annoying in itself, but again, I struggle constantly to keep my anxiety at bay.
I'm working on not letting it show. I'm getting better about being decisive. Still need to work on the rambling, but you know.
I just want to be a good director! I want my actors to be happy, so they can perform at their talented best. I want to get the show running and create a believable, compelling tragedy. I love my co-director and my cast and I adore how eager everyone is to get shit done well.
Healing takes a long time, and I hope I'll become more confident and self-reliant the more we prepare for the show.
1. You can't have crippling anxiety when you're some kind of authority figure,
2. If you do, you better damn well not show it, and
3. This is harder than it sounds.
Directing is easier than I thought, especially with Jane around, and I've been loving this semester. I'm getting more confident, especially about ordering people around, every day. Still, I have to keep my anxiety in check. It's a struggle.
I just. In general, it's hard to recover from an anxiety disorder. Yeah, I have a mild variant of a disorder (not so bad as to never go outside, but bad enough to make me worry constantly and stay at home every once in a while just because I'm too overwhelmed). I'm constantly fighting it. I get tired of going into the world and obsessing over everything I say and do. I'm never comfortable unless I'm alone, and even then I can fuck up at any time. It's exhausting, and with more responsibilities to juggle at once, there are more things I can spontaneously fail at.
It's hard to explain how something like this feels to people, so I don't. I'm getting better at keeping my anxiety at a distance, and most of the time I try to hide it. This is partly because people might think I'm just overreacting (and I often am... but I can't always control it, thus the disorder bit). I also think that would be making excuses for my avoidant and awkward behavior, which I don't want to do.
Hell, I wish I could just relax, but I can't. I can't just snap my fingers and not care about what anyone thinks. It sucks, guys. When I'm alone and forget to take my medicine, I go over the day's social situations where I might have said something wrong or awkward. It's some kind of shameful, internal self-lashing. I try to stop, but it's terrifyingly compulsive.
Directing is stressful, then, for me. Not impossible, but hard to get through sometimes. I have to talk to a lot of people. I have to be authoritative, but not too authoritative. I have to be friendly, but not too friendly. I have to know what I'm doing, but also be flexible about my ideas. That's a lot of healthy balances to hit correctly.
Sometimes I'm afraid someone will hate me for something I say, directing-wise or conversing-wise. I know this fear might be annoying in itself, but again, I struggle constantly to keep my anxiety at bay.
I'm working on not letting it show. I'm getting better about being decisive. Still need to work on the rambling, but you know.
I just want to be a good director! I want my actors to be happy, so they can perform at their talented best. I want to get the show running and create a believable, compelling tragedy. I love my co-director and my cast and I adore how eager everyone is to get shit done well.
Healing takes a long time, and I hope I'll become more confident and self-reliant the more we prepare for the show.