When Your Favorite Things Become a Burden - Why?

The past few days have been . . . interesting. To help you understand a little, it may be necessary to give you a little more background on myself:

I am a Theatre Geek! I was in my first play (PETER PAN) at 13, but I was performing in varying capacities before then. After an extended break, I started doing theater again in my junior year of high school. It was a very trying time for me (I was back in public school after 5 years of homeschooling, and living with my dad and step mom with 3 step-brothers my same age and a new half-brother not even a year old yet). I needed a place where I felt productive and wanted. A place that I could feel a connection with. A place to escape to . . . That was the theatre.

Theatre was everything! It gave me something to look forward to, a place to belong. When I first started back in high school half-way through my sophmore year I would skip lunches and go read in the library because I had no where else to be and everyone made me feel like I was intruding on "their spot." Now, every lunch period I had people to be with and a place to go. It was intoxicating, and, what's more, I was good at it! I started by doing spot operations and prop design and construction. The next show I acted! After that I continued to perform, but I also was Todo's dog trainer in THE WIZARD OF OZ (I've trained dogs since I was 10) and was the Dramaturg for THE LITTLE WOMEN.

Through all of these experiences, I knew the theatre was where I should be. My dad did not agree. We had many heated conversations about how he felt I couldn't make it a sustainable career. They culminated in him kicking me out of his house the day I graduated high school.

I went on to study theatre at college. My freshman year I participated in every maintstage show and every independent project. I won multiple recognitions in the department. I was accepted into the Bachelor of Fine Arts Program of Theatre Design and Technologies (a difficult decision as I'd wanted to perform more, but I thought I should cultivate practical skills to fill in time between performance contracts). I was a Dance Performance minor (never told my dad that I dropped English as my minor - he always told me I wasn't a good dancer).

The summer after my freshman year I started working at The Utah Shakespearean Festival, and continued working as a props artisan/display intern year-round for the next 2 years. I earned much praise and respect both at the University and at USF. I was on top of the world! I was making career shaping connections, and all I wanted to do with my time was theatre! It fullfilled me and I felt sick and lost without it. I joked about how it was my drug.

Figured by this time my dad would see that I COULD make a career out of theatre, but no matter how much I succeeded and how far I rose, he always remained outwardly skeptical and unsupportive.

Fall of 2010: I became overwhelmed. I had started trying to watch what I ate. Going to Australia over christmas to visit a new LDR boyfriend, I wanted to look good in the bikini he sent me. I adopted a Raw foods diet, which can be fairly simple, but takes a lot of thought and prep time. I was also trying to find time to workout.

My theater and class workload was out of control, and I had multiple emotional breakdowns to professors. I thought the problem was that I wasn't focusing on myself, and that I'd just tapped my creative and emotional giving wells dry. I decided to back off on my Theater classes and work in the Spring, and given that I'd decided to marry this Australian and go over there the next year, I didn't have to worry about taking specific classes to stay on track to graduate the next year.

It was two and a half months into this break from theater that I purged for the first time. Time went on, and I tried to stay involved in the department, but they'd moved on. At the end of year banquet (where 2 years before I was praised without ceasing), not a single one of my accomplishments in the department were recognized. They didn't need me anymore.

USF hired other artisans that summer since I was leaving . . . they didn't need me anymore.

I fell deeper and deeper into my eating disorder.

PRESENT DAY! . . .

My Australian guy and I are getting divorced, and my dad are no longer speaking.

When I got to Aspen I thought I should find some things to keep me busy and to start meeting people. I emailed a couple local theaters offering my volunteer services. After hearing about my experience, going over my portfolio, and talking with me, Theatre Aspen offered me the Props Mistress job. I turned it down, however, as financially it couldn't support me with what I needed at the time.

However, two months ago the emailed me asking for help as their current Props Mistress broke her shoulder in a bike accident, 1 week before 1st preview of their first show. I took on the task of helping them get that show open and in opening the other 2, while still working full-time at my other job.

I should have been ecstatic! I mean, I'm good at what I do, and I LOVE what I do . . . right? Surprisingly, I found myself completely and overwhelmingly stressed out. Things that used to have great importance to me in regards to putting up a show seemed so trivial. I began to understand why I loved escaping to this place. Everyone stresses about paint color and costumes being wrinkled. In the grand scheme of things, if ever there were more unimportant things, these are it! I remember WHY I stressed though . . . It was all about creating the best art possible, because that art delivered a message. The whole point of theater (to me at least) is to hold up a mirror and offer a safe and entertaining environment for people to evaluate themselves, their lives, and learn something that could better all of that.

Suddenly, though, no of that seemed important.

Plus, quite frankly, it was getting in the way! It was interfering with my workouts, and it was interfering with what I wanted to eat and when, and making it VERY difficult to purge when I needed to. One night all I could think about was food and purging and exercising while I had many other things to do for the theater, and so I just sat there for three hours going in circles in my head.

How did I get here? When did I replace a healthy addiction (theater provided me so many of my basic human needs, including a potentially rich career) with a stupid one that now gets in the way of doing things I once loved?!

My fear is that it's lost for good. That I'm so emotionally wrecked that I'll never be able to healthily handle the stressful nature of theatre again.

I thought that theatre helped me find myself and my place in this world. Without it, who am I? And since it's been replaced with my E.D., without that who am I? Strip me of everything I've done and accomplished, and what's left? I have no idea, and that's the scary part. But I wish I could go back to when things were simpler and I felt I understood myself. When I was passionate about what I did, and did what I was passionate about. Is it possible to have that back?  ...