Mental health🌹
So, I did a thing.
I auditioned for a play.
I got casted.
Rehearsed for weeks.
Studied my lines often.
Gave my all. Or all of what I could give.
I had no acting experience.
But I wanted to at least give the play a try.
You know? Do something I've always been afraid to do.
Down the line I became miserable.
It got bad.
I would cry after rehearsal.
I hated being there. I was literally forcing myself to attend rehearsal.
I found myself having emotional breakdowns.
One was during rehearsal, it was bad. So bad I just couldn't finish rehearsing. I couldn't stop crying, because of that I just left rehearsal early.
Did I want to quit?
Yes.
Did I?
Nope. I told myself 'No you're not going to quit; you're going to finish what you started.'
So, I showed up to the next few rehearsals, until one particular rehearsal completely killed my self-esteem.
The director pulled me and a few other African American actors/actresses to the side (not the ones that were phenomenal) but I guess to this director we were the ones that sucked so bad. And he compared us to the Caucasian actors. Not the other African American actors, but the Caucasian actors. His exact words were 'Don't let those white people show you guys up, because right now they're doing better than you.'
For me that was heartbreaking, because I was literally trying my best, and I was honest from day one I told him I had no acting experience, and really acting wasn't my thing, but I still gave my all, and I didn't want to be a disappointment. But it just felt like 'wow I still wasn't good enough.' I cried that night, because his words were stuck on repeat in my mind. And I knew I wasn't going to continue being a part of the cast.
The next day there was a fitting to try on our costumes, I didn't go, me not going caused me to get recasted, and honestly, I just didn't even care anymore, because I was miserable after a while. I was not sad at all about not being casted anymore. Because I genuinely felt like they would've been better off without me.
Since I wasn't in the play anymore, I was happier. I wasn't crying anymore. Such heavy weights were lifted off of more shoulders. And in that moment, I've truly learned to walk away from anything that's damaging my mental health.
-J.S.