Anxiety: It's a Dilly of a Pickle

I did my monologue for theatre the other day. While I'm sure I got a good grade, I feel like I failed. I spent time beforehand practicing, making faces at certain parts, and making specific descriptive motions. I had it down, man. But when I got up there in front of the class, anxiety took over. Sure, I remembered all my lines (thus why I probably got a good grade) and did most of the motions I practiced, but I feel my anxiety held me back and rendered my performance unconvincing.

They say the only way to get over your fears is to face them. The thing about this is, it only works if you face them and then have a positive or at least neutral experience. So if you're afraid to drive, then one day you take out the car and crash it and kill seven people, that's not going to help your fear of driving any, it only makes it worse. Trust me, I beat myself up over what I deemed was a bad performance, because beating myself up is what I do. I can't help it. I do it with a lot of things, where I think about them over and over again and cringe and say spirits (my calming word).

So there are two problems here, two forms of anxiety, neither of which respond to logic. My anxiety doesn't do me any good, at least none that I can see. It only causes me problems. Yet, I can't just turn it off because things don't work that way. The first form of anxiety is my fear of people. The second form is the beating up of myself. I could have focused on the positives, like how I remembered all my lines and made good gestures. But I focus on the negatives.

So this leaves me in a dilly of a pickle. I really don't know what the solution is. Facing my fears reinforces them, doing nothing does nothing. And drugs won't even work! Because the drugs that kill or ease anxiety lead to drowsiness and slurred speech, two things that will also kill a performance.

I could give up acting, that wouldn't be a problem, except that I know that my anxiety problem will do more than just hinder an acting career. If I were to become famous for my book, and someone invited me on a television show, I would be too nervous to do a decent interview, especially if it was filmed in front of an audience. Any social encounter in which I have a vested interest in making a good impression could be destroyed by my anxiety.

So that's why I can't give up. Therefore, I will take acting again next semester.