Have you ever seen two children (usually one smaller and another a bit older) playing with each other, with one child grabbing the other’s hands and using them to slow turn the their face and say tauntingly, “Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself!”?
All summer it has been nothing for me booking-wise: callback, final callback, availability check, and then no booking. The first or second of these feels good, like people are starting to consider you for more and your audition game is starting to get sharper. After a third or fourth of these, the feeling starts bleeding into sadness. Every avail check feels like a set up to later be disappointed. After crying about this last week, I realized this feels like the same level of devastation as being broken up with. Sometimes it really feels like I’m trying to date my career and it doesn’t want to be my boyfriend, just wants to do a lot of boyfriend things and then still call us “friends” in front of strangers! How fucked up!
Here’s how I have processed this: Since I’m not booking anything it means I’m now a loser, a fraud, and I’ve wasted my time (fear reveal on main), even if I’m in the final consideration for a yeast infection commercial. Because I’m now a loser who barely deserves food or water, I decide that I should not hang out with any of my friends or loved ones since I have no value as an actor and now even less as someone who can’t even book! The simplest job an actor has, right? Anyway this thought process either makes me so emotionally drained that I don’t have any energy to see my friends or I trick myself into thinking that there’s nothing they’d want to see me for anyway. I mean, who wants an actor friend who hasn’t even been a victim on Law and Order: SVU?
Every time I catch myself doing this it’s like I’m watching my past self hijack my present self and saying “stop hitting yourself!” while hitting myself! I hate this! Thankfully I have friends who don’t hate me, so they’re all understanding of this mental trap. I have so much pressure on myself that I forget this is suppose to be fun. Including when I see my friends: they’re proud of me when I lose or win. Thankful!