Part of me finds it ironic that the title and inspiration for this, my second post, would come from my Script Analysis class. Most of the time, I have a hard time focusing in that class, but this last week, I managed and actually got some real, life changing thoughts from it. First though, a recap of the last two months or so. Yes it has been two months, so bear with me.
I love the Musical Theatre Program at the University of Utah. We are working hard in school to prepare for auditions for Songs For A New World, the musical that we are doing in the spring, right before the showcase. The music is so fun and moving. I am going to enjoy this, and am working hard to be ready for them. We had those auditions this last Saturday, the 20th. It was a four hour ordeal, but we all managed brilliantly. We all had our flubs, I personally was dealing with throat issues the entire time, but I had my friends there to support me, and I them. We will know the results as early as tomorrow, but definitely by Wednesday of this week. We are all nervous to see what will happen, but I mainly an just excited to be working with such talented people.
Our class load has not eased up, and I am with some of the other who are struggling a bit to get everything done. I think we manage well, and help each other out as much as we can. We are all trying to balance personal lives with school, work, and other distractions. It is like having a second family. The ironic thing is that I see them more than my real family at times. They are just like me too, dealing with some of the same issues, having the hard times. I cannot describe how much these people mean to me, and how much they inspire and lift me to great heights. I do not doubt that were it not for them, I would not be here still. At the moment, they are one of my biggest rocks, and help me to continue on, even when life gets darker than you think you can handle. I will explain more about this later.
I have finally made it a habit of going to the gym Monday through Friday, and it is entirely due to my new friends Chance and Josh, who provide daily training, and motivation, since they are both athletes( which I am not), highly attractive( which I am working on), and toned( also something I am working on). I am really starting to see the results of the hard work. My legs are amazing, if I do say so myself. I have lost almost 30 pounds, four inches off my waist, and I keep going. It is extremely satisfying, and I hope to be around 200 pounds by Christmas, and hope to have the workings of abs by my birthday.
We got our first show, the MTP, in October. We performed with a company called Vox Lumier. They take silent films, in our case The Phantom of the Opera, compose music, and have live actors dance and sing while the film plays in the background. It was an awesome experience. The music was the most difficult I have ever seen, or performed, and we did it well. It was a fabulous experience, and a great honor.
Work wise, I finally completed all of my training, which is nice, cause I hated going to all of the trainings. Now they are done, and they have me closing the store two to three times a week now. It is nice, I am trying to be the cool boss that everyone likes, but gets the work done. I think I am succeeding, we shall see.
Dating was horrible for me up till Halloween. More very typical for me experiences of one date and then the lame excuses. I was really starting to get annoyed. Then on Halloween, I decided to go west coast dancing, which I haven't done in over a year. I got there late, after coming from a different party that I left once they started opening beer upside-down. I decided to stop by and check it out. I ended up getting in a fabulous waltz with my friend Lindsey, and as I was walking out the door, got stopped by this girl, who insisted that I dance with her before I left. I did. She was a great follow, and pretty as all get out. I was flattered that she had picked me out of the crowd, much less asked me to dance. I later found out her name was Heather. I ended up asking her to come see a ballet with me later that week, and I have been seeing her ever since. She is a smart, honest, and attractive girl, who helps me in many ways. She has been one of my biggest confidence boosters on many fronts. It will be interesting to see if it goes anywhere. I hope that it does, mainly due to the fact that she is the kind of girl I have been looking to date for a while. We shall see. I am doing my best to work on being a good partner in our relationship, and though I feel I fail gloriously sometimes, i am trying hard. What will happen will happen, but for now, things are good.
As far as performing goes, I am currently in rehearsals for Ebenizer Scrooge, a Christmas ballet that I have been a part of for three years now. This year I have a much bigger part. I am a shopkeeper in the opening and closing scene, as well as Fezziwig, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Future. I am very excited, cause I have fallen in love with Ballet, and look forward to putting some of my new knowledge into play on stage. I am also preparing for a second reading of my play, Pollifax. It should be an interesting evening. I am excited.
Personally, life has become a series of ups and downs. I am still relatively new at dealing with my depression. Each person deals differently, depending on how their personal attacks happen. For the sake of letting you into my head, here is what a typical attack consists of. It starts with a general feeling of blue. Sometimes it can be triggered by a comment of a friend or co worker, sometimes it just drops on you out of nowhere. Then the voices start. These voices normally sound like my voice, though sometimes in the worst of times they sound like my friends. This is where the title of this post and the play of which it refers to comes in. I will digress for just a moment.
In the play, The main character beats his wife severely, because he keeps having thoughts in his mind about her, the way she dresses, the things that she does, the places she goes. His mind tells him why she does these things, and in essence, lies to him. " oh, she is doing this cause she doesn't care for you. She is cheating on you, she doesn't love you, she wishes you were dead." In the end, he has to determine what is real and what is not.
The voices in my head, when I am in the midst of an attack, do the same thing. " You are no good. Your friends don't care about you, they just talk to you cause you are there. You aren't cool enough to invite you to do anything outside of school, where we have to be around you. You aren't talented enough to succeed. You aren't worth it to date. You are fat and ugly and always will be, no matter how hard you work. You have no reason to still be here. We wouldn't care if you were gone." The diatribe of lies strikes, and many times it presents evidence in my mind to support them. It gets really convincing, which is when I usually recognize that I am having an attack. It is a problem that I have always dealt with. I have always been an instigator. From the time that I started in school here in North Salt Lake, i have had to instigate a good majority of my social life. Most activities that I do with friends comes after I either invite them, or invite myself along. My brain preys on that now. I long to have the social life I imagined all of the people that I most wanted to be around, the kind where I had people inviting me to do things. I have always found things to do with people while I am in school, or work, or whatever. It has been when that ends, especially school, that I start to doubt my friends, especially the people that I want to hang out with. The lies that my brain tells me get more and more convincing, and that is what the battle turns out to be ninety percent of the time. A battle of lies versus the truth, perceived reality versus reality.
In the couple of months, I have been through the some of the toughest Depression attacks of my life. They have come at random times, some with triggers, and some without. There were many times when I just wanted it to end, I just wanted to be done with them, with the voices in my head, my own personal lies of the mind. There was even a time when I honestly considered suicide. Part of it is that I am trying desperately to find who I am, and what I am meant to do. Part of it is adjusting to friends, and what I want from them. Tragedy has reared its head in my life, and dealing with it has been a struggle. Part is dealing with my self-worth issues, which are deep, hard, and vicious. Part is also trying to get back to God, and dealing with that. Part is seeing people in my life that I see going down paths that I hate to see them go down, and feeling powerless to stop them.
Thankfully, I have new weapons in my arsenal. Part is my medications, though I think they don't do that much for me, just mainly taking the edge off. Part is getting back in touch with God, praying and reading my scriptures more. Part is my MTP family, who help me as I struggle by giving me a reason to keep going. Part is Heather, who has helped me start to see myself in a different light than I have been able to in the last year. She has helped me in dealing with some of my depression issues, whether she knows it or not. Part is Daniel and Jeff, who are some of my good friends. They have been a never-ending source of help, whether it be the fun lunches, the great stories, or the late night movies of great Canadian TV. Part is Josh and Chance, who are two of my best friends. They help me to feel like a regular guy, which I have never really felt before, especially with my interests. They help me to feel cool, like I actually belong. They are helping me to see the lies of my mind for what they are, lies, and are helping me to change my life for the better. Whether it be the late and long phone calls or chats on Facebook, or the numerous gym sessions, they have been there for me. I enjoy every minute that I spend with them, because of how I feel when I am with them, and I try to savor every second that I have with them. I feel invincible, like I can take the world. I feel my self-worth, and love to listen o their stories of success. I hope that I can be there for them as much as they are there for me. I work hard to be the kind of friend that they are to me. I hope that one day, I can succeed as well as they have.
So there is my life in a nut shell. I hope to be better with this in the future, but who knows, we shall see. Love you all, may you read this, and know me better man.
