Please exit hell by the rear doors

In school, I was bullied a lot. Secondary school was hell for me from the very first day, because one of the other girls decided to pick on me. It started like this: I chose a seat and was just about to sit down when she slammed her bag onto the table and shouted:"That's my seat!" and wouldn't let me sit.
Since I am a shy person and didn't want to start an argument five minutes after officially starting fifth grade, I simply chose a different seat. But somehow, she decided that I was going to be her target, and she made my life hell. And the class, seeing that she was popular, joined in. The teachers didn't help, some of them even joined in: I was never good at mathematics, especially not when put on the spot and asked to calculate something in my head. Unfortunately for me, this was one of our teacher's favourite games: quickly spout an equation at someone and get them to calculate as quickly as possible. Things like "five times three minus four plus two". Now I can do this, but not when stressed and put on the spot. And when everyone was laughing at me for being slow, he made it worse by calling me something like slowcoach to everybody's amusement. Except mine. And my classmates informed all teachers that I was slow when they asked me to answer in class. Of course it was all fun, everybody was just joking. I was being too sensitive.
But honestly, I wasn't. I can take a joke, but this?
So I stopped speaking in class unless I was called to speak by the teachers. I faded into the background in the breaks. I was surviving.
It was Karate that saved me: in the dojo, I wasn't the "slowcoach", I wasn't bullied or laughed at. I wasn't great, but I was part of something. And it offered structure and a framework of rules, and even some pride in what I could achieve. I embraced it. The dojo is a special place for me. Whenever I moved, one of the first things I'd look for is a dojo. Because martial arts practice offered peace, offered something like a spiritual home. I loved it.
I moved on to Thai boxing some time, simply because I preferred the location of that dojo and the training was excellent. Exhausting, but also exhilarating. I always felt that, as soon as you enter, you turn into equals, no matter what your skill level was. Training takes discipline, or else you risk getting hurt. And so you take care of yourself and your partner/opponent, while also challenging yourself and them.
Unfortunately, osteoarthritis and Thai boxing don't mix. Karate and osteoarthritis don't mix well, either. So now, I'm doing Tai Chi, and it's such a struggle. I can do the movements, but I don't get into any kind of "flow". I'm too rigid, not soft.
I think my past has taught me not to be soft. I'm friendly to almost everybody, and actually, I think I can be very nice, but I'm not soft. I can be compassionate and forgiving, but I don't apply that to myself. I am not kind to myself, because I cannot. I can power through almost anything, I am strong and fairly tough, but I struggle to be soft and kind to myself. Why? Because it feels like giving up what I worked so hard to achieve. Because I prefer to be tough. Last night, the tai chi teacher asked me to keep my hands soft, and while I really did give it a go, I just felt silly. It's not who I am at this point in my life. Does that mean I should stop practicing tai chi? I don't think so. It's beginning to mean something to me, so I think I should stay. Do I struggle? Yes, I struggle a lot. Karate asked me to be fast and supple and strong. Tai Chi wants me to vary between soft and hard, between ying and yang. So far, I don't see how that works. It's either all ying or all yang, I fail to do anything in between. But maybe that's my mission: I am trying to accept this and not see it as a failure. It's something to work on. I'd like to understand it better, so I'm keeping at it. And maybe it'll teach me something more. So far, what I've learned is that I need a different balance in my life. Because if all this didn't matter, why do I think about it all so deeply, and why does it affect me emotionally? I fear that, if I allow myself to become "soft", I'll lose control of my emotions. That I'll go over some sort of edge. I think I'm so tightly controlled that I often don't really know where my emotions are coming from. Why am I sad? Or angry? And maybe, to achieve true peace of mind, I'll have to let it go, let myself be angry or sad or both. I just don't know how to do that.
So maybe Tai Chi will show me a way, or maybe it won't. At the moment, I enjoy the camaraderie and the exercise, and that's good. No bullying in my life at this point. Just Tai Chi. And much as I want to, I don't even have to be good at that. I just have to keep going, and maybe that's the hardest challenge of all. But I do think I'm at the right place, because my damaged knee can take some Tai Chi, and the movement is beautiful and as close to other martial arts as I'll get at the moment, at least without causing myself more pain than necessary. So this is good, I guess. And maybe one day, I'll finally understand what "mindfulness" means - or what it feels like. I do understand the concept, I just fail to apply it...

It's Monday, it's my day off after a busy weekend, and I'm relaxing as much as I can. I find it difficult to do "nothing" so I tackle things like deep cleaning the litter boxes and so on for my days off. However, Friday showed me that I do need some serious down time, because I'm falling prey to old habits.
On Friday, we were going to get started with the treatment for my knee, so I had to have blood taken. This freaks me out every time, not because it's so bad, but because of the stuff going through my head. I get nervous, but usually, everything's just fine. I tell the nurses that I get nervous, so they are aware. On Friday, however, it was physically impossible to take blood. Everything seemed to seize up. They tried three times and finally got some blood - but when they processed it, they realised that it wasn't good enough to be used any further. The fact that it had to be forced out meant that it didn't process properly and probably wouldn't have been any good. So I left, feeling woozy and like a pin cushion with large bruises on my arm and hands. We'll try again next Friday. I clearly wasn't hydrated enough, although I usually do drink plenty of water. However, I wasn't having a great week. I think the only decent meal I had all week was on Monday night. I have been very stressed by meeting the designated artistic director and several important meetings to do with a huge project I'm involved in (but which I cannot really talk about yet because we don't have any confirmation in writing at this point, so it could all go away again). Meeting the "new boss" was disappointing: she didn't seem prepared, talked about herself at great length (and with considerable speed), name-dropping and stating that she doesn't have a concept for when she takes over. The last part I know to be untrue: I applied for the job myself, and to apply, you had to submit a concept for the theatre. So she did write something, and apparently, it was so good that she was chosen for the job. Or maybe she wasn't chosen because of her clever proposal but because of her (admittedly impressive) CV. Which wouldn't be fair, and which would mean that the committee they put together to find a new artistic director for the theatre was nothing but a farce. On the one hand, of course she cannot give us any facts about her concept, because she won't start for another year, and collaborations need to be found and established, funding needs to be applied for and granted and so on. And I didn't expect her to give us a definitive plan, but I did think she could have read out her concept from her application and talked about that. She could have explained her vision for the theatre, her wishes of how things might be. We work in theatre, of course we can imagine things. I did ask a question, a very clear question: are you planning to keep some sort of repertory theatre going or not? And she didn't give me an answer, although she certainly did talk a lot. So maybe, but maybe not, or maybe not in the way we know it now. If she'd said "honestly, I don't know at this point" or "I do not think so" or anything like that, I'd have been happy. I don't know if I'll be staying on after the coming season, and this meeting and interaction made me veer towards a "no".
Anyway, this stressed me quite a lot. The whole meeting, which was just an overwhelming information - dump, and I got sad and uncomfortable. And angry. It's because this theatre means a lot to me. For a long time, it's given me a place where I feel like I belong, and while it's not always been easy, I have had good times there. It was my first long-time job, and I know that place inside out and with my eyes closed. However, I think I'm ready to move on. Maybe. I don't know. What I do know is that I'll start looking for an alternative.
On Wednesday, we had a rehearsal scheduled, and following that, I had an important online meeting to attend - to do with the project I'll write about at a later point in time.
This was exciting and a bit scary, but it all went well. Thursday, we had a show on in the evening, and it was a lot of work, so I was home really rather late. And due to the fact that I was an emotional mess for most of the week, I slipped back into old habits and lived on caffeine and carbs, and that meant that I was very exhausted and somewhat dehydrated on Friday morning.
I can do better than this, and I will.
And while I'm incredibly nervous about my appointment on Friday, I do hope it'll be alright. I'm trying to do better with my diet this week, and I'm making sure to stay nicely hydrated. I can do this.

Bank holidays are disorientating. It's Tuesday, feels like Monday. I'm not working today, which is good since I worked all weekend except yesterday. Work was good: we're struggling these days because we don't have large numbers of people coming to see our shows. On Friday, we had an audience of 28, which was fine, although that particular evening has always drawn a larger crowd so far. Oh well, maybe everyone has seen it now?
Saturday was a big surprise. It's a play we chose last year because it's a huge success all over the country, but it's been less than successful, to say the least. However, we had 50 people in the audience, after a total of 18 people dropped by without booking tickets in advance. That's very, very rare since we're in the middle of nowhere. It was a great show. I spend it behind a wall, helping with costume changes and prop handling, so I never see the damn show anyway, but the audience were clapping along when one of the actors was dancing and the jokes all got really big laughs, and the applause was phenomenal.
Sunday brought an audience of 17, and the show was pretty dull. It's only one hour long, but it felt like a lot more than that. It's a production I'm not fond of, anyway, because it's poorly directed.

Yesterday, we went for food with my gf's cousin, and had a very nice afternoon with good food.

But today, I woke up in quite a lot of pain - my knee is acting up again. It was really good for a couple of weeks, and over the weekend, it went downhill. Today's physical therapy was a challenge, but I managed, and I'll go to my tai chi class tonight, as well.
On Friday, I have an appointment to see my new ortho doc again, and we discussed starting ACP-therapy (autologous conditioned plasma), which is something my health insurance does not cover. But I am willing to give it a try, anyway, because the doctor thinks that it could greatly improve my situation and says she has even witness people being pain-free for a long time afterwards. I'm sceptical, because the pain has been there for over thirty years now, and I don't know what it feels like to be without pain. However, I'll do it, because what else is there to do? I don't see pain meds as my way forward, although it's possible to manage the pain like that for the foreseeable future, it's something I really do not like. I'm not an addict, but addiction runs in my family, and while I do of course take my meds for my diabetes, and I do take pain meds when my knee annoys me too much, but I don't want pain medication to become something I rely on.
There's something I realised a very short while ago: I am tough. Physically in any case - I've been living with chronic pain since I was a teenager, and I can take a lot of additional pain. Mentally - I think I'm also rather tough in spite of the depression, or maybe because of the depression. Or maybe I'm just stubborn?
I think my martial arts experience has taught me to always get up when I've been knocked down - always get up once more than you've been knocked down. It's my way of coping. I'm not sure it's always healthy, but it works. I'm still standing, metaphorically speaking.
So I'm doing what I can to keep moving, and I'm happy to try this treatment, although it'll cost me an arm and a leg. I do hope we can start with the proper treatment on Friday, but if the inflammation hasn't died down enough, there'll be another shot of cortisone and another week spent hoping for it to work until we can get going. I'm not sure what today's pain means: more inflammation, less inflammation? Random chance? I don't know. I do know it's annoying as hell, though.

So I guess I'll be OK no matter what happens at work, even if it doesn't feel like it right now. We're getting a new boss next year, and she's going to change the way our theatre runs. The way it sounds, it'll no longer be repertory theatre, but instead host a number of guests or collaborators? There's talk of it being "curated theatre", and she wants to open the theatre to the community, have parties, concerts, circus performances instead of putting on regular plays.
I understand why this is an attractive plan: when you work collaboratively, you can access funding from different sources, for example. And mixing things up and offering a wider range of performances might attract an audience more easily. We struggle partially because we "only" have 12 plays in our repertoire and keep showing those, because that's how things work: we can rehearse for six weeks and show the result regularly for as long as we can. This way, we can offer our freelance actors some income, and we can advertise and so on. But the new system seems to promise a quicker pace, maybe shows only being shown for on weekend or similar, so there'll be a quick turnover and no repetitions.
However, what I enjoy about my work is the creative process. We rehearse together, and later I'm in charge of the plays as a stage manager, making sure everything is available and ready and so on. I feel we're making theatre together, and I have some artistic input and so on. If we only have curated theatre, my work will very likely be reduced to stage managing the various groups, which of course I can do, because I think I'm fairly good at my job, but I think I'd no longer have a part in the creative process or any artistic input. I'm on minimum wage as it is, and I have stuck with my job for this long because I enjoyed it. My working hours are crap, I always work weekends and many late nights, and if the part I enjoy the most is gone, I don't know what's going to keep me there. I don't mind the hours or working weekends, and although it would be nice to earn more money, I do OK as it is. But if my heart's not in it any longer, why should I stay? Out of a feeling of obligation? Out of fear that I won't find a job? In a way, I'm afraid I'll never work in a theatre again if I leave, and that thought makes me sad. I love the theatre, and it's what I know. However, I could find a different job at a different theatre, I do have qualifications and experience. I could also try to find a regular job and still work as a theatre educator or a drama therapist. I could run my own free group. I just don't know right now. And that's OK, I don't need to make any decisions at this point. But it's on my mind, and it's keeping me awake at nights.

I did something cool last week, though: I finished my essay. To officially qualify as a drama therapist, I had to do a practical project, which I completed in September 2022. And then, I had to write about my project and evaluate it and my own progress. And it took me until last week to finally finish this task. 38 pages. I had to send it to my tutors to review, and once that's done, I'll have to print it and bind it and officially submit it. I do expect that I'll need to do quite a few alterations, but I have taken a huge step towards qualifying, so there's that.

I’m super-anxious today and it sucks so much!
So what’s up? I have my check-up at the diabetologist’s tomorrow and I’m afraid that my blood sugar values have gone up. I have been good about 80% of the time and I’ve been making sure to be more physically active, but I am so, so anxious. I know I can only control my blood sugar to a certain extent: by watching my diet and exercising, and while I was more strict with myself shortly after my diagnosis, I haven’t gone back to my “old ways”. I have been taking my meds, and there’s not much more I can do. Still. Things I cannot control are hard.
Then, I have an MRI coming up on Friday: my new orthopedic doctor wants to confirm or rule out something. So this could be nothing - just regular osteoarthritis stuff, or a bone bruise, which would, in my case, certainly be caused by osteoarthritis. I didn’t injure myself.
And the results of this MRI decide the course of treatment. Fine. MRI scans for the knee don’t bother me much. It’s getting the results that does, though. But that’s not until two weeks later. So I’m pushing it all down and will deal with it when I know more.


Work is causing even more anxiety. We’re showing a world premiere next month, and there’s so much that still needs doing. First of all, the play needs some rewriting. We haven’t rehearsed the ending because that’s still being re-written, for example. Plus, my boss (my bosses are a married couple, I am talking about the female boss here) has an ongoing family emergency to deal with, which is why she keeps switching the interns’ work schedule around so that they help her, as a colleague who is in charge of booking etc. has been ill for two weeks on top of it all. And there’s stuff that needs doing, and two interns who can take on parts of those jobs that need doing. Printing, sending out letters, important things that do not require a lot of training or experience. Unfortunately this means no help for me, which isn’t great. But I mustn’t grumble, this is just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. It’s just this play with 140 pages, three actors and a choir of 4 - 8 people. My boss (the male one) is doing what he can to support his wife while keeping everything running, and he delegates to me. As does the set/costume designer. As I said: it’s normal, it’s merely unfortunate when I’m already this anxious.
And to top it all off: we may have people dropping by to collect some furniture from my mother-in-law’s flat tomorrow between ten and three, and since my gf doesn’t have a mobile phone, I’m the one who has to coordinate that.
So I only hope they won’t call during my appointment.
And in addition to that, I hope for decent results tomorrow. I guess all this explains my anxiety levels today. I’m currently trying to chill with the cats to calm down, but must make a move soon or else I risk running late for work. All this anxiety is reducing the amount of spoons available to me today, which means this is going to be a kind, extra-tough day. My plan is to keep as calm as I can and just keep going.

Wednesday, hump day? Not when you work in a theatre. It’s often the calm before the storm, and this week is a tough week for me. I’m depressed - life with chronic moderate depression does have perks like that: days when everything is so incredibly hard that I just want to stop. Days when everything moves too fast, when everyone gets on my nerves. These days are quite frequent right now. I love autumn and winter, but it’s dark, I’m tired - not a terribly good mix at the moment. Sleeping is an issue right now: ever since my mother in law passed away, I have been struggling to sleep through the nights - and after a month of rough nights with very little sleep, I am in a weird space, mentally speaking. Why am I not sleeping well? Because I feel guilty about my mother in law’s death. I know it’s irrational, and I know there’s no reason for it, but there it is anyway. The guilt. I guess I’ll have to live with it for now.
But it means I’m slipping back into old bad habits, which I need to stop or else all hell will break loose soon: I’m a type 2 diabetic with a sweet tooth and the habit of eating sweet, starchy foods when stressed. Not good. But I can get this under control again. It means more effort, and I’ll have to check my blood glucose levels regularly for a while, just to see where I’m at, and to see which foods I can tolerate more easily than others - and stick to the better alternatives. I can do this. I have done this before. So here I go.

My cats are a great comfort to me. Sam is so soft and often seems so timid, but he loves to spend quality time with me. We lie on the bed and I’m allowed to cuddle him, which he doesn’t allow as much anywhere else. He’s a purring machine, too. Ever since he got ill a few years ago, we have a special relationship. Even though I had to force him to take his meds, he seems more attached to me than before. He’s fine now, and such a sweet little guy. His brother Dean is a menace at times, but he’s ready for a cuddle most of the time. He’ll make sure I cannot move much, and fall asleep rather deeply when he is curled up on my lap. He can purr up a storm, too. And when both are nearby, purring, it’s the best sound in the world for me. Relaxing.
I am thinking of writing some fanfiction, but it’s difficult to get back into it. Especially when it’s a tiny, almost extinct fandom. I haven’t written any fanfic since the Star Trek Enterprise fandom fizzled out, so it’s been a while.
I never wrote any Supernatural fanfic, but there was such a deluge of stories that I didn’t know where to start. And now, Mission:Impossible - the original series from the 1960s. There’s hardly anything out there. Not sure if I can still write fanfic, to be honest. I don’t know, it’s a weird feeling: I kind of want to - and I kind of don’t.