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By Rebecca, November 3, 2010 6:07 pm

Be careful or I will EAT YOUR FACE!

I’m in the final push for my upcoming show (plug: buy tickets!) and discovering a propensity toward a vice I’ve never really experienced before: stress eating.

Early last year I had a stretch of time where I realized I wasn’t eating enough. Since then, I’ve made a conscious effort to watch when and how much I eat, and have been pretty successful at keeping a healthy, steady diet. (Particularly good because, when I don’t, I have a tendency to get dizzy and almost faint.)

However, the past few weeks – with my show, trying to get more bookings, actually getting bookings and realizing I have to follow through on them, figuring out my finances, dating, and more – I’ve been pretty stressed. Over the last few days in particular, I noticed I’ve been eating more than I usually do. More than I really need to. Just cuz I’m stressed and food is yummy.

This isn’t something I’m thrilled about, but I’m also not super worried. I’ve been pretty good about going to the gym (biked for about 45 minutes today, or 20 bullshit stationary bike ‘miles’), I’m getting enough sleep, and I haven’t been indulging in crazy amounts of sweets. All the same, I’d like to try and nip this in the bud. I tend to not cut myself enough slack, so I’m trying to allow myself some time and permission to indulge. But it seems like an easy and slippery slope from an occasional treat/reward to constant munchies.

(PS – The image on this post was found Google Image searching for stress eating. It’s only one of a bunch of amusing images that came up.)

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By Rebecca, December 8, 2009 4:00 pm

The first night of tech for Trans Form was last night, and I’m kind of a mess.

(For those of you who aren’t theatre people, tech refers to technical rehearsals, where lights/sound/etc are set. It comes before dress rehearsals and/or previews, the final rehearsals before a show opens.)

The show is going fine, although I’m planning to head out of work early tonight and finish up some sound and video work. And yet, I’m really scared about it opening on Friday. Not simply stressing out, but scared. And, after thinking about what parts of the show terrify me, I realized I’m not just dealing with stage fright (although there’s some of that) but with some deeper internalized transphobia.

Continue reading 'Internalized transphobia'»

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By Rebecca, August 12, 2009 12:02 am

I just got back from my therapist, Laura, and it was a hard/productive session. (Funny how those two things are so often tied together in therapy…) So I have a few things are churning in my mind right now that might ultimately need to be spun out into multiple posts, but lets see where thinking out loud gets me.

I’ve been feeling some heavy procrastination/writers block lately. I think it’s partly because, in my mind, performance (which is the end goal of much of my writing) is so related with not only outing myself but revealing potentially embarrassing personal details.

Obviously, theatre doesn’t inherently involve revealing deep, hidden parts of yourself (although I think good theatre often does) but I’m kind of gearing up toward this hour-long personal narrative piece I’ve committed myself to, which will revolve around my experiences as a trans woman. Now, I can do things (like the ‘Coming Out Lecture’) that are more indirectly personal, and not simply “Here’s something about myself I’ve never shared before.” But at least some of the show is going to end up like that.

Continue reading 'Putting it all out there…'»

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By Rebecca, February 11, 2009 1:37 pm

I have a hangup in that I get very guilty and regretful when I see a project come to completion that I could have worked on, but didn’t. Last night I went to one of the final dress rehearsals for Sleepy Hollow, the show the theatre company I’m involved in is working on. It goes up tomorrow, and honestly is really great – it’s a musical retelling of the story, with live music played on-stage by the actors, and is a lot of fun. (At 75 minutes, it also is long enough without being too long.)

However, because of the stress and pressure I’ve been putting on myself lately, I stood up to the theatre company and said that I could only help minimally, and couldn’t commit to being at shows for house managing or whatnot. They weren’t happy about this, but I stuck to it because I had finally be convinced I need to drop responsibilities and focus on myself for a while.

And yet, when the performance was over, I had a pang of regret that I hadn’t helped out, even though I know I would have regretted doing that, and would have just added tons more stress to myself.

Likewise, the friend whose recital piece I was scheduled to work on saw the blog post where I talked about it being stressful, and we found a way that I could provide input and help without having to commit to the whole process. Definitely a good decision, and one that will undoubtedly lower the stress in my life, something I really need right now. But I know when I see the final performance, I’m going to regret having backed out.

I just always place so much weight on every individual project. I know I’m still young, and have a long artistic life ahead of me, but I always feel like if I don’t work on this project right now (for whatever ‘this project’ is) I’ll miss out on some unrecoverable experience.

I’m trying to change my point of view, but I just can’t emotionally get behind the idea that there will be more time for more projects in the future.

-R

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By Rebecca, February 2, 2009 10:55 am

Warning signs I’m over-stressed about something(s):

• I stay up late reading when I know I should go to bed
  • Particularly true if I’m rereading a book, so already know what happens, and I stay up late reading anyway
• I start reading more trans fiction, particularly forced-feminization fiction
  • This has been the subject of pasts posts and – since I’m doing it again – probably the subject of a new post one of these days
• New! Apparently, I forget to eat when I’m stressed
  • Three times in the last two months I’ve forgotten to eat a meal or two, gotten horrendously dizzy, and knocked myself out of commission for 6-12 hours

And it’s just great that, within the last 24 hours, I’ve hit all three. It’s like it was a contest or something…

-R

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By Rebecca, January 27, 2009 11:49 am

Sorry for the title, but I couldn’t come up with a good rhyme… Although RhymeZone.com suggests ‘lesser,’ ‘professor,’ ‘successor,’ and ‘air compressor’ as possible alternatives… (Also, sorry for being remiss in posting. I think the big reason for that is all the stuff listed below.)

Anyway, I’ve been stressing: having trouble getting to sleep, feeling nervous and panic-y, all the stuff I was talking about in early December.

I realized one of the things that helped me then was listing all the stressors, so I figured I’d try that again now:

• Relationship/transitioning issues with G
• Feeling like I don’t have enough time for all the things in my life and for myself. ‘All the things in my life’ includes:
  • Monday: Therapy
  • Tuesday: Workshop rehearsal for the piece I’m directing (and now, conflicting, a weekly theatre thing with friends)
  • Wednesday: Trans youth group
  • Thursday: Workshop class I’m teaching (starts next week)
  • Friday: Blissfully nothing, and the stress of using downtime ‘well’
  • Saturday: A class I’m taking; more Workshop rehearsal
  • Sunday: Rehearsal for a friend’s recital piece that I don’t really want to do but am doing as a favor to her
  • (And, of course, a full-time job)
• Money, specifically paying off hair removal (3/4 of the way there, but I want it off my back)
• Buying a new wardrobe (partially linked to ‘money’; I have, like, six or seven tops that I can reasonably wear to work that I just keep cycling through)
• Feeling insecure in the transition (to be the subject of a longer post, one of these days)

Boo! Stress, stress, go away, and don’t come back another day!

-R

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By Rebecca, December 16, 2008 10:41 am

Unfortunately, it’s of stresses, not of how I judge the children I’ve been spying on all year long. (A subject for another post!)

• Transitioning at my full-time job, because I still need to talk to my occasionally-less-than-sane bosses (who I’m out to, but who I doubt have thought about the ramifications of my being trans…)
• Transitioning at my part-time job, because even though I’ve been there for a million years (first as a student, now as a teacher) and the staff and artistic director are being crazy-supportive, their board of directors is being somewhat weird. I think it’s out of trying to protect everyone involved – me, the rest of the staff, the students, their parents, and the organization as a whole – but meeting being told they met with a labor lawyer still doesn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy…
• How all of the transitioning stuff affects G and I. This is stressing me less than it had been, since we’re talking about things now, rather than always Talking about Things.
• G and my relationship, having nothing to do with transitioning – she’s working on a show right now and we haven’t had much time together. Also better than it has been, but I’m still ready for her show to be done.
• Stress at work having nothing to do with transitioning, but due to my (again) occasionally-less-than-sane bosses and, among other things, the new website that was supposed to launch yesterday and did not.
• Dealing with the theatre company some friends and I started last year and trying to figure out A) what I can contribute (currently I’m not contributing much) and B) what I need to get out of it (currently I’m not getting much out of it either)

Phew! No wonder I’ve been stressed!

-R