Nervous Headache, Anyone?

Remember in the old days on television - the women would always get a "nervous headache". I never really understood what they meant and I don't have one now, but I can understand how anxiety increases over time.

I find that instead of becoming immune to scary things, horrific things, mean things, annoying people/things, I have become SUPERSENSITIZED to most of these things. It is to the point where tonight, on a show that I really enjoy, I almost couldn't watch it because one of the characters (not a regular, I hope) is almost EXACTLY like someone I know and see on a regular basis. Listening to them talk made my hackles raise up and I just couldn't really even bear to pay attention to the program.

More and more, when things happen in movies or on TV that are gruesome or bloody, I have to cover my eyes and my ears so that I can't HEAR the noises, either. I feel like an idiot when I clap my hands over my ears at the movie theatre, but it is an automatic reaction now.  Weird.  I think I'm just going to have to limit myself to romantic comedies and dramas that don't involve murders. (Although I want to see the new movie based on the Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame situation. If I spelled her name right.)

And on a separate note, I got my hair cut tonight. We'll see how it looks tomorrow after I have washed it. Tonight, I wonder why the woman didn't understand what I meant when I said I wanted it to be about an inch below my shoulders. Ah. It is just hair. It will grow back.

Show Done, Some Disturbing Thoughts

The show is done. It went as well as a show can go when you have 9 songs that you never even heard until 2 days before the performance. I wanted to be brilliant, but I wasn't. I think I did pretty well, but not brilliant. Not "ON".  I'm still tired from the cellulitis and working on Saturday and long days with evenings of rehearsals.  It took pretty much every ounce of energy I had tonight to get through the show.  When I left, I felt like I was dragging 1,000 pounds of rocks in my bag with me.

On the way home, I saw a firetruck, lights flashing, on its way silently to an emergency. I had a flashback to the night my dad died. Then a whole bunch of other unpleasant memories from that time. I think it is so interesting how these things just sneak up on you - I see an older gentleman walking down the street with a certain jacket or a certain slouch of the shoulders and I think of my dad or I see someone walking with a certain bounce and I think of Roby. One of the curses of having a vivid memory and seeing "movies" in your head is that you have vivid memories and you see the "movies" over and over - sometimes, these are not movies you want to see more than one time. I often relive the deaths in my life and while I truly believe that I was supposed to be there for them, it is really difficult to manage those memories so that they don't become a problem.

As if that wasn't disturbing enough, I had a day filled with anxiety of a different kind. I'm pretty sure that it is related to being tired and not quite recovered from being ill...  I just wanted to cancel the show, crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.  I wondered if I could convince my doctor to put me on medical leave for stress or for my actual health problems or for just feeling completely overwhelmed and unable to come up for breath. I know it will pass, I'm just not used to this level of anxiety. In some ways, I miss the days when I would get anxious, get a migraine from it, vomit for a few hours, sleep for a day and then get back to business. Now, I feel all the anxiety and for some reason, today, it just seemed like too much. I actually thought about quitting my job, quitting theatrical interpreting, hiding in a cave, walking out in the middle of the performance... these are not thoughts that are normal for me.  So, I'm thinking that booking my vacation has moved up a couple of priority pegs.

I'll keep you all posted on my progress - not only on my vacation booking, but on the rest, as well.