With the Anxiety Disorder

So. You're an actor, huh? And you've got an anxiety disorder you say? How's that workin' out for ya?

This is a conversation that I have with myself almost daily. For real, though. How does a person manage to be an actor with an anxiety problem? A craft that requires you to stand under lights on a stage being watched by hundreds.

Maybe thousands!  ...always the optimist.

I can't be the only one!

While I can't answer this question for ALL actors with anxiety problems, I do have a sort-of answer for myself... The fact is this. I'm more comfortable playing a character than I am playing myself. Couldn't tell you why, but if I have to make a speech or go to an audition, I'm terrified. Jittery, sweating, stuttering, and fidgeting. Can't help it. I just get nervous. This is one of the reasons I am a terrible auditioner. It's a wonder I ever get cast in anything!

Socially unacceptable?

It'd be easier for me to walk into Wal-Mart as Tom Wingfield, Aldolpho or Gay Hitler than it would be to walk in as Cody. Now obviously I can't walk into Wal-Mart as any of those people. But what I will do sometimes when the going gets tough is create a character. A version of me that is a better me, who isn't suffocated by tall ceilings or intimidated by gas station clerks and bank tellers.

Of course, I realize this is not unique. We are all complex beings who spend a great deal of time living in our own heads. ("Right?," he asked insecurely...)

We all have a cast of different versions of ourselves ready to go. I mean, you don't play the college party, "let's get wasted and destroy personal property" version of yourself when you go to a family picnic. You play the neat, tidy, successful version of yourself.



The problem I have with this (and maybe this isn't unique either) is that I'm so caught up with my characters I implement to bury the anxiety, that I sometimes back myself into little identity crisises. I tend to wonder if there is even a real me in there somewhere. Or if I even know who I actually am. Have I ever? Have the characters become more real to me than what is actually real? I feel like I've been disconnected from reality for a rather long time. Possibly since the late '90s...

Ah, nostalgia.

Anyway, I'm not too worried. I'm closer to reality now than I have ever recalled being. You just gotta accept yourself. Every version of yourself.


-Cody M.