Hey, you. Did I ever tell you that in every bad situation, I’m hard wired to look for the lesson; find the good? I’ve been doing this since I was a little girl. I think I’m better at finding it for other people but by some sheer will (or stubbornness or desperation, quite frankly) I uncover it for myself too. At times it’s a “light-bulb” moment and shines brightly over a situation, at times it’s a slow burn and turns into a maze of thoughts that eventually gets me there. I can find it instantly. I can find it days, weeks or years later. I think the takeaway here is that I find it. It’s often an exhausting search and always worth it. Two weeks ago it took me 7 hours to locate the good and in this case it’s ongoing.
I was in the middle of a Zoom callback with a director and the lead of a project, when he gut punched me. To be fair, I don’t think his intentions were to be a prick. He struck me as someone who shits all over everything and somehow doesn’t notice the smell. I was feeling really good about this opportunity. I liked the character I was reading for. I made her my own. Before I uttered a single word, the actor/producer I was reading with said, “Are you going to get one of your wiggy things, or do we have to see you do the thing bald?” I was hard pressed to utter anything after that.
I’m not opposed to wearing a wig for a character. I have a few headshots with wigs in case a director needs help imagining me with hair. If there is no specific character description, then they get me in all my bald glory. I had a couple of email interactions with the director prior to my callback. Had he requested a particular wig look, I would have obliged, but he didn’t.
So there I was stewing in embarrassment and anger; stuffing down my emotions. I called that man every name in the book. I called him out for being disrespectful. I highlighted the irony of a man who was balding himself, dictating what I should do to my head. I said all of that….in my mind. In reality, I froze. Eventually I went to another room, grabbed the wig he preferred and came back to the video call. What I really wanted to do was hide; instead I stuck it out and did my job. The place where actors spend most of their time performing is in the audition room. I wasn’t going to let him rob me of that. I felt good about my performance. They thanked me for my time and ended the call. I took off my wig, placed it back in its box and stared at myself in the mirror for a while.
For three days my body dysmorphia was front and center, as I knew it would be. It’s not like my body dysmorphia ever really goes away but there is a scale so I didn’t fight it for fear of tipping it. I made sure to meditate and exercise to give the good hormones some fuel. Sometimes I wanted to cry but I couldn’t. I talked about it to a few close friends but it lingered. My mind was doing everything it could to try and talk me out of my feelings.
Here’s the funny thing, the day before that shit-show of a callback, I had completed an interview for a magazine about being an actor with alopecia and body dysmorphia. I answered questions about what it took to remain empowered in the face of those odds, and less than 24 hours later…boom!
I know the hype out there is, “Never let anyone diminish your light.” Can we get honest for a second and admit that’s exactly what some people do? They turn off your fucking light. There you are standing in a room, someone comes along and turns off the switch leaving you in complete darkness because they either didn’t care or forgot you were even there. I feel like it’s a fairly normal reaction to want to yell at them to turn it back on again. It’s not a matter of “letting someone diminish your light” and more acknowledging that sometimes it happens and hopefully your eyes eventually adjust for you to find the switch and turn it back on again.
Eventually I figured out why I couldn’t cry over what happened. Why talking it about it didn’t make it go away and why my mind was reeling. I was angry. I was angry because I am not ashamed of being bald. I got, that I am challenged by the way other people view my baldness but not by the way I view it. That was a distinction unrecognizable up until then and there’s the fucking silver lining.
This new awareness means that hopefully I can shift the narrative on the standards of beauty, even through the lens of body dysmorphia. Even as I sit here rubbing my stubbly head, I believe there’s an end game to this strange affliction of mine. I bet there will be a million good things to find along the way, as long as I keep searching for the light so I can see them.
**Everything I write comes from my personal insights and has all the drippings of my opinions, biases, and what-nots. Rather than come for me with facts or judgements to contradict my said opinions, biases and what-nots, I’d rather you find a different blog that makes you happy. If you find these posts therapeutic or helpful in anyway that means we connected and it’s all I can ask for, however I’m not a therapist nor a coach. I’m just a writer floating words out there hoping they find the person they are intended for.