OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE

    When I was 29 I was in a play at a local college.  It was exhausting but I was glad to be performing.  I had broken my back 5 years before and almost severed the spinal cord.  I could walk at that point but still had some paralysis.  I had had a second back surgery 2 years earlier.  I was sick with constant infections and in a lot of pain.  I was getting acupuncture and the acupuncturist was very rough on me about everything.  He felt I could be doing much more than I was and would say so.  He would touch a spot on my leg with an instrument and ask what I could and couldn’t feel.  He would say that I was spacing out when I simply couldn’t feel something.  I had an appointment with the doctor who had done my last back surgery, and he said there was no reason to be in this much pain, and that everything was fine.  I explained that I couldn’t even hold a job because I was so exhausted.  So, that evening at rehearsal, a fellow actor who had known me for 4 years asked how my doctor appointment went. I shared with him that I told the doctor that I was unable to work.  My "friend" began yelling at me saying, "Well, what do you want to do!!!!? As he yelled, more people gathered around like spectators of a car accident. He started yelling about what I should do career wise.   I literally began backing away... As I backed away, I started wetting my pants.  I use a catheter to urinate and back then, had a lot of accidents.  Then at a restaurant after a performance a young man yelled across a long table, “Chris!  What are you going to do!?”  I said, “What?”  He said, “What are you going to do?”  He said it loud enough so that everyone could hear.  I can’t remember what I said but the next night I walked in the green room and he said, “Hi Chris.  How was work today?”  I said something very cruel to him.  So that night, I was completely exhausted driving home.  My body just wasn’t working and there wasn't a single person that understood.  Not my surgeon, not the acupuncturist, not my family, nor my fellow actors or friends. The road I was driving on was so dark.  It was a perfect metaphor for how I felt.  I figured that the only way to end the pain, was to end my life and this thought began putting me at peace.  I could drive off the road very fast, run into a pole and end it all.  I didn’t. I got home, but during the whole run of the show I fantasized about how my problems would be over if I were dead. I managed to do a good job in the play.  I got alot of good feedback. This was fine but not enough to make me want to stay on this earth.  In my heart of hearts, I think everyone was trying to help me and didn't know how.  I attracted people with no boundaries and didn't know how to handle them.  I heard Cheryl Richardson talk about "shame attacks".  Well, I had them almost 24/7.  I got rid of the orthopod and got a doctor who does osteopathic manipulation and I got rid of the acupuncturist.  I got better friends. Every now and then I will see or hear from those actors.  One asked me out for coffee but I said, "No."  The other one invited me to see a play he was in, but I said, "No thank you."  The people I now have in my life are kind and understanding.  I have a much better sense of how to handle people that are too forward and I am better at honoring other's.  If someone asks me something about myself, I don't vomit information like they are my therapist.  Last week someone asked a very personal question about who I was dating and I said, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."

 

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