YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

There's a teacher at my performance program who plays favorites, who's seemed to have it in for me for a good while now - and I won't go into great detail about it, just that I've heard from enough other teachers, colleagues, fellow students, and professional performers that "it's not my problem, it's his." And yet...getting on his good side would've fulfilled so many longtime goals for me and helped me realize my own potential.

Last night, I walked past him and gave him a dirty look. And while I try to be nice to everyone in my community for the sake of both a professional reputation and my own sanity, it felt kind of gratifying. How could I still feel crippling remorse after feeling like I'd turned a corner?

In the last six or so months, I've switched alliances (namely theatres), and was lucky enough to find a place that was encouraging, diverse, female-friendly, GLBT-friendly, what-have-you, and as close in line to my goals without reaching the original point I wanted. However, I recognize that this original theatre - the one where bad teacher reigned supreme - was my ultimate goal for pretty much my entire life. As soon as I'd heard about it, I wanted in. And yet, I'm working with a collaborator who is a master teacher there, I have another teacher/director who is one of the most famous members of the current resident Equity company there, and yet another teacher who constantly tells me how talented I am - all of whom truthfully sense potential in me - but it isn't the same. I can't believe anything until I hear it from him, and yet I find myself avoiding him and this theatre at all costs, secretly hoping for him to leave or get fired, and feeling tempted to even pull the plug on my career.

I've thought about quitting performing and show business in general time and again - but thinking of resilience and tenacity only makes me feel incapable - exactly what he'd told me I was. But the favorites - all girls - he's played over time are doing the kind of creative work I want to do. I've felt like I'm procrastinating. Although I've been told that I'm more talented/capable/rangey than them by some people in authoritative positions, it still gets my goat that I can get jealous for not having what I want. Yet it has nothing to do with who I'm not and everything to do with feeling like a failure for, well, feeling like a failure. And I wonder if, despite my constant apologies to this teacher in the past, I somehow screwed it up originally by speaking up - or if this teacher has a point and I really should be discouraged in some unproductive way. My therapist said it best, "You don't have an inner critic. You have an inner Hitler." And I wonder if maybe that's why I feel behind with no way of catching up.

Karina wrote:I can't believe anything until I hear it from him

Oh Karina, you have given "veto power" over your self-worth to this poopie-head!

Karina wrote:And I wonder if maybe that's why I feel behind with no way of catching up.

A lot of games have no way of catching up from behind, but the most important things in life always are *all* *about* being able to catch up from behind. Find higher, more spiritual, more fulling stakes. The thing about the rat-race is, even if you win, you are still a rat. This thing that is perpetually frustrating you might just be a lame hamster wheel. My two cents.

All the best, good luck, we are all cheering for your greatest today and tomorrow!

I find that it has less to do with talent and aim and more to do with wanting to be an extrovert, liked, etc. And I honestly felt awful for telling another teacher - one who has believed in me to a point, anyway - that I wanted to be more like his favorite student. That's not what I believe - I mean, I would like to make people laugh and seem happy to other people - but I wouldn't want to do what she does talent-wise. At the very least, apparently someone in charge did clamp down on this one awful teacher's favoritism (I filed a complaint about it awhile ago, too) and had all of his favorites re-audition for a pre-professional performance opportunity that was being cut down from a larger, previous cast. Guess who the only person was who got carried over from the previous cast...surprise, surprise, and I'm sure he's constructing the show around her yet *again* so she can have a star moment each week and everyone else in the new cast won't.

But I haven't had my chance to take his advanced class, despite a year of auditions and being held back in beginner-level class repeatedly by him - and when so many other people, heck, *especially* other teachers in the training program, compliment me and ask me to take *their* classes instead and make my talent feel validated, I still have an easier time believing that what this one teacher says is the truth (I suck), and that maybe my other teachers, the ones who give compliments, don't genuinely trust me - maybe they just want my payment first. This came to a head when another teacher who has encouraged me posted something on Facebook about who was "talented" and included two girls (including the favorite) from a three-person show I had just been in (literally, the night before) and left me out. To me, it was, "Well, another teacher - who *appears* to compliment you - just confirmed over Facebook that you didn't deserve to perform in a show with those two girls. It's the truth. You're awful. You got lucky once. You're a fraud."

It should never, ever be a rite of passage in any creative art for someone to feel worthless at another person's decisive hands - especially if that someone wants to make a career out of this and isn't just doing this recreationally. My parents won't even let me retake the beginner class - being held back three times was enough for them to think that my constant rejection was "his problem and not yours." It was only a year ago that "bad teacher" was a performer in the preprofessional company, and I get the sense that he is a "shadow artist," meaning he didn't achieve his objectives as a performer professionally and now wants to mentor some people and take it out on, well, others. I wondered why he hates me so much - do I remind him of someone from college? Is he an anti-Semite? My own paranoid fear - does he know that I'm closeted and gay, like him, and a late bloomer? Because I've run into him several times on the bus to the gay district (where my LGBT support group is) and avoided him like the plague.

I try not to let this one thing bother me but the fact of the matter is that it's superseded a lot of other concerns in my life - my bestie told me that, for the first time, I sounded suicidal over the phone and I should look into anti-depressants. But what I really want to be is confident that I'll find my way. I've never wanted to see a person lose their job so much in my life, and I try so hard to be a nice person - especially in this particular community where being agreeable and cooperative gets you everywhere.

I read everything you wrote, Karina. I honor your pain, you are being pulled apart by your wish for fulfillment and forces outside of your control. I am pretty powerless to help you, I am so introverted that I cut my own hair to avoid going to the barber!

If I tried to help, I would just degenerate into "mansplaining" (definition in the link). My wife laughs at my limited ability to handle social interactions and cues and motives.

I will wish the stars above that you don't have turkeys on the path to your fulfillment. Please take care, we are cheering for you!

Heh. Mansplaining. That's a great one!

My newest self-talk that I've desperately been trying to reverse is that, if I had been at my most confident, assured, and positive in the past, not only would I have been the teacher's favorite, I would have gotten into his Advanced class despite my own best efforts to exceed expectations. But then, thinking that I wouldn't have sends a red flag to me that it's not fate - maybe I'm just not talented to back up that kind of imaginary confidence? Whatever - it's a process and I happen to be going slower and steadier than most peers my age and with my level of experience.

Fancy this...his advanced class is having auditions again. I felt like I gave a better performance than I am even capable of the last time and still didn't make it in. Before I quit, I wanted to go out on a high note. From what I've told people, he basically "zoned out" while I was performing and my scene partner (who was too nervous to speak, literally) choked. And, in his e-mail to me after the fact, he blamed *me* for waiting too long for my scene partner to respond (um. yeah - he didn't respond. I was speaking so much that I would've interrupted him had he actually produced a sound). I drafted a carefully worded e-mail basically defending myself as articulately as I could with as much hard proof as I had - thankfully, I never sent it! Regardless, everyone assures me that I did great. To me, this was the ultimate example of me being "thrown under the bus" (especially when people who couldn't grasp basic concepts in his beginning class made it in over me, after I've been rejected 5 times).

The beginning class wasn't even a class: It was drilling an audition protocol into students' heads, which is anti-performance. He was treating us all like children and going against the spontaneity and creativity of the art form and performance. Worst, I received the brunt of his criticism. The fact that I had to take it three times was either an indication that I wasn't good enough, or that I was only being scammed out of $1200. 5 people dropped out of his class a year ago, and at least one person in that group told me that they needed me in there. Well, I would've stayed.

I'm worried about putting on a game face for the faculty members who do believe in me, when they ask why I'm not trying out this time (or ever again). I have to give this up and be the bigger man - what sucks is that I wanted to take this class so badly. I did as well as I could without making a single mistake the last audition - and several times before, in fact. But in reality, I'm waiting for this one teacher to quit because, no matter how well I do, he will never see my talent for what it is - I hate having to accept that just to feel happy. Why can't this teacher see the progress I've made - I used to be the person who was too nervous to speak in auditions, and now everyone but him thinks I should be in already.

While I've accepted that I can still be confident and happy, which is all I've ever wanted, minus that one class, it doesn't satisfy that egotistical part of me that believes I've deserved to get in, and evidently. As I said in my complaint to the administration, What's wrong with this picture?

Gee whiz, Karina, it isn't just this advanced class teacher, the whole school you describe sounds dysfunctional. You and this unfair teacher seem to be active and animated, and everyone else in the administration and teachers of the school sound unbelievably passive.

Please take care, all the best, we are cheering for you and your best today and tomorrow!

Yeah, this isn't just "some" theatre school. The ladies in my support group urged me to train somewhere else, and I snapped, "I can't do this anywhere else."

My best bet is to wait until this one guy leaves, which should hopefully be some months from now. I feel better about saying that just to keep up appearances than "I quit."

And then there's the disheartening realization I had a couple nights ago that his favorite and me are making the exact same type of choices in shows - yet she actually gets praised for all the same rookie mistakes this teacher always slams me for making in performance. Is it because I'm depressed or closeted or not conventionally pretty? Whatever the reason, it just made me angrier. And why is it that I have a much easier time paying attention to someone I hate for no reason than I do to myself?

I don't want to be the bad guy. That's just the role I was assigned in this particular environment.

Another thing: His constant criticism has never made any sense to me at all. Like he's blaming me for things I never do, or that other people do in scenes with me. I've had teachers and castmates in my corner who can tell that I'm making a decent effort to play nice and as skilled as I can. Someone even told me a few nights ago that a girl who made the same basic mistake this teacher "thought" I made in my audition got in over me. Life is unfair.

But the gist I get from the girls - by the way, this especially goes for his favorite - who make it is that they are bitchy, entitled, and mean. I just had this feeling that the nice people were supposed to get some type of reward, too. But any system that plays favorites is as inherently flawed as the person controlling it.

I am glad you are in a school that will help you fulfill your artistic goals, Karina. I just wish it didn't leave you wanting to be somebody else - to be the favorite of the teacher willing to play political/clique games.