Re-Casting Myself as the Lead
When I was younger, I was a theatre kid. I was a loud, talkative vibrant spirit. I carried a confidence that beckoned my fifth grade teacher to call me her “future Oscar winner.”
I would put on characters during family reunions, talk in accents, sing for my grandparents, stage MacBook photo shoots, choreograph dances, write songs, direct “movies,” and update my Facebook status with embarrassingly obnoxious thoughts I felt the world needed to read.
But then, someone stepped onto the stage during my acceptance speech and took the mic from me. And then they did it again, and again, and again.
When someone grabs the mic from you, you wonder if you deserve to be on that stage at all. You’re painfully aware of what you’re wearing, your posture, what you just said, who might be watching and what they might be thinking.
Once, in seventh grade Drama, I watched as the first set of critics walked with a hunch and called themselves by my name. I’m 5’8, always taller than any of my friends. They must have noticed I was trying to hide. In high school, the body image issues started. I can remember I couldn’t leave for school unless I was wearing the baggiest clothes I could find, and in all black. In college, I didn’t show up entirely.
It got so bad that I skipped class and got B’s and C’s because of my poor attendance. I wasn’t comfortable being seen, always conscious of how my arms or legs or hips looked even in the giant t-shirts they gave us at the housing fair. I’d pretend I didn’t like nightlife, going out, drinking, dancing — all to excuse myself from rejection. I felt everyone staring, so I relegated myself to a background character in my own story.
Stories like this usually end at, “Then I went to therapy.” Yes, I went to therapy. And I highly recommend therapy. In fact, I feel many childhood traumas could have been caught early or prevented entirely if we (and our parents) had gone to therapy.
But by the time I saw my first therapist, any hope of being in the spotlight had dissipated. For as long as I can remember, I dreamed of being in movies or performing on Broadway. In kindergarten, our teachers recorded us stating what we wanted to be when we grew up. Mine said, “Hi, I’m Isabelle. I’m five years old, and when I grow up I want to be a model.” Ever since the mic slipped out of my fingers, my regressed state of mind prevented me from even getting a headshot taken.
The “aha moment” for me was being diagnosed with Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) when I was 19. This news told me that I wasn’t the grotesque creature I shuddered at in the mirror but instead that my mind was playing tricks on me. My mind is playing still playing tricks on me today. When I glance at my reflection for the fifth time in ten minutes and I see a girl whose jeans suddenly don’t flatter, whose hair is flatter and whose face is more sallow than it was just a moment ago, I have to fight to remember who I am.
So, who am I today? I’m a writer. A reader. A shower-motivational speaker. A fan of musical theatre. I sing in my free time, but I’d rather die than watch myself on video. I continue to trip over my own feet on the way downstage, but I’m getting there.
Sometimes I come out from backstage at a full run, and that’s inadvisable too. I swing the pendulum too far into the “outgoing, extroverted, life-of-the-party” version of me and find myself saying things I don’t mean or ending up drunk calling people whose numbers I should have deleted.
The Isabelle from yesteryear wasn’t grown up, either. She wasn’t mature enough to know that not everybody on Facebook needs to know you’ve had a bad day. She shouldn’t have engaged in damning gossip just to seem cool. And she shouldn’t have yelled at her cousins for messing up her choreography to Party in the USA. But she also didn’t pay mind to what people thought of her. She let her love handles hang free. She auditioned for a local production of Rent with Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb” thinking she sounded great. The critics didn’t stop her from coming back for an encore. She smiled and waved for her adoring fans anyway.
If you know me, you know I’m comfortable at parties. I’ll speak up on client calls, take the lead on work presentations and give a kickass toast at my grandpa’s 75th birthday in front of hundreds of people. I can dance the salsa with a stranger in front of people I just met and kick off a successful conga line with a single shot of liquid courage. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s a lead actor who’s been dying to make a comeback.