The struggles of acting

Rules

Trauma- a deeply distressing or a disturbing experience.
      My life was sweet and after my trauma I became bitter, But that was a problem.
       No one could know I was bitter, no one could know my truth.
        So I hid it. My only way out was to hide.
Before the trauma stifled me, taking with it my self worth, and drowned me in the void I wished I could leave behind, the trauma that haunted me.

Before deciding that this was my way out I decided to set rules. Rules make following a quota easier and makes opting out a lot harder. And if I opted out I would lose everything.

At first I had the trauma under control. I was winning. But then I was loosing. The trauma started to consume me again. After failing two classes of my first quarter of my junior year my trauma hit an all time low so I needed to find a way to fix that. Without letting my mom know or anyone else. So I came up with the idea to "act". Become someone else to help shift everything wrong with my life. Where the mask of a seventeen year old ready to embrace a bright future, while hiding the insecure little girl who was haunted every night by her trauma.

The more I think about it the more idiotic the whole idea sounds. In hindsight, the stupidest idea I've ever had.

But hey. Better than crying yourself to sleep ever night and almost having breakdowns at school.

So dumbest idea ever it is.

I took out an empty journal I bought from Barnes and nobles but only used a few times. The first few pages were a book  idea that I later ripped out from the book. The next few pages was me venting and talking about everything I wanted but didn't have or everything I wish a was .

The whole sappy nine yards.

I placed the book upwards to find the middle and split it. The I wrote acting across the first line of the page. Am I really going to do this bull. What if it doesn't work, then I would've wrote down how much of a fool I was.

I yawned a great big yawn. A great big yawn, I need to die. Over the past few days I hadn't been sleeping well, any well than I have the past six years. It was two in the morning and with how crappy of a day I was having I wanted to shoot myself. I don't have the motivation to do this, and if I do it half heartedly, well then why do anything at all. I walked out my room and into the bathroom. I turned the faucet to cold. Felt it and turned it up to warm.

I looked at myself in the mirror and felt disgusted. When you feel as horrible as I did it showed on your face. Made you look uglier. I turned the faucet back to cold and splashed my face.

It stung like a bitch

I started to smile to see if it would make my face less gross. At first I looked creepy. Then I thought of the character I played in last springs theatre performance of the drama club. The character I had to be. I closed my eyes to bring myself back to that time. I smiled and opened them.

I looked as if I was happy. I looked as if nothing could bring me down. I looked as if weight was lifted from my shoulders. And most importantly, I couldn't even tell I was lying. "I'll try it for a day". I said aloud. I went back into my room and started to bullet point guidelines for Friday, my test subject day.

No complaining
Just do the work
No excuses
No frowning during the day
No talking about how shitty your life is
Don't let the depression show on your face.

I tapped my pen on my chin in thought,

Wise, Brave, and Temperate. Always show self restraint.

Getting into character. Treat it as a job. The less emotionally attached you on about how you feel and the more attached you are to getting it done the Likely you are to succeed.

Role portrayed: Lillian  Marie Gabel
Lele for short
Has an older brother, father and divorced mother
Goes to Oakley high school in small town
Aspirations
To graduate college and become a professional sociologist
Is not popular- is not a loser- average
Has roughly 40 friends and associates in school.
Gets decent grades and always puts In one hundred and ten percent.
A cheerful individual.

The more I wrote the more I wanted to gag. My only aspiration is to get rich quick and never work a day over thirty (unlikely) and almost everything else was the opposite of me. I hated smiling. I put no effort into anything I did. And for goodness sake I wasn't a cheerful person.

* Remember to stay positive and smile

I began to play out the character I was creating around my real self in my head. Sorting details and estimating how much therapy I would need if this actually worked and I made another personality. I watched split and yet here I am creating a home version.

I stopped writing. I had all these ideas in my head but now I was blanking. I left space for more rules. I knew more would come to mind. I then began to write my first journal entry.

Later that night I was drifting of into space, on top of my bed. Facing the wall. I thought about Tomorrow. How I would see the people I hated. The people who were fake to me. The friends I didn't want to be friends with anymore and the friends I felt like I shitted on because I didn't want to talk to them about it. I didn't deserve them. I shook my head and turned to the side of my bed. I hated being forced to smile for a photo and I was going to do it for eight hours, for weeks. I don't know if I'll make it. I don't know whether I want to make it or not.