Navigating the intricate landscapes of performance and identity, this podcast episode unveils the profound psychological ramifications that can accompany a life dedicated to the arts. The speaker shares a deeply personal narrative that begins with her youthful exploration of character portrayal in theater, specifically her embodiment of Evelyn, a role that catalyzed a tumultuous journey of self-discovery and grappling with identity. This journey highlights the alarming absence of structural support within the performing arts, where the demands of character immersion can leave artists feeling fragmented and overwhelmed. The narrative poignantly articulates the absence of exit strategies and the lack of acknowledgment for the emotional labor involved, ultimately emphasizing the need for a paradigm shift in understanding the mental health needs of performers.

As the discourse progresses, it elucidates the systemic issues common across various performance realms, such as acting, music, and sport, revealing a shared experience of emotional turmoil, economic instability, and social isolation. The speaker advocates for the establishment of Performance Identity Health, a framework designed to address the specific psychological hazards faced by performers, akin to the support systems available in sports and healthcare professions. By recognizing performance as labor that necessitates comprehensive mental health resources, this initiative seeks to foster an environment where artists can thrive without sacrificing their well-being.

This episode serves as both a reflective examination of the industry's shortcomings and a clarion call for systemic reform. It challenges the prevailing narratives that often stigmatize artists grappling with mental health challenges, reframing their struggles as indicative of a broader systemic failure. Through the lens of her own experiences, the speaker invites listeners to engage in a dialogue about the importance of mental health in the performing arts, underscoring the necessity for community support, self-advocacy, and a commitment to creating a healthier landscape for all who dedicate their lives to performance.

Takeaways:

1. The concept of Performance Identity Health addresses the psychological hazards faced by performers.
2. This framework highlights the importance of recognizing performance work as legitimate labor deserving of support.
3. Emotional burdens of carrying multiple identities can lead to significant mental health challenges in performers.
4. The podcast emphasizes the need for systemic change to protect the well-being of those in the performing arts.
5. Occupational health standards for performers are essential to ensure their mental and emotional resilience.
6. Understanding the unseen labor involved in performance can foster greater awareness of performers' struggles.

Okay.

I was 19 years old, sitting in my professor's office trying to explain that something was wrong with me.

For three months I had lived as Evelyn from the Shape of Things.

It's a play about a woman who manipulates, strategize, seduces.

We were taught the acting method to eat like them, walk like them, sleep like them, think like them, unlock your own memories and catastrophize them into the character's experience.

And my God, did I find the key.

Evelyn gave me things I didn't give myself.

She gave me confidence, strategy, patience, the intoxicating feeling of watching another person be influenced by what I had to say.

My 19 year old self thought, oh my God, this shit is amazing.

So let's keep going.

Nobody told me to stop.

They said, great job.

A but there was never a protocol that said, don't take this off stage.

So I took Evelyn everywhere.

I'm not ready to tell you the full story yet.

But I can tell you this.

It was life changing in ways I did not choose.

It affected my friends, my family, my life.

It left me at the start of what true grief felt like.

At 19, loss, irreparable loss, I did not expect.

So I went back to my professor.

I said, I think something is wrong with me.

I know I don't know how to get rid of this character.

I, I still feel it inside me.

And she said, no, what do you mean?

Just stop doing it.

I, I said, doctor, I spent at least like last three months, right, becoming this person, living, breathing, eating as her.

I, I did all of that for just like three minutes, three, five minutes on stage.

And now you're telling me to just stop?

She shrugged.

She said, it's just a job.

Treated as such.

Just a job.

Okay, so for a 19 year old who had been taught to unlock her own trauma to fuel this character, right, who have been given no exit strategy, no de rolling pro protocol, no warning signs to watch for, who was now experiencing something she couldn't name.

When the character doesn't leave, when the curtain falls, Where was the communication around stopping?

Where was the support for what I like to call emotional athletes who pour their entire psychological selves into a role, it didn't exist.

So over the years, during my 20s and my early 30s, I became a DJ, a bodybuilder, an actor, and now a marriage family therapist, associate marriage family therapist on the road to licensure.

And everywhere I went, I saw the same thing, like in community theater.

For example, colleagues dropping out of shows because they weren't supported, or juggling multiple jobs, barely even eating, and trying to rehearse their lines and maybe taking care of their kids, all for a show that runs for a couple of weeks.

I didn't.

In bodybuilding, eating disorders and body dysmorphia.

Becoming part of the ritual.

Smiling on stage while being defeated inside.

Being placed lower because someone else's genetics gave them advantages you could not train for.

And as a dj, being the only woman in the room, at least at the time, right?

Nearly thousands.

There weren't a lot of female DJs.

But being told that my physicality got me in the room and that it was never my talent, then as an actor, I can go on for days about this, but being given what looked like six weeks of rehearsals on paper, but was really two weeks of actual prep time.

Memorizing lines, downloading everything.

The choreography, the emotional parts in the room, the relational work, the transforming our bodies and minds for pay, that doesn't cover a quarter of the labor I was provided.

And what we call it, the process, right?

We say you have to love the process, but the process is not supported.

The drastic transformations we make to get to rehearsal, to auditions, to set up recording studios in our apartments, just to be seen, none of that counts as labor.

None of it is compensated.

None of it is acknowledged.

So I started seeing these patterns, especially when I was younger, right?

But I think I was able to put a name on them.

Like the child stars we watched on Disney and Nickelodeon.

My favorite favorite program, from the Britney's to the Amanda's to the Lindsey's.

We called them crazy.

We made memes after them.

We never asked what the job did to them.

The ones who took their lives, Lee Thompson, young at 29, twitch at 40.

Heath Ledger.

The ones who cried for help.

Taraji breaking down on camera 20 years in saying she's exhausted and underpaid.

Oh, in the Olympics right now, Simone Biles stopping midway because her body said no.

The ones who walked away, Chappelle leaving $50 million.

Daniel Day Lewis, retiring completely.

This isn't anecdotal.

This is a pattern.

From Disney kids to Oscar winners to Broadway to content creators.

And the industry keeps saying they just couldn't handle it.

But what if?

What if the job is the problem?

So that's when I understood, right?

We're missing the framework around the performer themselves.

Not just a production, not just the exit, but the entire life cycle.

So let's look at it like this, right?

So before the show Right?

We have the invisible labor, the unpaid auditions, the self tapes, the memorizing all those crazy lines, the amount of lines, right?

And then the physical transformation, right?

The character development work.

And then let's look at, during the show, and this is just to name a few, but during the show, the accumulation of a different identity on top of who we already are and.

And the burden of carrying multiple selves.

Now let's maybe look at after the show, how much of that character is still living inside of us.

How are we integrating, reintegrating or failing to integrate back to our daily lives, whatever that looks like.

And now I don't want to forget, in between the shows, the.

The space where burnout happens, right?

Where you are trying to audition for something new, but the last character keeps showing up.

That perpetual cycle where it becomes impossible to access your baseline self.

And can we even remember who that is while we're also trying to discover who that is?

And this, I have to say, is not about individual resilience.

This is occupational hazard.

So think about it, right?

I'm going.

Give us an example.

You play Hamlet, right?

Death is all around you for weeks.

You worship it, scream for it, embody it.

Then you go home and death is still around you.

You kind of think of it like when you buy a Honda, right, or some car, and suddenly you're seeing Hondas everywhere, right?

Maybe you're laughing about it with friends, and maybe you start drinking more.

Maybe old habits resurface.

Then you try to audition for something else.

But Hamlet keeps appearing and you have a family to support, student loans to pay, unemployment to file.

Again, I could be talking about the worst case scenario.

But these stories are not uncommon.

This is what we do for what society calls a hobby.

Like, how do you tell a fish that the water surrounding them is a hobby?

Go swim on land.

That's the hardest part.

So my mission is to create a field that addresses the occupational mental health needs for performers across their entire career life cycle.

And I'm calling it Performance Identity Health.

It recognizes that performance work is labor and that labor has specific psychological hazards requiring systemic intervention.

The hazards may include, but aren't limited to, embodiment demands using your body and psyche as the primary tool.

Financial precarity, chronic economic instability, social isolation, right?

Rehearsal schedules that destroy relationships.

Identity management, carrying multiple cells with no protocol for integration.

Just like sports, medicine exists for athletes.

Just like nursing, wellness programs exist for healthcare workers.

Just like teacher burnout, research exists for educators.

Performers need occupational health standards.

This is not about learning to cope better.

This is about the industry protecting performers.

Mental health, not more resilience.

This is occupational safety.

And here's the thing.

This framework extends beyond traditional theater, right?

Content creators, let's not forget about them.

The content creators face the same hazards, but it's amplified.

The audience never sleeps.

The curtain never closes.

The algorithm is a moving goalpost.

The social meanness is constant.

The uncertainty is rapid and dangerous.

The systemic problem is the same.

An industry that uses bodies for entertainment without protecting the people inside those bodies.

So I know, I know, I know, I know, I know paradigm shifts take time.

I'm not trying to change everything overnight, but actually I am.

I can feel it.

I've been procrastinating on this for such a long time because this means so much to me to notice this type of issue.

And you're just like, wow, this thought that you have can change the world.

Maybe.

And maybe I could be grandiose there, but I can give you awareness at least.

I can start there.

I can give you language for what you're experiencing.

So what if your emotional messiness isn't laziness?

What if your inability to turn your depression into something glorious, some amazing, earth shattering final project, isn't a personal feeling?

What if it's a systemic issue, one that uses your entire body as a tool, your mind, your spirit, for entertainment, and then discards you when the applause stops, when the algorithm change, when culture is yearning voyeuristically for something else.

So I hope in other podcasts that I create that I'm also, you know, that I talk to other people having real conversations about these issues because I'm still in it too.

I'm still performing multiple roles, but I hope to start discussing about the burden of carrying multiple identities, the invisible loads of labor in every project, the residue of the roles that stay with you, the dangerous space between projects, maybe some de rolling techniques that can actually work, and how to build your own support system while we wait for the larger paradigm to shift.

So here's what I want you to do.

If you made it this far, which thank you, thank you very much.

I appreciate being seen.

The next time you finish a show, the next time you audition, next time you say, that's just a part of the job, write it down, all of it, Everything you had to navigate, everything you did for free, every thing you carried home with you.

These are the parts that institutions encourage but don't support.

I think that needs to end.

I became a drama therapist because I take acting seriously as any other occupation.

I had dreams.

Oh my God.

I had Dreams.

Still have those dreams about running away to New York and becoming a name.

And lights.

Can't wait to this name, baby.

Champagne Hughes.

Come on.

Just rolls off the tongue.

But I was afraid.

Afraid of being brushed up against the lack of care I saw everywhere and still continue to see.

Afraid of integrating with a system that wasn't set up for me to survive.

So I'm here a little unhappy, but I'm here becoming a licensed clinician, continuing my work as a performer to tell you, you are not crazy.

There is nothing wrong with you.

You are not lazy.

You are navigating a system that is not supporting you.

A system that gaslights you, that calls you to use your body until it's worn down to nothing.

That leaves you feeling like a soldier after you turn off the camera, after you walk off the stage.

I may not have all the answers, but I have a few.

I want to leave you with tools.

I want to leave you a legacy of self advocacy.

I want you to have support when the people are no longer clapping after the applause.

I'm with you.

So keep going.

And if you feel that there is someone else that has experienced this, please do share this with them and also let me know, let me know how you are doing.

I'd love to hear from you.

And I will do my best to still continue doing these shows and anything else as I push through my grief, my loss, my fears, because that is my artistry and that is okay healing for me.

So I look forward to, forward to sitting with you again here after the applause.