Humor
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2 hours agoBrian Copeland's The Waiting Period
A solo play explores a ten-day waiting period before a suicide attempt, using humor and personal narrative to address depression and mental health stigma.
It was the highlight of my life and everyone loved it. It also was the worst time of my life ever. It was the worst of times, b****. The entertainment industry led me to substance abuse and alcoholism and my life falling apart. I got chewed up and spit out by Hollywood, girl.
Each year, the United Nations puts together a list of the happiest countries in the world, comparing a wide variety of criteria, from average incomes and healthcare standards to levels of generosity and absence of corruption. For the eighth year in a row, Finland has topped the list, winning on behalf of its people's notable friendliness, freedom of choice, and high life expectancy.
Where previous generations experienced anticipation as a natural rhythm of correspondence, we now interpret any delay as rejection, disinterest, or worse. The space that once existed between communications-space that allowed for reflection, longing, and genuine excitement-has been compressed into a continuous stream of micro-interactions that leave us exhausted rather than energized.
What makes me so grateful to be part of Gotham is how they invested in me when I was at a low. I didn't realize it at the time, but I wasn't actually playing very well when the deal came about. The trade was abrupt and came at a difficult point in her career, yet the organization's commitment during her struggles proved pivotal.
The episode explores the difference between healthy and unhealthy fear, examining how fear serves protective functions while also understanding when fear responses become counterproductive and interfere with daily functioning and well-being.
The truth is that I am mentally unwell. Despite this, I have pushed myself to continue with touring. As a result my mental health has only further declined. After discussions with my team, we have decided to cancel the remaining shows and take an indefinite hiatus from live music.
Manic Street Creature is gig theatre in its purest form. Kirsty Patrick Ward (The Rat Trap) directs a story about a musician breaking onto the London scene, told as a musical set. Olivier Award-winner Maimuna Memon (Standing at the Sky's Edge) leads a tour-de-force about young love, creative ambition and mental health.
They created an artificial 'mental map', with pleasantness along one axis and bodily reactions along the other, and charted how the brain responded while watching clips from films. The results revealed clear groupings in the way that our brains represent emotion - with guilt, anger and disgust in one corner and happiness, satisfaction and pride in the other.
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk writes in 'The Body Keeps the Score' that trauma doesn't just live in our minds - it reshapes how our bodies respond to emotion. Sometimes, when we experience significant loss, our nervous system essentially decides that feeling is too dangerous and shuts down the whole operation.
With sweaty palms and trembling knees, I asked him to grant me a one-month medical leave because my depression had become unbearable. I struggled to find the words. 'It's hard to explain,' I eventually said. 'I just don't have any energy. To do anything. I'm drained all the time, physically. And nothing feels good to me. I hate myself. I only get out of bed to come to work.'
They're frozen in their grief. They have a real sense of helplessness. There's no clear resolution from it. We know from research that ambiguous loss is the most psychologically painful kind of loss because of that.
The shoulds are a type of cognitive distortion (unhelpful thinking habit) that can lead to judgment. You may judge others, for example, 'They shouldn't act that way,' and yourself. In this post, we will focus on the shoulds you direct at yourself, though the strategies may be helpful for all cognitive distortions.
We're also spending less time with friends. For years, Americans averaged about 6.5 hours a week with friends. Between 2014 and 2019, that number plunged by 37%, to just 4 hours. The year 2014 coincides with a rise in smartphone users.
As a postpartum woman, most of the time, I just want my husband to hug me and tell me he's sorry I'm uncomfortable in my new body. I don't always want to hear how attractive he finds me, because I don't see it. Maybe try thanking her for sacrificing her pre-baby body to bring your children into the world. Tell her you appreciate that and love her.
Looking back, I think the incident happened because I was at an internal breaking point between who I had been and who I was becoming. It was Blair's first indication that the self-discipline she imposed on herself-insisting that she could do everything perfectly on her own-wasn't healthy. In addition to the significant stress of her high-pressure job, she was also still carrying the grief of losing her partner five years earlier.