A Slow Recovery

It's now exactly four weeks since Faustarse (there I said it!) and I'm still recovering from the trauma of it all. It may sound trite to use that word (and I don't use it lightly) but it was such a bizarre intense experience that I feel as though I'm coming out from under a spell, or a spell in a cult or something! I have reached the perhaps rather obvious conclusion that it is just not worth it.  It may be an actorly clichéd thing to say, but "I just can't work under these conditions"! Sandra, who played the lead female in the previous play Dickie directed said it took her three months to fully recover, so it might be a long haul. That play was also a dark subject, this time regarding mental health and the experience was on a par bonkers-wise, although my involvement was less. I didn't write about it at the time, but I do now feel an entry may be forthcoming...


Anyways... this 'ere entry is about my procrastination, as denoted by the red type, so any specific talk about acting stuff is irrelevant, except as an explanation as to why I feel like such a useless lump at present. 


I may be being harsh on myself but I feel as though I've gone completely backwards and have felt rather lost-at-sea in terms of routines, sleep patterns and goal setting. Sleep specifically has eluded me night after night and then of course it sets me up to fail the next day because I'm so bloody cream-crackered. It's impacting on Johan too, who understandably gets most upset at my tossing and turning and prodding him for his snoring. That guy can snore for England - quite an achievement considering he's foreign! Therefore I have decided that this is the thing I have to tackle if the other things have a hope of falling into place. As of tomorrow I am going on a 'sleep hygiene' programme. This will entail me consistently going to bed at the same time every night and getting up at the same time each morning no matter how little sleep I have had. Johan suggested I try it a couple of years back, and painful as it initially was, it is the only thing that has ever really worked with my insomnia, which has plagued me all my life. I think crucially, the first week you give yourself LESS time than you actually need for a good night's sleep in your bed, which teaches your body to take the chance of sleep when it presents itself. Doing this recent play has put my body right back in it's 'natural' preferred nocturnal state and I am struggling to break it. Doing this will be painful, boring and tedious, but it must be done!