Am I Just Lazy?

I’ve never felt like I’m an inherently lazy person. Quite the contrary, I’ve always thought. Until my bipolar II depression and anxiety got to a tipping point. I had never been on medication before this time, and I finally agreed to start taking it. As my symptoms started to get really bad in 2008, I was still working on a production, performing in a musical at a regional theater. I forced my way through that time, never missing a show or even an entrance, never a beat. But I was crying every day at home (my temporary housing in Philadelphia) and sometimes even crying backstage between cues, trying not to mess up my makeup. I met my husband on that job, and I think his friendship is what ultimately got me through.

Once the show ended, it was back to New York and onto unemployment. Now if you remember correctly, 2008 was not a good time for the economy at large. The worst financial disaster since the Great Depression, to be exact. So while there wasn’t any work for me in the theater, there was a long extension of my unemployment benefits. I considered it a bit of a lucky break to have some time off from working and traveling and get my health in order. I found a psychiatrist who ran a clinic for artists and musicians, and I was able to get medical care despite having no insurance. Even the cheapest poverty-level New York insurance was way outside my budget, so the clinic was a real godsend. And thus I started my decade-long journey with psychiatric medication, a journey I’m still on with my third official psychiatrist. The doctor at that first clinic was incredibly generous with his time and his patience, filling out forms so I could get my prescriptions through Patient Assistance Programs run by the drug companies (each drug company has their own program, so google the name of your drug with the words ”Patient Assistance Program” for more info). He always called me back when I was traveling all over the map and he never let me go without meds.

While I was getting started on medication, I kept getting extension notices from unemployment. This gave me some serious downtime between auditions. I kept up a rigorous practice schedule of singing and I went running every day. I started pursuing an opera career instead of a theater one, and dove into lessons, coachings, and more practice sessions. But things moved slowly with my singing. I ended up working 9-5 temp jobs in NY, and it was hard to find the time and energy to practice. And when Matt started going out of town for work, I started going with him. I’d try to get voice coachings at whatever opera company he was working for, but aside from that and my solo practice sessions, I kind of turned into a lump of weepy despair. I eventually relied on him for money, and I didn’t have the energy to do much. Lots of people dream of working for themselves, or even just having lots of “free time.” But I never seemed to get the hang of it. I’d fill my head with thoughts of dieting or bingeing or rearranging the furniture, but I had no routine and I was constantly changing cities as Matt’s work took him around the country. I was alone much of the time and started to wonder where the day went. I screamed at myself for “not getting anything done.” I couldn’t figure out how to arrange my days and felt at the mercy of my flagging energy, medication side effects, and horrible moods.

And that’s when I started rethinking this whole laziness question. If I wasn’t lazy, wouldn’t I be doing more? Wouldn’t I have a stricter schedule? Wouldn’t I be researching more opportunities, seeking them out? Instead I was doing the bare minimum to keep my foot in my stagnant career, jumping on those opportunities that came my way as a desperate attempt to convince myself that I was trying my best. Because of the state of the economy, finding work was something of a losing battle. But I did some auditions and concerts- with devastating results. I was asked at auditions if I was pregnant (I was not), my voice completely ignored. I subjected myself to the abuse of an opera concert company in NY, purely out of desperation for work. The woman running it was a hot mess, changing rehearsals around on a whim and yelling at ticket-holders in the lobby. I had the encouragement of my voice teacher, I had my practice sessions, and I kept my head down. Even so, you can’t sing Wagner for 8 hours a day and I was at a loss for what to do with my downtime when I was so exhausted. I always felt that I had to ration my energy, saving it up for singing-related endeavors.

Right now, I feel the same way- that I have to ration my energy. I ration my energy for the gym and the cafe, and then I have all this downtime where I can’t seem to move at all. I lie down in the dark bedroom, staring at the wall or just closing my eyes and listening to the panicked screams in my mind. The screams say that I’m lazy and that I’m a failure. They say I should just get my shit together and get over this depression already. They say I’ve wasted ten years looking for a cure and that if there’s no cure, I must not really be sick. Just lazy.

Just a few days ago, I started resisting the urge to lie down in the dark. I’m frantic not knowing what else to do with myself, unable to work, unable to relax. So one night, I went for a walk with Matt. That was hard. I cried, embarrassed by my size, not wanting to be in public. But it was OK. Another night I did some work on the blog. I sat in bed with the air conditioner on and clicked away on my laptop. That was exhausting, but it was OK. Matt picked up a flyer for a meditation center (the last meditation center I’d been to shut down). They have a couple of evening sessions each week, so I’m going to try that instead of ruminating in the dark. Because I keep going over and over things in the past and they never get any better. It never makes things any better in the present, either. And spending all this time ruminating just feeds the thoughts that I’m lazy. So I’m trying to stop the cycle. I’ll just keep trying until I stop lying in the dark.