I was told over the weekend that I am 'not a very nice person'. I've spent a considerable amount of time pondering this, and I've come to the conclusion that it is bullshit. If I was truly not a nice person then why would Chyken live with me? Why would I have such great friends? But then a little voice inside my head says 'If someone said it to you, then it must be true, and if it is true, why are you paying a shrink an awful lot of money for him to teach you to how convince yourself that you are indeed a nice person?"
Confused? Let me set the scene for you:
There is a woman who is also in the cast of the show I am currently in, 'Crazy For You', who has been in several other shows with me. Neither of us have every had big parts, we both have chorus parts, and are not really crucial to the plot or anything like that, we usually just hover about in the background. She is an older lady, maybe 60ish (I am really bad at picking people's ages, so she could be anything from 40-80). She spends the whole time we are on stage over-acting, and the whole time off stage questioning everyone else about what scene we are up to and what song this is and what the dance moves are and is it time to go on yet?
All. The. Freaking. Time.
Never mind the fact that she has been to just as many, if not more, rehearsals than I have, she still rarely knows what she is doing. And I will just state for the record that this has happened in all the shows, not just this year.
During the performance on Friday night, this lady was late to arrive to the stage for a song. Instead of just not going on at all (which is what i would have done, and I have seen other cast members do) she went on to the stage, but in the wrong place. Which meant the other five of us were also in the wrong order. Needless to say, that song and dance number was a debacle. She made us all look like idiots who didn't know what we were doing. When we came off stage she tried to make light of the situation by saying "Did you like the new version of that song?". I replied, fairly bitchily, but rather quite restrained for how I actually felt 'No, actually I didn't."
The next night we were all waiting in the wings about to go on-stage and she asked me (for the THIRD time that night alone) if she went on first in this scene, or third, or last, or where. All my restraint went out the window. I replied with "I don't know. It's not MY job to know where you come on." The scene started and she (somehow) found her way on stage and we sang and danced our little hearts out.
In the dressing rooms after the show, while I was taking my make-up off, she came up to me. The conversation went like this.
Her: "I need to say something to you."
Me: "Yes?"
Her: "Well, I was really upset by what you said to me backstage"
{I just looked at her}
Her: "In CASE you didn't know, I JUST lost my mother, so if I have been a bit confused, then that will be why" (She started crying) *
Me: "[her name], everyone has things going on in their lives, we all have problems and issues, but if I have upset you then I am very sorry, that was not my intention."
{I then walked away from her and started to get changed. It was a genuine apology, I didn't mean to upset her, I just wanted her to get her shit together.}
Her: (by this stage, almost yelling so the entire cast was now watching what was going on) "Well, I.. I... I don't think you're a very nice person at all"
Me: "Then it is lucky for me that I really don't care what you think, isn't it?"
{She then started some very over-exaggerated sobbing and left into the other room, with several people going after her to fawn over her and tell her what a horrible person I am. No one asked me if I was OK, probably because I wasn't crying crocodile tears to gain attention.}
The next day she kept giving me dirty looks, but although I overheard her asking others where she was supposed to be and what scene we were up to, she left me the hell alone. Thank God! Perhaps some good did come out of this and she will never ask me again?
Now, before you think I am a complete arsehole, please know that I do realise, with the benefit of hindsight, that I didn't handle the situation very well, but unfortunately, this is a symptom of the bullshit PTSD that I live with every day. I have a very short temper. However, I don't think a short temper makes me a horrible person, does it? The difference with me and some others with a temper is that I don't seem to have to use my fists to get my point across. That's gotta count for something, yes?
*Just so you know, I already knew this, as she had been at rehearsal the night it happened. Why she thought it necessary to rehearse that night I'm not entirely sure, because when my Dad died, rehearsals would have been the last place I went, but, each to their own. If there is ONE thing I have learnt in the last 18 months it is that everyone deals with grief in different ways.
