I will always believe that I am at my happiest when on stage performing and nothing will have my heart like musical theatre does. This one is such a hard thing for me to talk about and I barely do talk about it with anyone, I think I’ve literally told 1 or 2 people about this in my life as it still breaks my heart to this day and keeping it all in hurts me even more.
Ever since I was young, dance has been my absolute life and all I ever wanted to do was be a dancer, and as I grew older I started to get more involved in acting and singing as well, which then started my journey into musical theatre. Along side my dance exams and competitions that I was doing, I started to take acting and singing exams which I found a new love for. I became obsessed with musicals and was at my happiest when watching them so decided to go to college and study performing arts instead of a levels. This was the best decision I have ever made in my life!!! Starting again and making new friends in a new environment helped my mental health a lot and I gained the most amazing group of friends, and these 2 years I had at college with these people were 100% the best years of my life. We were given so many opportunities in all areas of musical theatre and I decided that as well as being a dancer, I wanted to go into musical theatre and be on the west end one day (dreaming big I know lol). When I first started this course, I genuinely did not speak to anyone for about a month because I literally had no confidence in myself at all (I’m also not joking when I said I didn’t speak for like a month lol ask all my pals xxx), and then I became such a happy loud person as the months went on! I had the most amazing friends, the most perfect boyfriend who I was so in love with and I got to do what I loved to do every single day and looking back now I think these were some of the happiest times of my life without me even knowing it.
As time went on I started to spend a lot more time focusing on my singing more than anything which was (and still is) one of the things I love to do more than anything but I really struggled with my confidence, especially when it came to singing in front of audiences. I was having singing lessons outside of college and I was so so so lucky to have the most amazing singing teacher I could have ever asked for, who helped me to believe in myself and pushed me to do all these things I could have never imagined myself doing before! I was performing in multiple singing competitions and performances and my confidence grew so much over time. My singing teacher knew how much I loved musical theatre so suggested that I took a musical theatre exam which I came out with a distinction! This was the push I needed and at this time in my life all I was dreaming of was my life in the future at drama school in London.
The time came to start applying for these drama schools so I started by applying and got an audition date back for my first choice at the time!!!!!!! I was so happy as this was all I had ever dreamed of, but as time went on and I started to prepare for this audition, booking hotels to stay in London, and all the other little bits that go with it something had completely changed in myself and I started to doubt myself and if I was going to be good enough. About 2 weeks before my audition my anxiety started to get so bad again, to the point where it was also starting to ruin my relationship as well. The only times I felt like my anxiety wasn’t taking over me was when I was with him, and how I constantly thought that I was only okay when he was around started to break down the relationship, and also meant that I wasn’t spending any time preparing for my audition at all, for a drama school that I had my heart set on. My boyfriend (at the time obvs) was the most supportive person I could have ever wished for in my life at the time and he was so amazing and patient with me throughout all of this, but my anxiety was pushing him and my dreams of being on the west end further and further away from me every single day.
It got to the Monday before my audition (my audition was at the weekend) and all I could think of was how I couldn’t go through with it. My anxiety was so bad that all I was doing was sleeping to try and get rid of it which never worked. I can’t even describe how horrible and anxious I felt thinking of the weekend and in the end I told my family that I wasn’t going to do the audition. People tried to convince me to do it but I was in this horrible mindset that I couldn’t do it and felt like I was going to have a panic attack every single time I thought about it that I just told everyone that I had decided to just go to uni instead and that I didn’t want to go to drama school anymore (not true at all anxiety I HATE YOU) as I was so scared of what people would say to me. I had been given the most amazing opportunity to audition for my dream drama school to potentially reach my dreams of being on the West End one day and I couldn’t do it????? What is wrong with me!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn’t end up going to the audition I was offered and 3 days later me and my boyfriend also broke up and to this day I am still so angry at myself and my horrible mental health for ruining the 2 best things in my life at the time.
Obviously going through a break up is shit and I have never felt heartbreak like I felt then since, but I had to keep going and not long after I didn’t turn up for my original audition I received an email from the same drama school offering me another audition date! I was soooooooooooooo happy when I saw this email and felt like I had a 2nd chance, so I accepted it, booked a weekend in London with my mum and sister so that we could go down a day before my audition and get to grips with the area of the drama school etc and also enjoy London at Christmas time!
I STILL REMEMBER THIS FEELING TO THIS DAY
We got to London and had the best day on the Saturday shopping, our hotel was only just round the corner from the drama school I was going to for my audition and we walked past it many times and that’s when my anxiety started to take over again. I was so much more prepared this time and had spent so much time rehearsing everything for this but no matter how much preparation I did, my anxiety was so bad that I thought I hadn’t done enough and wasn’t prepared enough to walk through those doors the next day and perform for them. We went for food at the hotel the Saturday night and I could barely eat, I couldn’t enjoy the night as all I could think of was the morning. I kept making comments to my mum saying how I didn’t want to do it and kept getting myself into states about it, but thought things would be different the next morning.
I didn’t sleep the Saturday night, and woke up on Sunday morning trying to get ready but already crying saying I didn’t want to go but was told it was just nerves and I’d be fine when I got there. I left the hotel with my mum and cried whole walk to the audition. We got there and I couldn’t even walk through the door, I had been dreaming of this place for god knows how long and I can’t even get through the bloody front door!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The next hour or so is such a blur, but I know I went into the waiting room eventually and met such lovely supporting people, but in the end I walked out of the building after having multiple panic attacks and still crying whilst walking back to our hotel room.
Multiple people asked me about my audition and at that time in my life I was such a broken anxious person that I honestly can’t remember what excuses I made up, but I know that at that moment of time in my life, there was nothing I hated more than talking about it.
I decided to just apply to uni to do dance, whilst still continuing to do performing arts at college which made it a lot harder to deal with. For our last musical at college we did Billy Elliot. Performing in this musical as Michael (Billy’s bestie) was definitely one of the best times of my life and the most fun I have EVER had on stage!!! When doing this my confidence started to come back and when I was on stage in the role I felt as if all my anxiety had just gone and all I wanted to do was musical theatre again.
Looking back now, my life is so different to how I had planned it to be, I wouldn’t change any of it as if I did I wouldn’t have met all my amazing besties at the uni I’m at now, the uni I was at before and when I was working full time in between! The one thing I would say from this is ALWAYS follow your dreams no matter how many doubts you have! I’m now doing a degree which I was so interested in at the start, but right now I’ve got to the point where I’ve lost all motivation and don’t even think at this point I’m going to pursue a career in it after uni. I still love musical theatre more than anything and it’ll always have my heart!!! And I wish more than anything that I can grow the confidence to start performing properly again and go back to doing what I love x
Gee's Mental Health 