Henry - zero, Anna - many, many points
Not your standard battle with a hoover. Director Anna Pool speaks beautifully of how the pandemic and resulting artistic hiatus has allowed for the the anxiety vacuum to give way to writing, enjoying writing and then - writing a bit more.
Be excited about writing.
Panic about what to write as you clearly have no expertise in anything and what you write will be rubbish.
Decide to write about anxiety and perfectionism.
Get anxious that your piece about anxiety and perfectionism won’t be good enough.
Spend hours paralysed at keyboard thinking people will pity you and give you no work if they read this because they’ll think you’re pathetic and will implode at the slightest thing.
Think about other topics to write about.
Repeat.
I’m Anna. I’m a freelance director, producer, writer and composer. Also singer of loud songs, dedicated eater of cake-based foods, friend, daughter, problem-solver, vintage glassware collector and definitely glass half full person.
I also have anxiety; it’s been a diagnosed thing for at least 10 years, but I truly can’t remember a time without it. It’s the kind that stopped me sleeping as a child, leaves me waking up with dread at my perceived failure before the day has begun and sits in the room with me in nearly every situation, professional or personal. Like a giant Henry hoover, its trundles through opportunities, job interviews, rehearsal rooms, conversations and day to day existences, sucking away the creativity and enjoyment of doing what I do with its giant nozzle of doom.
It’s a very complicated co-existence. Let’s be clear here: I do really enjoy what I do. I mainly work in new music theatre- producing it, directing it, writing it, singing it. The people I work with, the stories I get to be part of telling (when I get to see these things clearly), give me as much joy now as they did when I first discovered that I could sing as a young child. I am fed and sustained by this work, and, it could probably be construed using objective, quantitative methods that humans like to use (CVs, work opportunities, friends who are truly supportive of my existence), that I am not a failure. But Horrible Henry has decreed that I must go through him before I get to the activity itself, whether that’s sending an email, writing a new piece or researching a new production. And Horrible Henry must remind me that whilst I may be about to enjoy this activity, there are a hundred reasons why what I am about to produce is pointless, and another hundred reasons why I should be focussing on one of my other branches of work because that, not this, is clearly the project that will bring me the calm, success and validity (whatever they all mean), that I am clearly craving. Any reasonable person could deduce from this that Henry is clearly a psychopathic serial killer of creativity and the reason that I often end up producing nothing at all, staring into space in a sort of manic paralysis for hours. When I have actually created something, written a new libretto, directed a new play, produced a national tour, he takes away the joy I should be allowed to feel at that achievement because it still hasn’t made me valid yet.
Anna zero, Henry, many, many, many points.
The complete change in (or complete halting of) all activity due to the pandemic threw all this into a rather harsh perspective. Not only had I (like practically all of my other freelance colleagues) lost all of my work and income for the foreseeable future, I now had this gaping void of uncertainty where I see my validity as a person slipping from my grasp because I had to fill this void in the CORRECT way.
What was everyone else doing during this time that I wasn’t? What if THIS was the time I was meant to write my masterpiece/ learn that new skill that was going to change my life? What was the point of doing anything because everything was falling to pieces and clearly, I was going to fall with it because I am so insignificant? It was a classic Henry manoeuvre (he feeds on circumstantial double whammies, you see?), and one that led me to a mid-lockdown breakdown.
I’m not going to pretend that, wrapped in a yellow blanket on a sofa being fed chocolate by my partner for three days, I had an earth shattering, bolt from the blue moment where all my problems were solved. In my experience, (admittedly limited, it’s just mine) that’s not how it happens. But what I will say is that I had a couple of strange moments of clarity to which I had to listen. In pre-pandemic world, I’d always been able to push them aside as I charged onto the next project, desperately trying to outrun the ominous hoovery shadow and smacking away anything that might allow me to face him in a full stand-off. Right there, lying on the sofa, shaking uncontrollably and hating myself for it, I genuinely realised that this was how it was going to be, for everything, ever, unless I LIKED MYSELF MORE. Of course, this had been pointed out to me many times before, but recognizing with exception clarity, that I could become the Artistic Director of the Royal Opera House and still be anxious, self-loathing and dissatisfied with my work was a real eye-opener. I could win a Tony; successful people get two. Three Oscars? Need four, mate. I would be going through my life, never enjoying each thing I do, each little achievement, the journey to the end goal. That is truly what I have been doing for the best part of a decade. And that, is a terribly disappointing place to be.
Bizarrely, in some strange twist of fate, this led me to write. Again, in my rushing, self-hating, pre-pandemic head, I’d grown dismissive of the idea of journaling. I had needed to write so much but Horrible Henry so often sat in the corner dictating that everything I was doing was pointless and not going to be a world-renowned best seller so I might as well not. But in my broken-down sofa state, I briefly outwitted him and began to write. About my anxiety, about all the things that led me to it, about all the reasons that I might have found myself at this point. Word vomit has truly never been so cathartic.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s far from over but even in the past week I’ve noticed a couple of small, positive effects. For example, I’m not crying so easily. Disclaimer here - there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with crying, but it had got to the point where Henry was so intertwined with my existence that any perceived failure of the day (from burning dinner to not getting through a to-do list) caused a flood of waterworks impossible to quell. I’m still writing about my anxiety and am actually enjoying what I’ve written. Yes, it has only been a week or so, but I cannot stress enough how unusual this is - a bestseller, who knows? Important to me - absolutely. Not only do I want to keep writing, but I’m also feeling a flicker of content in my stomach. Henry is of course doing his best to stamp that out with thoughts that I am delusional, that I am accepting less, that this is all I will ever amount to. Yes, I still look at wonderful colleagues I admire and fall down the rabbit hole of perceived missed opportunities, loss of my potential, my abject failure blahblahblah. But this is an incredibly significant start, and one that that I am hoping allows me to build myself back up, bit by bit.
One day I will defeat Horrible Henry in some glorious, Boudicca- inspired battle sequence as I sexily vanquish him with my sword of calm, grounded, level-headedness. Or we might simply fall into a settled relationship that is beneficial to both of us - i.e. one where I am not terrified of my daily existence and where Henry remains an ancient system within my brain that stops me getting eaten by wild animals. Perhaps, one day soon, my thought process can look something like:
Be excited about writing.
Write.
Enjoy.
Repeat.