I read a horrible story yesterday and the sadness and ickiness and anger it generated is sticking with me for some reason. It was a story about a young woman who I went to college with. She was beautiful, lots of fun and, I thought, a little eccentric – but exciting. She was fun to hang around with. I remember walking downtown with her to get some TCBY and she carried a parasol – not an umbrella – a parasol. Her name was Margaret Trigg and she died in Bellevue in 2004.

Here’s her story: The Perfect Margaret Trigg: The performance artist and sitcom actress would do anything to be a star, including making herself her own lethal science project.

The story frightens me because is wakes up that part of me that can only be called self-loathing. It brings up a lot of anger about the industry that is “showbiz”. And it reminds me why I gave up on my acting career when I was 29. I couldn’t handle it. The industry took something I loved and turned it into a commodities market in which I felt I had no place.

I wasn’t tough enough and Margaret’s story reminds me of just how tough you have to be to survive constant criticism and comparison. You have to be grounded, centered and confident and I wasn’t. I was never confident. You’ve read that here in articles where I talk about self-consciousness and body image. These are painful issues to face. I’ve learned since then that confidence is a daily practice of letting go – of firing the self-editing critic and just being where I am and who I am. But it is a daily practice. It’s never a done deal.

When I lived in NYC I studied acting at a prominent studio for two years. You’ve seen some of my classmates in films an on TV and a couple of them were beautiful models that you’ve all seen in mags and catalogues. (I’m not going to name drop.) I learned a lot from this teacher and I felt very good about my craft. I knew I was good, I knew I was getting better and I knew I was one of the best in the class. At the end of the two years we had personal conferences with the teacher. Most of our classmates were hanging out in a pub down the street where we agreed to get together after our personal evaluations.

I went into my teacher’s office. And he said, “You are good. You are very good, but you need to lose at least 30 pounds or you will never work.” That was it. Oh, and he recommended I try Jenny Craig. BTW – I was “working” while taking this class, but that didn’t matter to me anymore. I was convinced he was right because that’s “showbiz”.

The problem wasn’t with him. He only spoke the truth that he believed I needed to hear. The problem was with how I reacted. He had hit one of my triggers. He’d hit a nerve that had already been worn raw inside of me and I was devastated. I went down to the pub and one of my classmates was eager to know what happened in my conference. I said, “Not much. He didn’t really have a lot to tell me.”

Not long after that. I began avoiding auditions. I couldn’t face my demons. I just wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t equipped with the tools I needed to move forward. The tools that would have helped me say, “To hell with you. I’m doing what I love doing anyway. No matter what you say. There’s a place for me.”

(As a point of clarification I weighed 135 pounds at the time.)

I know that the actions I took from that point forward cannot be blamed on that teacher. They were my actions. I could have made other choices. That being said, I do think the “showbiz” industry deserves to have a little shame because there are so many stories like Margaret’s. There are so many stories about talented lively people tearing themselves apart because they can’t get the love and approval they need from a narcissistic industry. Our longing for that love and approval is fuel for the fire that the “showbiz” industry preys on.

So I temped as a secretary during the day and each night on the way home from my “job” I stopped at the market and bought a bottle of wine, a bag of chips and a tub of french onion dip. And I went home and I drank every drop and ate every crumb. When I ran out of chips, I scraped the dip out of the plastic container with my fingers. And I hated myself while I did it. I did this every night for a long time. And I gave up trying to talk myself into going out for auditions. I just gave up and quit. This is what I recognize in Margaret’s story – the self-loathing. It killed her. I’m lucky. I got help from professionals, from good friends and from my family and from some internal reserve of strength that helped me climb out of that pit.

It took me a little more than 10 years to find my way back to where I am now. I’m in a place where I can create again, teach again, act again and love again. I’m in a place and state of mind where I’m happy with who I am. And, now, I’m equipped. When the beast of self-loathing tries to back me into a corner, I know how to break the chains. Fortunately I don’t have to fight that battle very often anymore. But, I know I can fight it if needed. I went out and got myself some mad self-esteem skills, baby!

Here’s the deal. There is no perfection. Striving for perfection in anything – body image, writing, painting, composing – is death to the soul and death to art. There will always be a pimple. Everybody farts in public at least once in their lifetime. No matter how much hair we have or how much we weigh – our writing, our time in the spotlight, and our paintings have value. These beautiful things couldn’t exist without the imperfectly lovely people who create them.

Here’s my mantra: Today I am embracing my imperfection and every ounce of my beautiful poundage and I will go to rehearsal and I will do what I love doing – acting as only I can act.

So, please, paint as only you can paint. Write as only you can write. Let yourself be and express everything that you are. If you are imperfect, you are alive.

With love,
Kirsten

Tags: Body Image