Notes from a dancer: fear, self-loathing, and how I lost the music

Sometimes I suffer from anxiety.

I know a fair amount of people who have it a million times worse than I do — who often are crippled socially, who regularly suffer panic attacks, and whose lives are deeply affected by it because it can be so incredibly debilitating.

I am not one of those people. My anxiety is situational and I can (almost) always pinpoint the root of it. It starts like a fist in my stomach and the grip gets tighter and tighter until it eventually dissipates, thanks to whatever circumstances have soothed it.

Tonight, I had one of those moments before I went to dance class. I missed class last week because I was tired and emotionally drained after a trying weekend. I probably should’ve sucked it up and went anyway because I knew I’d pay for it this week and fall behind — and no surprise — I did.

I’ve been dancing since I was 12 or 13. I took a jazz and lyrical class until I graduated high school and came back for the occasional summer class. I returned on a more regular basis last year, though, after I moved back home. This time, in the form of a weekly hip-hop class.

If you didn’t know me and just observed a class, you’d probably have little clue I’ve been dancing that long. Somewhere along the way I got lost in my head — I stopped listening to the music and became too wrapped up in my anxious mind about what came next. I can find a beat easily and I can hold my own in the middle of a dance club, but class is an entirely different animal.

I couldn’t ask for a better instructor — he’s incredible at what he does and brings everything alive with a handful of jokes on the tip of his tongue. And my fellow dancers who can easily dance circles around me are not only incredibly talented, but some of the sweetest girls I’ve ever had the pleasure of dancing beside.

Which almost makes it all harder — that it really all falls onto my perfectionist tendencies. My stomach drops with every missed step, every turn that takes me an infinite number of repetitions to remember. My mind swirls with it all —

What do I do with my feet — is it the pas de bourree that comes next or the rond de jambe?

Have they figured out that I screwed up again?

Phony. I’m such a phony.

Are they wondering why I’m here?

Honestly? Probably not. But maybe.

I don’t know when I stopped listening to the music, stopped trusting my ears and my body for the cues. I imagine that it was somewhere around age 15, after we started really delving into the technical stuff that I struggle with — the complicated (or simple) turns and leaps that have always tested my already-shaky faith in my abilities.

I never wanted dance to be a career, but you always wanna be good at what you love to do, even something that’s just a weekly hobby.

And you especially never wanna feel like you’re constantly failing those who have worked hard to teach you their craft, even if you (logically) know that to be a lie. Because although it (to be generous) takes me about twice as long to pick up a new routine than it does anyone else, I’m never treated any differently than anyone else. No one has thrust that anxiety on me other than myself.

I have no reason to believe anyone views me as lesser. And I don't actually believe that they do, but it's part of the series of lies your anxiety tells you.

Those lies you tell yourself are the hardest — the ones where you convince yourself that you’ve disappointed everyone, when the reasonable part of your mind knows the only person you’ve disappointed is yourself.

And maybe that’s the worst part of it all.

I’ve been stuck in this anxiety-inducing pattern for the better part of a decade now and I wonder if it gets harder and harder to find the music with each year that passes, if I’ll ever get wonderfully lost in it again.

I live for those small moments when it clicks — when I’m taken back to that period of confidence and ease I used to know. More than anything, I wish I could pocket those moments and pull them out whenever I need a shot.

It’s the best kind of drug there is.

My enjoyment, despite my seeming failure, is potent enough to keep me going and the laughs are the best anxiety medication I could ever have.

Is it enough?

I can only hope that my own self-awareness propels me forward and forces me to find the music again.