Transcript 06- Emma

These transcripts deal with themes of mental illness and trauma

This conversation took place in Cassandra’s art studio in an academic building of the school where both Cassandra and Emma went to undergraduate. Cassandra and Emma met three years ago when Cassandra directed Emma in a 24 hour theater festival.

Please state your name, your age and your gender identity and presentation.

All right. Um, my name is Emma. I’m 25 and… predominantly femme presenting, um… predominantly femme identifying… starting to explore some things that are outside of the binary. I use she/her pronouns predominantly, but I’m also okay with they/them and that’s something that I’m investigating right now.

Did anything lead you to this investigation?

Um, for the longest time I had… I was very committed to not presenting or not.. not… not present. Okay. No, that’s… that’s the wrong wording…For a very long time I thought any exploration of my gender identity wasn’t something I was going to take public because… and I’m still mostly not like, I’m not very open and loud about it because it is not a pressing need for me and I don’t want to detract from people whose experiences are a pressing need or people for whom that is such an intrinsic part of their identity that that’s something that needs to be addressed with them, that needs to be known, that it needs to be public. I am comfortable with… I mean I’m comfortable as comfortable, as kind of baseline with my body. There’s nothing about my body that I want to change. I enjoy presenting for the most part femme. And that’s not something that I’m desperate to break out of. So I don’t… I have not wanted to detract from the experience of other people by maybe muddying the narrative as it were by presenting as a person who might say, “Oh, I’m nonbinary but I don’t particularly dress or present in a way that screams gender nonbinary or gender nonconforming”.

So it’s been more of like a personal…

It’s been a personal thing and it’s been a relatively recent thing that I’ve been playing with and tweaking and experimenting with. Um, because for a very, very, very long time, it’s been something that I’ve only explored artistically and theatrically. Um, because artistically and theatrically, uh, for a very long time, a thing that has recurred a lot in my typecasting, is I play… male roles or I play male identifying characters a lot. Um, which is something I did all through high school, mostly out of necessity and then it turned into fun because I went to an all girls high school and we had to play our own men. Um, but then I liked it. I was good at it. I’ve been told I have kind of masc presenting stage energy, sometimes.

Big Dick Energy? (both laugh)

Stage Dick Energy um, which is a strange thing for me. And I’ve also, um… one of the projects that has been really kind of consuming me for the past and a half years has been a project where the main character and… the character that I will hopefully be playing is nonbinary. And his presentation is a big part of the narrative. I’ve been translating the Bacchae for two and a half years. It’s killing me. The God Dionysus will not allow me to die until I fucking do this (Cassandra laughs).

Just continues to resurrect you.

I wouldn’t be shocked. Like, I wouldn’t be shocked if I like woke up in the hospital and there was like some strange, very femme presenting guy standing over me going, “I didn’t say you were done” (both laugh).

Oh, I’m sorry.

It’s okay. We have… we have a good rapport. He’s cool.

Y’know, Dionysus.

He has demands, but he’s cool. No, I’m kidding.(whispered) I’m not kidding. Um, yeah, so that’s my kind of… yeah.

Um, so, uh, have you been officially diagnosed with any mental illness? If so, with what?

A generalized anxiety disorder.

Okay. So what like…

Uh, and then, um, kind of… kind of mid grade depression (Cassandra laughs)

Depression lite?

Yeah. It’s like I have like a grande depression. It’s not like a venti, it’s not… I’m like a grande depression… and an ice grande depression with almond milk.

That’s my gender (both laugh). Um, when… when were you diagnosed and what was the diagnosis experience like?

Um, I… I’ve never been on an antidepressant. Um, I’ve never taken, I never take… I have a prescription for an antianxiety medication, but I take it as needed. Um, when I was in college, it was relatively consistently, um, probably about two or three times a week. Now having gone through Grad school and having been out of Grad School for two months, um, I would say it’s more… honestly, it’s more like once every few months now. It’s kind of… it’s something I try not to… not to resort to. Not because I have a stigma against medication, but just personally that’s not for me. Um, I’ve had some very serious conversations with my GP about being on an antidepressant, um, because in my high school years, in my middle school years and my elementary school years, all of the friends that I knew that went on antidepressants kind of turned into different people. And maybe they were happier, maybe they were better, some of them had bad reactions to one medication and some of them switched over. But no one… everybody did change. And some people were like, “yeah, I’ve changed but I’m okay with it because I feel better now”. I… don’t feel like… because I’m an actor and because my kind of baseline personality is kind of intrinsically important to what I do… I don’t think I can afford to tweak it. I don’t think I can afford to fuck with it. And I kind of told my GP that and she’s like, “yeah, I can’t promise you that an antidepressant and will not result in some personality changes. I cannot promise you that it won’t result that… that it won’t mean that you’re emotional acuity is not as sharp as it should be”.

How, what… what party of personality do you feel… or like how does that translate into your personality? I’m interested.

Yeah. I…being emotionally available. Um, and like… as a safety Mecca, if I… if I was an accountant, I would absolutely go on any depressant in a hot second because I don’t need to be emotionally available to an extreme degree in my daily life or for my career. I might have some reservations about it for my personal relationships. I might have some reservations it, but… those are personal relationships and you can talk with your loved ones about, “I’m going on at this medication. Here’s what might happen”. And you can be very open and communicative about “this is what this is doing to me. This is what I feel like today. This is what I won’t feel… I may not feel like this tomorrow, but this is what it is today”. And as an actor you’re going into rooms constantly with people that don’t know you who don’t want to hear excuses. And people that don’t care.

What interaction, if any, do you think there’s been between your depression and anxiety and your emotional availability that you need to make as an actor?

I… I have been relatively lucky in my life that my life as an actor has helped me rather than hurt me. Um, I have found, you know… the very, very old idea of catharsis through art. I’m not advocating acting as therapy. I think you know, under no circumstances do that because… you will hurt the work and you will hurt yourself. But… it’s a byproduct. You get to go into a room with a bunch of other people and be vulnerable or powerful or both or neither or a little bit of… or a little bit of both. And of course that’s going to do something to you.

Um, a lot of my anxiety and depression interacting with my work has not so much been in the rehearsal room and not even so much in the audition room, but… in the mountain of work that takes place outside of those rooms, the sending emails, following up with people, getting the headshots printed, getting the resumes printed, tweaking the resume, the behind the behind the scenes that makes everything happen is where a lot of the anxiety crops up.

Um, and when I was in drama school, there was a fair amount of anxiety surrounding physical work, but that was a different thing. I’m not naturally a very coordinated or physical person. Um, my… my D&D strength and dexterity status are not…. (both laugh) Um, and I was on the one hand, extremely fortunate and on the other hand a little bit screwed in that I was in a group of 13 people and the predominant… and the majority of those people were very physical. They were really good dancers. They were really good movers, some of them had circus backgrounds. Some of them had like really intense dance backgrounds. We had gymnasts, we had stilt walkers, we had pole dancers and I did… that’s not me. Um, so of course that’s anxiety inducing of, you know, watching a lot of other people working to a level that you cannot hope to achieve. But that’s… that’s a normal thing. And that’s something that I… I mean I didn’t get over, but I certainly became accustomed to. And like a lot of my work in Grad school was learning how to work with my body rather than on or against.

Um, what did that kind of entail?

Um, Yoga, lot of yoga. Um, a lot of, a lot of yoga and a lot of just pulling my head out of my own ass about having a thing about doing yoga. Because I’ve always… I kind of shied away from the kind of… spiritual aspects, um, because that’s never been particularly my thing. It has a little bit more particularly my thing recently. So… that went along. And also… learning to ask questions like not… getting over the anxiety about asking questions or asking for help or… if I’m not getting a dance step, particularly quickly, asking, asking somebody else in the class, “you seem like you’ve got a handle on this. What the fuck am I doing?” Um, yeah.

So this is going to sound like a leading question. I don’t want you to feel like I’m putting like… my own like propaganda on you. I’m just searching for intersections. So like… have you noticed any differences between the way you and other femme actors have, um, been treated in terms like this… this physical part or in terms of the emotional availability as opposed to the masc actors?

So… I think there is an extreme expectation of emotional availability when it comes to femme presenting actors. Um, I think that goes hand in hand with a phenomenon that I’ve found a lot. Um, which is, “you’re so smart, BUT”

Oof, okay.

Does that ring a bell?

Like in terms like… well what does the “but” usually entail for you?

It’s the shaming of intellect and of reason in femme presenting actors.

Like you… you need to be more emotionally vulnerable, you’re getting too rational about this?

Yes. The… um, a lot of.. a lot of female actors get… or a lot of femme presenting actors get accused of being cold or being emotionally reserved when they’re not… wailing and gnashing their teeth.

So it’s kind of like a weird reversal of th… the general stereotype that exists that’s like, “oh, you’re, you’re too emotional. You need…”

Yeah.

Interesting.

Well because that’s the given expectation for a femme presenting actor is that they’re going to be soulful and into… and you know, everything has to come from the heart and everything has to come from this gentle “feminine” vulnerability. And if a femme presenting actor walks into the room and is genuinely intelligent or wants to engage with the text on an intellectual level, people look at them like they’ve grown a third head… and a second head. (Cassandra laughs)

Just… just skip the second head.

Just skip the second head, go straight to the third. Because it’s so… it… it shouldn’t throw people for a curve ball, but it absolutely does. Um, and that’s not something that happens with masc presenting actors, I’ve found, especially with… I’ve… I’ve done a fair amount of work with Shakespeare and I found in… some less ideal situations, the male presenting or masc presenting actors are encouraged to engage in dialogues about the text or encouraged to kind of look at (inaudible) are encouraged to work from a… from a seat in the head rather than a seat in the heart. Or sometimes they’re encouraged to do what is honestly for me the best thing which is find a happy medium. Femme presenting actors are encouraged to feel or are expected to feel and then when they don’t, or they don’t to the same presentational degree as someone’s imagined picture of a femme presenting actor, they are shamed.

Do you think this… this dynamic has had anything to do with your being typecast as masc uh, characters?

Um, I think… I think that’s a part of it. Um, when I was in Grad school, they made us do marketing for ourselves. Um, and a big part of that was kind of, they called it finding your triad. Um, and a lot of characteristics of things that casting directors will look for. So like sex, charm, quirk, heart, um, comedy, action, danger. My triad was intellect… Intellect will always sit at the top of my triad because I am who I am and I went to UChicago and you can tell that (Cassandra laughs).

Nerd!

I am a huge nerd, but it was intellect, power, and then this weird one, which was other worldly. So I… think a lot of the, the reason I can do or… not can, but the reason I have been cast as masc presenting roles is this othering. Um, because not only do I play a lot of msc presenting people, I play a lot of nonhumans. Um, I’ve played in the past… I’m playing a goddess right now. Um, I’ve been working on a play where I’m playing a god for… two and a half years. I’ve played a vampire, I’ve played witches, I’ve played ghosts, I’ve played demons. And… I think that… there has to be some intrinsic quality to me that does not gel with… what people expect. So–

Do…

So that can be internal, oh, sorry.

Oh, I don’t want to cut you off.

Well, so I think that can be interpreted as, “hey, she doesn’t seem quite right in a traditionally 100% femme presenting role. Let’s try her in a masc presenting role or she doesn’t… She doesn’t seem 100% like a human. Let’s do something else”. It’s… so I think there is… there’s something I have… I have Other with a capital O energy and that gets interpreted in a fair amount of ways.

How have you felt about that?

I like it. Um, I… I don’t… I don’t, you know, I don’t wish that I kind of had a sob story about it. Um, I like it. I enjoy it. Um, I particularly enjoy playing nonhumans. I like that.. even though I am not the traditional presentation of androgyny, which is another thing that I have a whole thing about because androgyny is more than people who look like sticks. Um, I am, uh, I’m… I’m busty, I’m short and curvy, I have long hair, but people still see something that can present non femme… or non human. Um, and I enjoy that. I… those are some of my favorite roles to do. Um, and especially because I’m a classical actor, like my… my heart and soul always lie with stuff that’s 300 years old… 300 years or older. Um, and that opens up a world of possibilities for me. And… I got into Grad school doing Iago. That was my audition monologue. I got into another program… I got into another program in Los Angeles doing like an evil fairy from this play called The Stryker. I… that is a part of me and that… it hasn’t always been the case, but that’s a part of me that I do genuinely love and celebrate and enjoy and I’m… I’m happy that that… that is something about me that people can see and that will… people will cast me according to.

That’s very cool.

Yeah, it’s fun.

Um, I just got off on a… um, but so we’re returning to a kind of more general question, which is, um, what’s been your experience with mental illness so far? And this is technically the first question (both laugh) Sorry. I was like, oh, that’s interesting. Tell me more. No, no, no, don’t apologize. Um, but so this is supposed to be like a kind of a very general, broad question.

(Piece omitted) So a lot of anxiety. Um, my… my depression has always been kind of a side to my anxiety. Like anxiety is very much the… the main course. Um… why am I always using food metaphors?

Well how… um, what relationship would you say you have with your mental illness now?

Like how do you conceive of it and how has that changed over this period of time?

Oh boy (Cassandra laughs)

Sorry, I know these are heavy questions.

Um, I… I had this… I used to have this very strong conception of my mental, you know, kind of classic mental illness as you know, the dark clouds, the… the thing that the… you know, the voice in your ear, that’s… you know, the Gollum/Smeagol dichotomy. Um, and that’s something that’s changed a little bit. Um, I definitely don’t see it as something that’s helpful, uh, all the time. But… (pause) I think… sorry, I’m just putting thoughts together.

Um, I don’t necessarily apply this to anyone but me. I don’t think this is a good guideline to live your life by. I don’t think this is good advice. I wouldn’t advise that anyone else conceive of it like this, but for me, my… was about to say ental millness, fuck me (Cassandra laughs).

You know, ental millness.

Sounds like a boy I went to synagogue with back (both laugh). My manifestation of my mental illness means that I’m highly… I’m hyper aware. Um, and that comes from a bad place and that comes from a place that’s no fun at all, but it does mean I’m hyper aware.

Like in social situations and all situations, just like constantly…?

Yeah. Uh, in… in social situations, yes. Um, also just… generally sensory, hyperaware. That also manifests in like… uh, a really overdeveloped startle reflex. Um, like loud noises will send me across the room. I flinch or I start. Um, and people make fun of me for it til I explain where it comes from and then they feel really bad (Emma laughs). Um, overdevelop startle reflex, over developed volume sensitivity, um, which you know, comes from being yelled at and slammed up against walls and all that jazz. (Piece omitted)

Anyway… back to, um, my relationship with my mental illness at this point and how it’s changed. It’s been a lot about just finding a way to look at it that isn’t… the monster I have to defeat or you know, something that I’m going to overcome because it’s not going to go away.

Well, I mean, so there’s always this… conception in society of artists like somewhat needing their depression or mental illness. Like what are your thoughts on that conception? I’m interested about what you expressed with the…

I don’t think it’s helpful. I think for young artists it encourages people to not see coping mechanisms and I think it encourages people to not take care of themselves. Um, I think there is a way to look at mental illness, which is accepting and loving without being excusing or without being self destructive. Because saying to yourself, “I’m mentally ill, there’s nothing I can do about it and I need to suffer to be a good artist, so therefore I’m not… I’m actively not going to seek help” is as harmful as anything else you could do.

Um, I know sometimes it can be hard to seek help. Sometimes asking for help can be very difficult. Sometimes taking care of yourself is extremely difficult. I am aware. Um, but the self flagellatory thing of “this will make me a better artist” is a fucking lie. There are… I think suffering is part of art. Not in the sense that you need to suffer in order to make art, but that suffering… that suffering can be used… it can be a tool. It’s not the end  product and you should never create suffering for the sake of creating art. If it’s a byproduct, if it’s something that you have, use it. Don’t use it to hurt other people. Don’t use it to hurt yourself, but take it, change it, make it something good and… use it to make the world better. Use it to make somebody else feel better. Use it to… use it to help. I very, very firmly believe that… you can take pain and make it into beauty. And that doesn’t mean making it positive. That doesn’t mean making it… that doesn’t mean giving it a happy ending. But there is…. beauty and connection to be found in dark places and even… even a tragic ending can be a hopeful one. Um, or even something that is unmitigatedly shitty, um, can carry a note of hope in it, not even in the narrative itself, but an audience member can look at that and go… and see themselves or see their friend or see their friend who they don’t understand who now they might understand a little bit better. Sorry, that’s a whole fucking track on my part because I have a lot of… I do Greek tragedy primarily and that never.. those never end well, but I think that they’re useful tools in society.

Do you feel like… what about Greek tragedy? Do you think there’s any intersection between like the sort of journey that you’ve been on dealing with mental illness and your interest in Greek tragedy?

Yes. Um, Greek tragedy is the most fun thing I can perform and because I have a background in translation and adaptation and I do my own translations of some things. (Emma makes sound of frustration)

It’s impressive.

It’s a slog. I was up until two in the morning last night, editing 10 lines. God… why do I do this to myself? Um… I enjoy classical theater, particularly Greco Roman theater because… it gives the actor and the audience an opportunity to operate at a much higher emotional frequency than you would ever be asked to do in real life. It is elemental, the way that these characters operate in the world that they live in. They work on… levels of rage and sadness and joy and fear and love that are not societally acceptable for modern 21st century Western people. And it is incredibly liberating and joyful and satisfying to be allowed to go hard or go home. There is no subtext in Greek tragedy. There is no Stanislavskian… read between the lines. People say exactly what they mean and they say it to the gods and they say.. they break open their own ribs and show everyone your heart and are like, “this is what I’m feeling. This is exactly what I’m going to do. I am feeling… I am feeling this feeling so heavily that it is going to shake the earth and rent and the heavens”. And I think everyone feels like that. Everyone has that capacity for emotion and we are never allowed to express it because we’re overdramatic or we’re sensationalizing or we’re… making it up.

But it’s a part of the same reason that I like fantasy is that I think everyone is… I think there is a level of every human being that’s operating on swords and sorcery and dragons and… magic and… the world of Greek tragedy is very similar to that to me because it is that chance to flick open all the doors and just be as goddamned angry or as goddamned sad or as goddamned happy as you want.

Space for your emotions.

Yes. No, you can… and it’s not even.. and that space is huge. That space is massive. When the, I’m… I’m reading… so my fucking stupid mission to read, um, every extant Greek tragedy before the end of the calendar year. Um, and I’m on Libation Bearers right now and you know, Electra and Orestes and the chorus surrounding the tomb of Agamemnon praying for, you know… essentially raising his spirit to curse their enemies is… so powerful. And if anyone wrote this now, it would be burned publicly or at least critically declaimed… at least critically despised for being overwhelmed. But because it’s 3000 years old or… 2,500 years old, we get away with it. Um, yeah. So that’s…

So you… you talked a little bit about how like you have a high, like startle mechanism or how a forms like humiliation can… can worsen your mental illness. Like what are.. what are some other things that can contribute in the fluctuations to making it worse or some things that make it better?

Caffeine.

Caffeine for making it worse?

Yeah. The most mentally stable I… I’ve ever been was in Grad school when I had like… cold brew iced coffee and nothing bad happened. No, caffeine is… I mean, it’s… that’s a very kind of mundane thing, but caffeine makes it worse every time. Um, and like… isolation makes it worse. A lot of my anxiety, not even in the traditional sense, but a lot of my anxiety surrounds food. Um, but… not in the usual sense.

You do use a lot of food metaphors for your mental illness.

Oh, that’s bad. Thank you for pointing that out. I’m going to go stare at the wall a bit (both laugh).

Sorry.

No, you’re good. (pause) Actually… maybe they are in the traditional sense. Um, you know, weight is a struggle for me. Um, it’s not so much… it’s not so much quantity as it is quality. When I’m cooking for other people or when I’m trying to worry that other people are fed, that gets very high anxiety for me very quickly because I come from a background of kind of the best or nothing. Um… and that actually is pretty much the same for me across the board with when I’m trying to provide for other people. It’s the best or nothing.

Um, well I was actually gonna ask like what… um, so food… what other forms of emotional labor to generally find yourself providing or what forms of caretaking?

Um, because of a few different situations… um, I have been on… duty a fair bit in my life for making sure somebody checks in with me in the morning, making sure people make it through the night, um, making sure that somebody else has eaten even when I’m not physically there to like… buy them shit. Or make them shit. Uh, it’s been a lot of textual long distance, like… being on deck to make sure that somebody kind of gets through the day. Um, and just… you know, the general listening, general like being there and being supportive and being available and you know, validating someone who’s feeling gaslighted or you know, listening to a story or listening to a life event and being like, yes, your perception of that is correct. No, you are not crazy, here is… I don’t like to dispense advice unless asked for it. Um, but when I am asked for it, I will… I will give, um, usually with a tremendous disclaimer of like, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Please take this with several grains of salt. In fact, take it with the shaker. Um… yeah. Uh…

Next question actually, um, deals with, with interactions with people surrounding mental illness, but.. but to go back to the original one before we completely move on, what are the things that make you feel better… like social interaction or…?

Yeah. Social Interaction. Um, a lot of my, a big… a big part of my anxiety as well as kind of productivity. So like getting something done and then, you know, being able to not see it on the… to do list anymore is very helpful, but that can sometimes turn into a harmful thing when I get self flagellatory for not being as productive as I would like or for literally not like… just finding busy work.

I’ve… when I was in college, I would use going for like a really long walk with a podcast as a way to make myself worse… because it would be not really listening to whatever I was listening to and just walking myself into a panic attack. Just, you know, spending some time alone with my thoughts in a bad way. And a lot of the past few years I’ve been discovering how to genuinely listen to something that isn’t… how to genuinely like take a mental Goddamn fucking break

Like interrupting invasive thoughts?

Yeah. It’s a lot about interrupting intrusive thoughts. It’s a lot about… I have heard, I have not actually tried this myself, but I should, that there are people who are finding a significant amount of success with thinking of their intrusive thoughts as being voiced by Donald Trump (Cassandra laughs), um, which gives them more of a reason to discard them. “What’d you say? Shut the fuck up. You orange dirt bag”.

Basically the gas lighting your own intrusive thoughts… That’s excellent

It’s… I’ve heard it’s effective. Um, and it… just seems so pure and good to me (both laugh). Um, it’s been a lot of… a lot of examining what is an intrusive thought and what isn’t. Um, or kind of consistency… consistency has been a big thing for me. Writing down achievements, writing down… wins for the day of like, here are some things that made me happy today. Here are some things that I actually accomplished today and even when there are days where there’s not a lot, writing that down too. Writing, you know, taking, taking a moment to go to the little word document that I have on my computer and say like, today, nothing made me happy. I didn’t have a good day. I didn’t get anything done. But… see the 30 pages above of having a good day and getting something done. Um, it is always nice to have evidence that you are not useless. But sometimes you have to make your own.

That one day it does not mean failure

Yeah. And even patterns don’t mean failure. Even if it’s a slump, it’s a slump. Yes. It sucks. Yes, you feel shitty right now and you’re not always going to feel shitty. You did not feel shitty all the time before and you will not feel shitty for the rest of your life, which you know, should… and with enough work on your part, be a long one.

I always like to try to like… constantly restart goals because if I fail it’s like, okay, it’s not too late to restart. You can just continue to do this forever.

Yeah. I… yeah, that has… that has made it better. And yeah, making… making connections with people and being honest with other human beings because I’m extraordinarily lucky to have some very close friends in my life that I can say, I’m having a really bad anxiety moment. Can you just talk to me? And even if they’re in the UK, even if they’re in Australia, even if they’re… you know—- Larry, I talk to Larry a lot. Larry and I have a very.. I would hope Larry would also quantify at this way and I think he would, but um, mutually beneficial friendship where… there’s an equal amount of emotional labor on both sides. And there was a lot of checking of like.. like I just yesterday messaged Larry and I was like, hey, if you have a second, if you feel like you’re up to it, I’m having a kind of bad anxiety moment. It is not urgent. You are not the only person that I’m going to reach out to. This is not on you to fix, but if you can. And… he did. So.. and also being okay when somebody else says, “I can’t do that right now” because everyone’s got a lot of their bullshit and… yeah.

Is it specifically like… just your close friends know about your mental illness or like how… how much does like everyone as a whole know about it and how have you talked to them about it?

I’m pretty vocal about it. Um, sometimes by necessity, sometimes by… I’m no… I… I try not to be ashamed. Um, I also try not to apologize for it. Um, my kind of my… go to line if it’s with a stranger or an authority figure that I like… they need to know this. Like when I was in Grad school, I was going to Grad school and like the first few weeks, um, I would have a quick conversation with some of my new teachers and be like, just so you know, I have an anxiety disorder. It won’t really impact class that much. But on the off chance that I start having a panic attack, um, would it be okay if I let you know that that was happening and left the room? Um, because I don’t want to interrupt the process, but also me staying in the room while that’s happening is not going to be fun for me and it’s not gonna be fun for you and it’s not going to be fun for all of these other nice people who are here to learn. Um, and everyone was great about it. Um, I find that being upfront helps in a lot of situations. Sometimes it won’t and you have to feel that out for yourself. But I have found that… you know, just saying, hey, my brain chemistry is a little bit weird. Here’s the reasons it might be weird. Here’s how that will manifest. Here’s how I deal with it. Is it okay if I deal with it that way for you? If it’s not okay that I do that, can we find some other strategy? Um, and for the most part I have found that people treat it in the exact same way as the other girl in my… um, in my Grad school group who had had knee surgery and needed, you know, and couldn’t do certain things or needed to do certain physical activities in a different way because she was recovering from knee surgery and I was very, very lucky to be in a place where they kind of took these two things in the same stride.

How… so it seems… so the question technically is how much does it color your interactions with others? So I guess like… in terms of an internal to external, like you mentioned about hyper awareness and in terms of the way people treat you, it seems like Grad school was a fairly positive environment. Is there anything more that you’d like to say on either?

Um… I think my experience is skewed because a lot of my recent experiences have been in artistic communities that are accepting. That is not always the case. That will not always be the case. And I have run into times where it hasn’t been so… so good. Um, I’ve run into times where there’s… you know, the, the classics “walk it off, it’s all in your head”. Um, “I think you’re making it up” or just accusing me of lying just like straight up accusing me of lying… or of oversensitivity or all that fun stuff. Um.. for the most part with like general day to day social interactions with people I’m never going to see again, um, I’ve gotten a lot better about… not having those be anxious situations. And that’s something that’s a more recent development. It’s not great, but it’s better. Um… that’s the title of my autobiography and my sex tape: it’s not great, but it’s better (said jokingly). My autobiographical tape (Cassandra laughs).

Y’know.

Like you do. Um, I think there’s also… yeah, no, I lost that. I lost whatever I was about to say there. I think the hyper awareness is a blessing and a curse and I think a lot of people that are hyper aware probably agree with me on that. Um, in that it gives you access to a lot of information. Some of that information is bullshit and some of that information is unnecessary, but some of that information is helpful. So I’ve… I’ve found that my… my hyperawareness can helps as much as it hinders and it’s just a matter of kind of setting the filters. (Piece omitted)

So you, you talked about the performance of emotional labor, so how… do you interact with other people with mental illness because it seemed like that kind of came into play with that?

Yeah. Um, I… I try very, very hard to ask. Um, if somebody is open and up front with me about, you know, “I have this, you know, I have x or I can’t handle x or so on and so forth”. I… I try to ask. I try to, if there’s a situation where someone, someone who I know has a mental illness, is being confronted with something that might be a trigger or it might be less than helpful, I try to be the person that’s like, are you okay? What do you need right now? Do you need to go somewhere else? Um, and if the answer’s no, that’s fine. But asking never hurts. If you don’t ask, you don’t get, if you don’t ask, you never know, if you don’t ask, you could miss an opportunity to be useful to someone.

Um, but there’s also a lot of anxiety about asking: is asking in itself going to be harmful, is asking going to draw attention to them that they don’t want them to be drawn to them. So it’s a lot about navigating the social morays of like finding a very quiet and subtle way to be like, (Emma gestures silently, “are you ok?”) a lot of charades. Um, a lot of my… a lot of.. not a lot, but some of navigating other people with mental illness has also been recognizing when something should not be taken personally. When somebody is… has said something or has done something that my anxiety interprets one way and… I need to be conscious and aware and take a few steps back from the situation and say, well, you know this about this person, are they going to be saying this thing to you because they suddenly hate you or because they’re having a bad time? And more often than not, and this is something I need to be very consciously reminding myself of a lot, they do not suddenly hate me. Um, sometimes they do. No kidding. Um, but no, it’s been a lot of… recognizing behavior in other people that… is not about me. Um, and I do not need to make myself suffer because someone else is suffering and I will make myself less useful to that person or to the general community if I implode because… somebody else who is mentally ill or who is having a bad reaction to something lashed out at an opportune moment. Um, I don’t always succeed, but I dotry. It’s the Daniel Radcliffe SNL thing, “I tried and therefore no one can criticize me”.

I mean, I feel like that has some important truth in it. (both laugh) So we’re going to… we’re going to shift gears a little bit. So this is going to be another like big general question. So what has your experience been identifying as femme?

Do you mean… how has my identification as femme like grown or changed or  fluctuated? Or how do I experience the world through identifying as femme?

Both.

Okay. A. um, it has only been very recently that I have kind of branched out into anything other than just cis femme. Um, for the most part of my life I’ve been very comfortable there and I… I’m like the, the token hetero friend. Like I’m the token straight friend generally. Like… all of my friends are somewhere on the spectrum. And so for years and years I was kind of looking at myself going, am I something? All of my friends are something…. don’t I have to be something? And it’s only been in like the recent, probably in the most in the past year where I’m like, oh, that’s my… that’s the something, um, is being vaguely, amorphously nonbinary um, but for the most part of my life, my femme experience was pretty par for the course. Um, I identify… I still predominantly identify as female. I’m like… I’m fine with my pronouns. Um… that has not been something that’s changed or fluctuated very much until very recently, in which case I’m kind of in… the baby steps right now. Um, because a Greek God fucking grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and was like, “you need to think about your gender. Um, also write a play for me. K thx, bye” (both laugh) It’s great. No, I’m kidding.

Um, B. how has my experience of being femme presenting/identifying shaped my interactions with the world? Um, it’s a trash fire. (both laugh)

Yup.

Things suck. Um, I’ve been… I’ve been lucky in that I have not been subject to the same amount to… not the same, but I have not been subject to the amount of harassment and… intrusion on my space as a lot of people I know have. Um, I was lucky to go to an all girls school in high school, um… that had its problems, but one of them… but it did have its benefits and one of them was that like, I got to have a very strong sense of a femme presenting identity. Um, and was around other people who were very supportive of a femme presenting identity and who kind of gave us a really wide and diverse toolbox to draw from when presenting femme in the world. Um, you know, the girls guide. Um, I was very lucky in college to have for the most part teachers and friends and collaborators who were either femme themselves or were… were chill.

Um, but I think that my baseline level of anxiety would… be nowhere near as bad as it is if I was masculine presenting. Um, because a lot of my… kind of… a lot of my like baseline stupid anxiety existing in the world comes from… being femme in public spaces or being afraid of harm in public spaces. Um… (Piece omitted)

Do you think, um… how has your anxiety been treated um, because of your femmeness?

Um, shittily.

Yup. Done. Interview over (said jokingly).

My portrait’s just the poop emoji (both laugh). Um…yes, of course my anxiety is… is treated more because of my femininity. Well because there is that lingering victorian hysteria idea. Which I enjoy kind of… taking it back to its even further root of like, oh, do you believe my uterus is detached and is wandering around my body causing… causing the madness (said laughing)

Some real body horror right there.

Oh God. One of my favorite things is in an ancient Greek magic, which is a class on this campus that I took. Um, that’s amazing. Ancient Greek magic is talking about like uterus… uterus spells like… spells for like a wandering womb that are essentially yelling at a woman’s uterus to like… put that thing back where it came from or so help me (Cassandra laughs).They are the funniest things I’ve ever read in my goddamn life.

It seems like that’s how medicine works (said sarcastically).

It’s like they’re talking to a dog that just like got up and like, like in the corner and they’re trying to just be like, “no, c’mon uterus, heel… come on”. It’s in lines and lines and lines of like, yelling. It makes me so happy and upset. Um, but yeah, I don’t… my… other people’s perception of my anxiety is always filtered through my femme presenting. Like, that’s just… that’s just a given. Um, unless they are a very close friend. Um, I wouldn’t say it’s the same filter every time, but there is a filter. Um, and there definitely is… a overwhelming perception of… softness that goes with… or that people are expecting. Softness or vulnerability or weakness. Um, which is not the same thing as softness and fuck off anyone who thinks so. Um, which kind of… I don’t know, it goes hand… like if… I’m not going to be able to make a coherent point here. So I’m going to leave that.

So you talked about being able to go to an all girls high school, um, forming a strong sense of femme… femme identity. So what is specifically your… like… I’m not going to ask you to define all femmeness, but what does your femmeness mean to you and how do you define it? Which is still a hard question, but…

Jesus, I need a drink. Um, my… my femmeness is in my hair. Not predominantly, but that’s one thing. Um, this is… part of how I celebrate my femmeness. Um, I like it. I like keeping it this long. I like looking like a fucking swamp witch, um, it works for me. (Pause) Um… oh boy. Sorry. It’s a big question.

This is definitely, I think actually the question people struggle with the most.

My femmeness is a very sensory thing for me. It’s long hair and long skirts and makeup and bright colors and velvet and lace and silk and a little bit of the… a little bit of the hangover from domesticity. Um, I do genuinely like… a lot of activities that are associated with being femme. I really enjoy cooking, really enjoy kind of doing that… doing that level of caretaking. Um, I… I enjoy the connection that my femmeness gives me to… figures in literature and folklore and mythology that I find compelling. I like… being able to… look in the mirror and see a face and a body and a style of dressing that could be… Circe, that could be be Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing, that could be… I… I do enjoy the cultural symbology attached to femmeness. Um, I know… I know that it is not the case that all people who identify as femme are capable of giving birth. I know that that’s not a thing. I enjoy the… correlation of femmeness to infer my personal identity for my personal… what I value in the world. I enjoy the correlation between femme presenting and life. And the cycle of life and death and rebirth is meaningful to me. And that’s something that is tied in with my femininity for me.

Don’t worry. So that was the whole reason behind specifying “your” is that like, I know you’re not applying this to everyone… just like yourself. Like that’s how you interpreted it for yourself.

My femme identity most strongly manifests in dressing like a goddamn witch. Um (Cassandra points to her hat, which says “witch”) yes. Um, and acting like a goddamned witch and occasionally practicing like a goddamned witch.

There’s something really intriguing about witches as the symbol people being afraid of woman’s power.

(Piece omitted) Um… sorry. I know you’re.. I know you’re don’t expect to get a coherent answer out of that one, but you’re definitely not going to get it.

I mean… that’s… this is an interview. You didn’t know the questions going in. I don’t expect you to be like as if you’re writing like a third draft of the paper.

No but I would like to be a little more…

You’re very eloquent, don’t worry. Um… so like some of the things we’ve talked about have touched on this, but… is there anything about femmeness or mental illness that you feel like you’ve specifically struggled with that hasn’t really been mentioned?

(Pause) A minor struggle with my femmeness is… and it’s something that for the most part I… I’m successful at because I do still get cast in masc presenting roles, but in… purely my femme presenting body, is often not seen as something that could conceivably be androgynous because there was…  I touched on this briefly, but there is that perception that androgyny only leans masc. Androgyny only means look very tall femme presenting person who’s very… who’s very thin and doesn’t have breasts. Or has small breasts. Um, and I hope that we can work as a society towards a place where Androgyny is not limited to people that lean masculine presenting, where androgyny can be people that can be femme presenting or… (pause) Burn gender down.

Burn it to the ground.

So frustrating. Um, yeah, that’s been a part of my struggle with femmeness at the moment. Um, and the struggle with mental illnesses, it doesn’t quite go hand in hand with that. Um, but it… is at the moment it is… forming a partnership with my mental illness as opposed to forming an antagonistic relationship. Um, because an antagonistic relationship is a waste of energy and time. Um, and… thinking of it as a partnership and thinking of it as a give and take is going to probably be… for me personally, again, do not recommend for everyone else… for me personally going to be my way through. Not out but through.

Yeah. Um, are there any ways that you feel like these… identities have interacted that we haven’t already touched upon?

Um, I find… I find myself drawn to archetype. Most predominantly the kind of witch archetype. Um, but also in recent months, because I worked on a piece that was from her, um, the Cassandra** archetype, um… which is a very interesting confluence of femme presenting and being seen as being mentally ill. Um…

And not being believed.

Yes. God (Emma makes a sound of frustration).

And also having that inflicted on her by…

By a male… by a male deity who was trying to…

Greek mythology is real fucked sometimes

It’s real fucked and it has something to say. Um, especially Cassandra, especially right now. Cassandra has been a big figure for me in the past few months. Women that are seen as mad, um, I don’t usually… a lot of people that I speak to, a lot of femme presenting people who are mentally ill find themselves very drawn to the figure of Ophelia. I’m not.

That’s my cat’s name

Really? That’s fantastic. I don’t know why Ophelia doesn’t draw me. She doesn’t, but she’s totally like a big.. a big figure in this, in this…

She’s one narrative arc but not all of them

Yeah. No, Ophelia is always a big one. Um, but for me it’s… it’s Cassandra. I think because Cassandra has that connection to the divine or connection to spirituality, um, which vibes with me. Um, but Cassandra… Clytemnestra has always been a big one for me. Um, Circe, Calypso.

I mean Ophelia also comes with like… a problematic part that she’s kind of like the original manic pixie dream girl

Yeah, no, I’ve seen some bad Hamlets in my life. I seen some really good Hamlets but… Um, really like literally put her… I’ve seen two productions of Hamlet where they put Ophelia in a tutu and one really worked and one who really didn’t.

Big yike.

Like no one of them, they were like kind of leaned into it and they knew what they were doing and they deconstructed it later on and one of them did not. So yeah, I don’t really have a coherent commentary on that… other than… fucking… Cassandra.

How has… if they have… how has either these identities interacted with intimacy and you can interpret that however you want, whether that’s like platonic or romantic, physical, emotional, like, um….

My… my… mental illness makes platonic physical intimacy…. or just general physical intimacy um, a fraught territory. Um, not because if there isn’t often a like… mental lead up to it, but there is an instinct of visceral physical reaction of… I’d rather not be touched. Um, and sometimes I… sometimes that’s something that I do want and I try to be vocal about that and people are usually very good about asking me. Um, but yeah, my… my mental illness makes my baseline much more afraid of attack, um, physical attack. Um, so I’m pretty… pretty on the ace spectrum, like somewhere on the ace spectrum. So sexual intimacy is not so much of a thing. Um, I’m not 100% one way or another. It’s just not a big thing in my life. It doesn’t matter so much to me. Um, so that’s not as much of a thing. But like… general physical intimacy, my mental illness does certainly have an impact on that. Does my femmeness have an impact on intimacy…. Um, not quite so much for me. For the most part it is through the filter of… of mental illness.

Is there any other… we’ve kind of talked about you as an actor and as a classicist. Are there any other factors or identities in your life that you feel, uh, interact with these two identities?

Um… Oh god, what even are my identities? I don’t know. I mean, as an actor we’ve talked about, as a scholar we’ve talked about, as a friend, um, we’ve talked about… those are probably the most important things for me. As a daughter is a little fraught, but yeah. Another, well, okay. No, there’s another one. Um,as a Jew. Especially very recently, uh, my mental illnesses interacted with my Judaism in a not very fun way because I feel unsafe all the time, everywhere and I hate it. I think my Judaism has also provided me with a lens to tackle my mental illness, not particularly through a religious lens, but because of the community values that are emphasized in Judaism and the tradition of questioning and argument that is emphasized in Judaism, which is something that I love about my faith. Um, is that… you are never encouraged to take something lying down. You’re never encouraged to take something on blind faith. You always look for a loophole. You always argue, you always question. And that’s… something that has helped me interact with my mental illness, is not just… not just taking a panic attack for a panic attack, taking a panic attack and being like, okay, well what caused this? What are some loopholes to get out of this? If… if my… if, you know, if my depression says “I can’t get out of bed today”, it’s finding loopholes around that. It’s, well, I got my laptop, I can still be productive and I can still send emails. I can have a skype chat, I can… I can, you know, beat the genie. I can beat the weird… I can beat the contract. And that’s something that… I think a lot of my love of… questioning and argument and… finding loopholes comes from my Judaism. Um, and I think my Judaism is a very important part of my identity and it feels under threat right now from my mental illness and from well, from the world being filtered through my mental illness.

Um, are there any like conflicts or like ways that you’re not sure how to put any of these identities into… conversation with each other yet?

Actor and scholar has always a problem. Um, that seems… it’s less of a problem internally and it’s more of a problem of how do I communicate to other people that this is a thing that can happen. Because people like their actors dumb. Um, people like their actors unquestioning um, which is not helpful for anyone. My… my femmeness and my scholarship are not internally at odds, but they’re going to be… perceived as being at odds and that’s not… correct. Um, no, a lot of… I think internally, I know who I am. Um, I may not always like it. I may not always want to lean into a particular facet, but I know who I am. Um, it’s just a matter of communicating that effectively and in a way that will be both understood and accepted. Which, you know, if it was that easy, why wouldn’t everyone just do it?

Do you have any other thoughts that I haven’t quite fit into any of the questions I’ve asked lots specially?

No, I don’t think so.

**- This conversation was part of the origin behind the titling of this piece “The Cassandra Transcripts”