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Today I recorded my final session for You and I Are Polar Opposites! I voiced the delightfully dead inside Home Room Teacher & the much more lively Hasegawa! Directors Emily Fajardo & Dani Chambers & my engineers were all wonderful! This show may have saved me & I’ll tell ya why.

About a year ago I realized something was wrong. I felt terrible - achy, exhausted, stressed, burnt out - all the bad stuff despite actively improving my health and getting in better shape! My voice was weak, my throat was chronically dry & scratchy & it affected my work & stressed me out further.

Then I was cast as the teacher in Polar Opposites and I was happy to say I killed the role! I was such a natural fit! Oh no… I was a natural fit for this exhausted, dead inside human being. Sure, it was played for laughs, but I could not ignore that I fit him so well because I was becoming him.

I figured it was a number of things, so I addressed them individually, but nothing really changed longterm. I wondered if I was falling out of love with acting, if the stress of pursuing it was hurting my health. To be frank, I also genuinely feel I was mistreated by certain directors.

This all came to a head fairly recently. I was feeling the most overwhelmed, drained, frustrated I’ve ever been. Despite my hard work, despite trying to be kind and respectful, why couldn’t I get further in my career? Why did it seem like nobody accepted me or wanted me here? What more must I do?!

Then a friend on the spectrum suggested I may be masking. I didn’t think so, but then I tried stopping. Holy cow. It changed my world. I did not realize how much energy I was putting into to presenting myself in a way that felt acceptable to the world, yet still being rejected anyway.

It’s been around four weeks since I made the discovery. I’ve consciously stopped masking this entire time & feel the best I have in so long. My body & voice have bounced back tremendously! It is looking highly likely that I am on the spectrum & was experiencing autistic burnout.

For the uninitiated, it is when an autistic person expends too much energy masking & exposing themselves to overwhelming stimuli. The nervous system gets overloaded & it takes its toll on the mind & body. It’s been educational. I’m learning what generally tolerable things are exhausting for me.

I do not know yet if revealing I am autistic will help or hinder my acting career. I feel my bad experiences came from directors who refused to communicate directly. Who gave vague or no direction. Who would not meet me halfway. Who had no spirit of collaboration. Who wanted their minds read.