Posted by happyflower on March 9, 2006, at 9:42:42
Anyone know what is happening to me? Sorry this is so long. This is what happened....
I have been playing the trumpet for 7 months now, after a 15 year break. I have been practicing 2 -3 hours everyday, got back most of what I had when I was in music school.
Well I play in this jazz band and concert band of our local university. The music is very hard and challenging but I practice it a lot. Well there is always an important part that I can't seem to get right no matter how much I practice it.
Well this week in our dress rehearsals for our concert, the director got very frusterated with me because I kept on messing up a part, he yelled at me. Well I was already feeling like crap because I knew I was messing up and as much as I tried, I just couldn't get it. When the director yelled at me, it just made me feel terrible. In fact my self esteem just plummeted. I couldn't concentrate and I certainly couldn't even play.
Well last night during our concert I finally got it right for the first time ever.Well what happened to me the last couple of days before the concert wasn't pretty. It was like I feel into this deep dark hole and I couldn't climb out. I knew I was being hard on myself, but I couldn't stop the despair and anxiety. I was crying all day, felt like crap, a bad musican, and totally worthless piece of crap.
Well this happend before on my very first concert this year too. The same thing, and I wanted to quit playing because of my frusteration with myself. So I just now realize there is a cycle here. Why do I let myself fall when I can't do things right even when I practice hard? Then when I get yelled at, it just puts me in a state of self hate.So today I was thinking, when did I feel like this before in my life. The only thing that comes to mind is when I was being abused by my mother. When I was being beaten and burned even when I was trying so hard to be a good kid, I still got abused. The feeling after the abuse is the same way I feel about myself when I fall into this self doubting hatred of myself for not being good enough no matter how hard I try.
I don't know if this is connected to that, maybe it is. Does anyone have any ideas? I see my T this Monday, and plan on talking about this.I feel better today, I am totally relieved it is all over. I have another concert on Sunday, but I feel confident about that. I worked out hard today at the gym and it felt good to get all that tension out of my body. So now I am just thinking about this cycle and why does playing the trumpet seem to trigger it.
I do know that I got frustereated a long time ago when I was playing. There is a lot of female discrimation going on in bands with women trumpet players. I had to fight that contently plus being a lot younger than most of the band members didn't help it at all. Sorry this got so long, I hope you can all help me sort this out. Any ideas on what is going on with me? Thanks! :-)
poster:happyflower
thread:617874
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060225/msgs/617874.html