
I feel drawn to add just a wee bit to what I wrote above, about how I fell into a vocation that helped me.
Specifically, I'd like to touch on how I was the least likely sort of person to go into the improv acting/theatre field. I was, and still am, socially awkward, extremely withdrawn and introverted. Yet I ended up being a pretty fair improv actor. What's with that--ending up in a somewhat social position seemed so unlikely?
I had a certain academic expertise (history) that was noted and one night at a gathering where I was trying to 'blend into the background' someone just asked me to talk about it. I began but couldn't as 'myself'--but soon began doing a first-person characterization that felt more
'me' than the straight-on talk did (I got out of my own skin). Nowadays I feel I was reaching the inner core of what I'd been denied as a youth--creative expression.
The reason I feel drawn to add that is to reiterate stayinng open to being surprised at what might happen, whether it be job related or not. There just might be a surprise for you that will kick in a talent or something you didn't realize you had or was repressed and buried under the cptsd effects
Okay--forgive me for wanting to add that, but I feel it's critical; as if that surprise hadn't happened to me that night, I shudder to think where I was headed, job-wise anyway (but also personally suicidal as I'd lost all meaning). Finding out I had that talent, I was so lucky to be able to incorporate it.
Mind you, there were also times I used that talent as a shield to hide behind, while still ignoring the inner work of cptsd recovery I was avoiding. While I'm still shy and seriously introverted, it was because of those acting gigs that I was at least able to occasionally find ways to communicate and get out of the lonely shell.
So it's a minor passion with me to value that surprising twist, even though it seemed highly unlikely. Out-of-the-box, as it were.