My mind a reservoir

My psychotherapist told me that any unusual bark-like cough is a sign of intrusion of something unwanted in our psychosomatic field. It could be a childhood trauma or the need in a child to protect his helplessly suffering parents or ward.

I had that sort of a bark-like cough when I was 10. I had to take a shot every other day for a long time to get it cured. With the allopathic cure sought by adults who wished me to get better the cough disappeared but  the hurt and the deep psychological  insecurity stayed, I think. I have struggled over years to come to terms with my issues. The struggling is on, more desperately so because the thing has grown so big that I get angry and unreasonable and self destructive easily. Non-issues irritate me: it is a rush of blood, not the gradual build-up of lividity experienced after all patient reasoning has failed...

Yesterday I freaked at a young actor because he was unnecessarily grinning and fooling around while still in the scene we were rehearsing. The chap is hyper, always seeking attention. The more it is denied to him the more he demands it. Otherwise he is bright and kind and cheerful - so cheerful sometimes that it is a bother. Yesterday he got under my skin and I flipped.

I interrupted the rehearsals and demanded to know what the matter was, whether the laughter and giggling had something to do with the scene as he imagined it from his perspective. I needed to know in order to allow it. To me it seemed that giggling was an inappropriate reaction from his character at that point in the sequence  because he is in a soup there. Particularly if it disturbed my character's sense of purpose, I did not want even it's justified version. He could not simply be laughing there because his is not an idiotic character in the play.

The actor tried to falsely justify his giggling - with that objectionable grin of his - saying something bizarrely incongruous. That got me. Man, I flared up in that most satisfying blaze of wrath! I am middle aged, graying ('experienced'!) actor and this little runt is just out of his teens, but he had the temerity to lie. 

Later, when we wrapped up after some more work I apologized for my invective.

The long and the short is that intrusion or any unwanted eddie on my mind's calm waters erupts a purblind tempest. My mind, to continue with the water image, is no more the clear natural lake it once was. It has become an artificial,  murky reservoir.