College Drama Workshop, or Clinical Depression?

1. A lot of time is spent walking aimlessly around a small empty space.
2. In order to access your emotions, well-meaning but pushed-for-time professionals ask you to revisit childhood trauma.
3. You hardly ever change out of your gray sweatsuit.
4. The curtains remain closed, apart from the rare occasion you're ready to perform for an audience.
5. The “audience” is entirely composed of friends and relatives who, if they were honest, would have preferred to stay at home.
6. Cigarette breaks are the only reason you venture outside.
7. Your oldest pals don't understand why you've been acting so weird lately, muttering the same torturous monologue for hours on end instead of engaging in regular small talk.
8. People keep telling you to speak up.
9. You wish you could get out of the Movement Therapy workshops. Last time you were asked to embody a “joyful teardrop.”
10. You've been encouraged to take part in various community-based projects because the facilities you rely on are chronically underfunded.
11. Trust exercises have proved counterproductive.
12. Sometimes you feel like you'll never get off the floor, or stop listening to Enya on loop.
13. Close family and friends are worried about your future prospects.
14. When it's finally over, it will be very hard, if not impossible, to accurately describe what you've just been through.

Experimental College Drama Course: 1-14
Depression: 1-14