PERSPECTIVE/By JEANNI RITCHIE
I can be quite dramatic.
I’ve known it for years, a sentiment first echoed by my mother as I spectacularly threw my three-year old body across the floor in a store checkout aisle, my heart broken as she denied my request for a new stuffed animal.
My sister chimed in as she got older, frequently frustrated by an older sibling clamoring for attention any way possible. My mental health and addiction issues took up more than my allotted space as a teenager.
My children both loved and hated the theatricality of a mother who vacillated between creative supermom and mentally absent parent. I sometimes suffer the consequences from their childhood today.
Recognizing my flair for drama and love of the stage, my parents started bringing me to theater auditions when I was seven and obtained annual season passes to our local community theater. Traveling out of town to attend performances was also a frequent occurrence.
Even though I didn’t have the older sister I always wanted, I found my role models in characters like Laurey Williams (Oklahoma), Sandy (Grease), and Dainty June (Gypsy).
Secretly though, even as a child I was more drawn to Ado Annie, Rizzo, and Gypsy Rose Lee, their complexity matching my own soul in a way that left a confusing imprint on my psyche for decades.
I coerced my sister and visiting friends into reenacting musicals in my living room often as a child. I turned community and professional theater opportunities into family affairs as a parent.
In between I spent drug-fueled evenings as a teenager belting out Broadway hits to amused partygoers, my inhibitions lessened while performing roles that required no auditions. My mind was desperately seeking the solace slipping into another character can provide; drama therapy is now a widely recognized tool for addiction.
A 2024 Drug Abuse Statistics study reports that 788,000 teenagers aged 12- to 17-years-old met the criteria for Illicit Drug Use Disorder (IDUD). There is a defined need for reaching adolescents in crisis.
In Healing Springs Ranch’s Integrated Addiction Model a facilitator will often instruct an adolescent to enact a fictional character’s emotions in order to help them connect with that particular aspect of a feeling.
It is a model I found myself utilizing in middle age as I went through a divorce last year. Whether I was channeling Regina George through self-choreographed musical numbers in my bedroom, Cardi B in car karaoke, or Miranda Lambert on the gym’s treadmill, I used performance art to process overwhelming emotions from current cirmcumstances to resurfaced trauma. Deep diving into Taylor Swift lyrics provided a bridge from hopelessness to the realization that some of life’s struggles were universal.
Drama can run the gamut from informally blowing off steam to a professional therapeutic tool. There are over 21,000 licensed drama therapists in the United States dealing with addiction, mental illness, trauma, eating disorders, and more. The North American Drama Therapy Association has a wide range of materials and provider search online.
Somewhere in the middle of this spectrum lies community theater. With a familial atmosphere and the bonding experience of putting on a production, theater not only fosters a sense of belonging but has a place for all whether on or off-stage.
Break a leg…and strengthen your mind.