In my third-grade classroom “audition.” I remember how, when I read for the role, as each girl took their turn reading, I knew, instinctively (The Most High’s leading, I’m now quite sure, years later), that I needed to use my “baby voice.” I read the lines, including, “Let’s visit the Baby Jesus doll in the tiny little crib,” squeaking with that voice. And my music teacher, in charge of casting the play, started laughing, acting surprisingly animated for rural Minnesota. (But, then again, she herself, was from California, land of Hollywood, so…).
To use “theatre speak,” I “nailed” the audition; I got the role.
And here we go. My issues, being dramatically expressed through theatre.
So, as my childhood and adolescence bumped along, I became quite the little thespian. Between 4-H plays (rolled out, during a spring event called “Share the Fun”), and my elementary and high school career, I was in multiple plays and musicals.
And it was here where I started learning to vent my ugly, unacceptable emotions, like anger and despair, in these settings.
I came from childhood abuse, where the only acceptable “emotion” was “Everything is fine,” unless, of course, my abuser wanted an upset reaction from me to gratify his and her need to “get a rise out of me.”
Then, I better be anxious, upset, lashing out, frustrated, and unhappy.
But certainly, my own independently expressed emotions of anger, sadness, despair, and yeah, even joy, were forbidden. They didn’t fit neatly into the box, called “Children should be seen and not heard.”
It shouldn’t shock people, then, to know I pursued a theatre degree in college. I will admit that some of my reasons involved less necessity for math courses, going down this avenue (I hated math).
But I loved acting.
I won awards, scholarships, and was told by others that I was “good at it.” Especially, at being able to make people cry with my “dramatic self” reactions.
Spurred on by this, like any Drama Queen out there, I pushed things more.
To quote Shakespeare, yeah, there were times when I tore “a passion to tatters, to very rags” (“The Player’s Speech,” Hamlet Act III, Scene 2).
I cringe at an unsuccessful college soap opera attempt. I played a distraught mother, sobbing at the deathbed of her son, as the Radio/TV Majors filmed it with their cameras for class.
I hope the tape has been destroyed. It was not pretty.
I often think, now, years later, about the role that pain, abuse, and trauma played within my dramatic self, and its expression. And it’s additionally complicated, when my faith is added TO that picture.
As a child, I did have faith in “Jesus.”
I was a child Christian, simple in belief, not critically thinking about much more than what I learned from sporadic Vacation Bible School attendance, mixed with the harsh reality of how to stay safe in my abusive home.
College and young adulthood had me testing more limits, which affected other ways I expressed myself: writing and the visual arts.
Oh, yeah, I “experimented.”
Nothing “full-frontal” on my end, like those who were cast in “Hair.”
The closest I came? Nude figure drawing in the drawing class I took in college. Drawing the human form, after all.
But I now see how the trauma I experienced influenced how I chose to show up… and either use discretion, or simply just beg for attention.
In more recent years, we call the attention-seeking “thirst traps.”
“Being thirsty.”
These phrases, in the lexicon, are probably out of date now, but you get the point.
It can be argued that “TMI”IS a trauma response.
Oversharing.
Trauma dumping.
And, in my writing, be it books, articles, or blog entries, I have shared and dumped a lot.
I pray that it is not “tearing a passion to tatters, to very rags.”
I pray that it helps.
It helps me, “getting it out of my system.”
Is that only selfish?
I hope not.
I am not fishing for appearance compliments as I mention the following scripture:
“Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion.”
Proverbs 11:22
Eating disorders, breast cancer, abuse, a lot of ugly, unflattering situations, issues, and behaviors.
I hope there’s not a pig’s snout, nor a gold ring attached TO them.
I hope that what I write honors The Most High.
It may be dramatic, but it’s not “acting.”
I am sincere. There’s still that childlike “Babydoll” in my faith somewhere.
I hope it comes through.
And I hope it helps someone else out there.
Copyright © 2026 by Sheryle Cruse
