This is a little embarrassing to admit, but as I wrote yesterday’s entry, I thought of a label that many people still use, especially in the gay community, which once fit me very well. It’s a term that is most often used to characterize those who respond to any of their life’s situations with complete melodrama. And regrettably, I must admit this was definitely me for many years as I played the role of being a “Drama Queen” very well.
According to what I read online, the term “Drama Queen” actually originated in the late 70’s and was used back then to describe the women who appeared in those overly dramatic soap operas. But somewhere along the way, drag queens (men who dress up as women) began to use the term with each other when one of them would get excessively reactive in a very dramatic way about something trivial they were going through. Ironically, it’s now become so widely used that I’ve even heard my 11 year old nephews use it with each other.
Unfortunately, for the longest time, I really was that drama queen. I had deep insecurities of feeling inadequate and unimportant so I always strived to be the center of everyone’s attention around me. This often led to me blowing just about everything out of proportion that happened to me. Thankfully when any of these meltdowns happened, I was never unreasonably animated with my hands or abundantly flamboyant in my speech like the performing drag queens usually are on stage. But the truth still remains that something as insignificant as spilling food on my shirt during a meal with others often became something I’d obsess and talk about incessantly until someone else forced a change in conversation.
I still remember many of my friends calling me a drag queen over the years where I usually just laughed it off and said something rhetorical back to them. But deep down I knew they were right and it was becoming harder and harder to deny that truth. Every time I showed up at a recovery meeting, had a social engagement with any friend, or went on a date, I took something that was going on in my life and spent the entire time talking about it. It really does boil down to the fact that in my childhood home, I was rarely the center of attention and my parents hardly ever listened with open ears to any of my troubles in life. As I grew older, this insecurity was a huge catalyst to dramatizing everything I went through so that I could garner some attention in my life for once. Albeit extremely unhealthy in how I went about doing it, becoming that drama queen achieved the attention my ego desperately sought day in and day out. Eventually though, everyone grew tired of my drama du jour and no longer found it funny to call me that drama queen. Instead, they started keeping their distance because my time with them was never about anything they were going through, it was always about some silly thing in my life that I was blowing out of proportion.
I’m grateful to say that my 4th Step work in AA has helped me to see this character defect very clearly now. And since becoming aware of it, I’ve made a concerted effort to shed that drama queen image by working on healing the sources of all of my insecurities. The more I’ve worked on healing those sources of all my insecurities, the more I’ve moved away from wanting to be the center of attention everywhere I went. And the more I’ve moved away form wanting to be the center of attention everywhere I went, the more I’ve wanted to listen to what others have going on in their lives when I’m with them. And the more I’ve wanted to listen to what others have going on in their lives when I’m with them, the more I’ve stopped focusing on all of those trivial things in my life that I always blew out of proportion. And the more I’ve stopped focusing on all of those trivial things in my life that I always blew out of proportion, the more I’m realizing I’m not being much of a drama queen anymore…
Thank God for that!!!
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
