Trial by Fire

So I had something of a trial by fire last Saturday.

I’ve mentioned on this blog that I love photography. Taking pictures forces me to improve my social skills because it gets me out there communicating with people while doing something in public.

So a friend called me early Saturday evening (I had no plans, shockingly enough), desperate to have me take pictures for her at a rather large party in a fancy hotel.

Now I’ve talked about my usual feelings when I get invited to a party. I usually have some type of absurd freakout – but things really went into overdrive when I realized I’d be getting paid (getting paid means you’re expected to do a good job) to cover a live event less than two hours after I received the call.

My OCD makes it difficult to get out of the house on a normal day – but the pressure was on for me to iron clothes, gather my photo gear, shower, and shave in a mad rush. I’m always worried about leaving important things behind when I go out – and I was REALLY going nuts worrying about forgetting something vitally important like my memory cards or lenses or underwear.

Once I got my sh*t together, I rushed ahead to the worst subway ride of my life. Check that, second-worst ride – I was once stuck on the 4 train for four straight hours. And not just any four hours. Four hours where I needed to go the bathroom really really bad. And yes, it was number two.

Okay, back to the story.

I hop on the train and I’m practically in tears. I feel a lot of shame about my struggles with social anxiety disorder and OCD, and in situations like this, those feelings go into overdrive. The only solution I could think of was to begin pinching my leg really hard, and punching myself in the head for being such a cowardly pu$$y. This is basically my equivalent of cutting, and it f*cking sucks.

So needless to say, I was getting some strange looks from my fellow N-train riders, and people even began moving seats to get away from me.

To my disappointment, the train made it safely to my destination. I was hoping some unforeseen disaster would bail me out of this party obligation, but luck was not on my side. I was going to have to walk into a party and take photographs of a bunch of total strangers.

I manage to get myself in the hotel lobby without talking myself out of the whole deal. And that’s big because I find a good reason not to do just about anything I whip out my gear, strap it on, and check my things in with the cute lady in the coat room. Everything’s working. Battery life is okay, SD card is freshly formatted, and flash is firing.

Okay, I’m ready. I’m ready, Yes, I’m ready! I’m ready…

…to go to the bathroom.

I step into the men’s room, and promptly head into a stall to give myself a mental beatdown about how I have to do this and how I can’t be a coward and all that good stuff. After that’s all done, I squeeze out what little pee was circulating in my bladder and go introduce myself at the reception area.

Everyone was super-nice, and encouraged me to eat something and have a drink.

So I walk in to the party room, wallflower a little bit, and then decide that it’s time to do the job I’m getting paid to do. I mean, if it doesn’t work, I can go jump off a bridge or something. I find these two bored MILFs, and get a few shots of them together. Okay, that’s good. I’m building momentum.

I take a few more pictures of random groups of people, and other folks start grabbing me to have their picture taken. But I’m still freaked out. I feel like I’m going to vomit because I’m not nailing many good pictures and I’m getting that freaky out-of-body feeling where I’m about to black out.

So then I ask myself : M, isn’t there an open bar right over there? And didn’t those nice people tell you to have a drink?

Well, I wasn’t about the insult the people that were paying me for this event, and I pounded down three Jack-and-Cokes in about two minutes. The bartender looked at me like I was out of my f*cking mind, but I had a job to do and I was too far gone to turn back. I needed a helping hand, and Mr. Jack Daniels was offering it.

Now I was really loosening up. I was chatting up everyone around me and basically forcing people to pose for me. It was fun and I was starting to get a lot of great pictures – even though I was barely paying attention to my camera settings.

My mind starting putting the equation together. If three drinks got you this far, imagine what could happen after six! So I went back to Mr. Bartender, and downed a glass of red wind and two Rum-and-Cokes. I don’t have the best alcohol tolerance so I was f*cking flying high. I wasn’t at that “so drunk I want to die” point. I hit a sweet spot where I’m drunk enough to have fun but still not close to vomiting territory.

So now I was officially ready to round up the celebrities (not like Tom Cruise famous but successful Hollywood actors) and hot girls in attendance. I’m sure they knew I was bombed, but they listened to my direction and were extremely cooperative in letting me get their pictures.

I didn’t look at the pictures until I woke up the next day, but even in my extremely-hung over state, I could see that I got a LOT more keepers than I thought I would – and the people from the party were elated with the pictures.

I was very proud of myself for my performance that night. I have dreams of becoming a successful photographer, but I know that it won’t happen unless I get out there more and take risks with people. I finally got out there and just made something happen.

However, there was a downside to Saturday night. I did have to beat myself down to get to the event, and had to get drunk to really get working. That’s not a productive way to do things. My goal is to become accustomed to my social anxiety and still push through to get things done, not abuse myself into action.

But you know what? I survived.

Next time, I’ll try to do better – by stopping at five drinks!

*Related posts:

1. When I Think About Stuff I Cut Myself
2. Making the Dreaded Job Phone Call – Victory?
3. Hearing Social Anxiety Everywhere

Tagged as: alcohol, drunk, party, photography