Talking Points: Drama school with Diabetes

Drama School with Diabetes

By Samuel Stafford

I’ve never been particularly keen on labels, especially when it comes to the topic of disability. I understand that it is important but I have always felt uncomfortable being ‘pigeonholed’ and judged on my limitations, rather than my capabilities. I’m a type 1 Diabetic and have been since I was 3 and a half years old. This means that I don’t really know life without it. It is a part of me and makes me who I am. Throughout my life, particularly at drama school, I have battled with the thought of labels and I do believe that they are there for a reason, and it is down to us to decide how we use them.

A little bit of background. Type 1 Diabetes causes the level of glucose (sugar) in your blood to become too high. It happens when your body can't produce enough of a hormone called insulin, which controls blood glucose. You need daily injections of insulin to keep your blood glucose levels under control. I monitor my insulin through something called an insulin pump, which is attached to me all the time and releases insulin throughout the day. What’s interesting about Type 1 Diabetes is that it’s what’s known as an invisible disability, which sounds a lot cooler than it actually is… It’s just that by taking me on at face value, you wouldn’t see a visible disability. This has it’s advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand I’m not treated differently at face value, but on the other it’s sometimes difficult to get people to understand how debilitating it can actually be.

You can’t use a mathematical equation to solve a biological problem. This was something the doctor told my Dad when I was first diagnosed. It’s something that I think about a heck of a lot… and it’s particularly frustrating when you think you’re getting on top of things and something can change drastically for no reason. You can try your best to keep going but sometimes Diabetes will throw you a curveball. It’s a bit like life, I suppose.

I’ve had a very tumultuous relationship with my Diabetes throughout my life. Particularly when it comes to my life and career as an actor. I’ve always been very honest about my Diabetes. I’m not afraid to say that I have it. I probably wouldn’t be an actor if I didn’t have it. Acting was very much part of my childhood and allowed me to express myself in ways I’d never be able to without it. So I was lucky enough to get into a school called LAMDA, which is one of the oldest and most prestigious drama schools in the world. And I thought getting in was the hard part… no-no. It’s convincing my mother that I’ll be safe and well which was the real struggle. The training at LAMDA is incredibly rigorous, robust and busy (couldn’t think of another word beginning with R, I’m sorry). And the BA consists of  9 – 9 days, 5 days a week, with weekend work as well. This is an incredible feat for any person, but throw in a kid with multiple autoimmune diseases (there are others but we’ll save that for another time) in there and we are looking at some TOUGH times. But, as our amazing head of movement once said, “in order to know the face of God, you have to have seen the face of the Devil.” And I feel this is very apt. Drama school training is TOUGH, man. But it’s also the most rewarding experience. I have met some of my closest friends there and learned so much about myself. It was also helpful that there were other people in the drama school that were Diabetic as well. There was a guy in the year above me who had Type 1 and it was lovely to check in with each other from time to time. In Spoons on a Friday night, we would place bets to see who had the better-controlled blood sugars… It varied a lot. It’s difficult to have good bloods on a Friday night after a 50+ hour week… but we did okay. Then when I was in 2nd year someone in first year was diagnosed with Type 1 as well. So we had a little mentoring system going on. It was sweet (no sugar pun intended) and was just amazing to have someone to check in with. I always made the joke we should start a singing group called “The Diabetones” because I’m hilarious and witty. We also helped each other out of scrapes from time to time. If one of us would forget our blood testers (It didn’t happen a lot, mum) the other would rush to us at lunchtime and let us borrow their kit. I really appreciated those times, and those guys. I do truly believe there is safety in numbers, and I was lucky to have that support system there. Not only the Diabetones, but my family, my mum, my Dad and my Diabetic nurses. I also found it very helpful to look up to people like James Norton, Jeremy Irvine and Sir Steve Redgrave. These are people with type 1 Diabetes that have succeeded despite their disability. There would be moments after a hypo in a movement session where I wouldn’t want to get up, and I would say to myself: If James Norton can do it, so can I.

There are also things Type 1 has taught me that has been invaluable. The main thing being discipline. Drama school requires you to have a real awareness of self. And I had that in buttloads, but only because I had dedicated the time to getting to know my body and how it works. It’s also because I have a mother that’s a psychotherapist, but that could fill an article in itself. This then meant that I struggled with another key aspect of the training, which was a risk. I wouldn’t consider myself much of a risk-taker. I’ve always known my limitations, and whilst I love the thought of bursting through them, the reality of doing so is very, VERY different. But, that’s why we have three years of training. And it takes time. There are people that had very similar experiences to me and they’re not even Diabetic. I’m not using the excuse that my experience was harder because of my conditions. Everyone experiences things differently. If you asked one of the other Diabetones to document their experiences, there would be some similarities but I imagine it would be very different.

I would like to talk about one specific incident that happened in my first year, which at the time, severely debilitated my confidence and raised my awareness that some people really don’t understand the debilitating aspects of this condition. We had some people in our class who liked to show up when they wanted, which I found particularly annoying, because I was dragging my butt in when my sugars were all over the place and I really should have stayed in bed. One day, my sugars were particularly up and down (mostly due to exhaustion and stress) and my friends saw me and told me to go home and look after myself. I’m a very proud individual, I hate letting people and myself down, and I HATE Diabetes stopping me from doing things other people can do easily. But, in this instance, I swallowed my pride and went home at lunchtime, for the first time that year, missing four classes in total. The next day I was confronted by a tutor whose class I had missed the previous day, asking why I was in now doing fight practice if I wasn’t well enough to come in yesterday. I responded that Diabetes is complex and whilst I was not feeling 100%, my sugars were in a much better place and I needed to catch up on stuff I had missed. I was then hit with this absolute humdinger of a line which I never thought I would hear which was: “I understand Diabetes, Sam. My daughter’s best friend has it”… It’s a strange moment that really makes you aware of how ignorant people can be sometimes. And I think the tutor’s feelings were just hurt that I had missed their session. But what really hurt me was that there were people in this course going in and out of classes willy-nilly. And because of this one thing that my Diabetes had inhibited me, I was facing the consequences. This tutor and I have since made up and I got over it. But it took me a long time to see my Diabetes as a friend and not an enemy. Having to work WITH it is the key to success.

I don’t want to do LAMDA a disservice here. 99% of my time has been nothing but positive experiences to do with my Diabetes and they have been incredibly accommodating. In movement you are required to be barefoot and I have to be particularly careful with looking after my feet, so I talked at length with my movement teacher to come up with a solution. The solution was these particularly ridiculous toe shoes that protected my feet but allowed me to feel the benefit of the training. Did my classmates take the piss out of them for 2 years straight twice a week? Yes. Do I blame them? Of course not! The shoes were absurd. But my class had an understanding of my Diabetes and we were able to create an environment where we could laugh and joke about it.

LAMDA were absolutely brilliant. We worked out creative and fun ways of putting sugary juice on set in case I had low sugars during the show. Some of the ideas were incredible. I only ever needed it once during the last show I did on the BA course. But it was amazing that they worked and put those procedures in place. It makes me feel confident about working professionally in the industry.

Perhaps one of the scariest moments was just before a performance of the show ‘Pomona’. My blood sugars were absurdly high, measuring 24.3 (They’re supposed to be around 6) and wouldn’t come down for some reason. This was one of the times where I truly hated myself. I felt like I was letting the audience and my fellow actors down. My best friend rushed from home to school to get me some insulin and my fellow actors were all incredibly supportive. And after a long time wrestling with my blood sugars they started to go down and the show went up 45 minutes late. It was probably one of the worst performances of my life. I felt like a sack of potatoes that was slurring lines. But that didn’t matter. What was important was I did it. I proved to myself I could do it. And I was completely overwhelmed by the support of my friends that day. I realised that I wasn’t alone. My strongest memory of that day was when I was crying in the corner (high blood sugars makes you emotional as hell) and my friend just stroked my hair and said it was okay. And sometimes that’s all you need. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had done the show that day, in hindsight. I probably wouldn’t have felt like I’d been hit by a train the next day if I hadn’t… Well probably by a slightly smaller train. I would never say to someone that they should do it just because I did. I would probably actively encourage someone to go and rest. But what’s important is that you have to listen to yourself and do what is right for you.

This brings me quite nicely to the reason why I think I wrote this word vomit of an article. I’ve always wrestled with myself about whether I should advertise my Diabetes as an actor. I had that I was Diabetic on my Twitter bio and had a 2-year discussion with a family member as to whether or not I should take it down because I may not get jobs as a result. I ended up taking it down so that we could talk about something else every time I saw them, but I think I regret it. Because I’m not advertising my Diabetes, I’m showcasing myself and I just HAPPEN to have Diabetes as well. I could have really benefitted from hearing about someone’s Diabetic drama school experience before or during my time there myself. So I hope people find this useful. I think it’s important to remember that you can’t always apply a mathematical solution to a biological problem in life. Whether you’re Diabetic or not.