11/19/05 - Depression is a funny thing.

Okay, maybe not funny but certainly never dull.

As many of you experienced this week, I have been in the thralls of a very deep, dark place for about 10 days. I love to blame it on the full moon because I’ve been living in LA too long and it actually sounds logical. Really, it’s circumstantial and you would think I would learn by now what contributes to the depression.

What contributed this week was a whole bunch o’ things. Sleepless nights (gee, Susan, really? You, sleepless?) going into tech week of the Holiday Suite. Spending too much time in the proximity of my soon-to-be ex. Frustration with the aforementioned show. Then there is the bleak, harsh, vile betrayal of an A who used to be a M that I deeply loved.

When you are deep in that type of depression and that type of despair makes you feel like you’re standing in the middle of a room, trying to scream, your mouth being stuffed with cotton and your arms cut off. Everyone is standing around you, puzzled, asking, “What is she saying? Do you think she needs help?” Meanwhile, inside, you’re trying to say, “Help me, I’m dying, I can’t go on one more second. Make it stop. Make the pain stop.”

So, while I will not apologize for any previous blog, I will say that I do realize that I have a very great support system and I do realize that there are many, many people out there that I can simply pick up the phone and call when I need something. But keep in mind, it’s hard to dial a phone or send an email when your arms are cut off. Sometimes the only thing you can do is try and reach out in whatever way possible, and sometimes that way is not always the most thought-through way.

I am slowly coming up for air. It takes a while sometimes. The multitude of warm hugs and kisses and pure affection shown to me over the past few days has been a help. I know I may not have been able to respond to it but it has made sure I truly survived these past few days. I think I knew I was in trouble last Sunday when AJ’s charm and fish faces did not even penetrate the blackness. A tiny bit of it lifted that night with Zadra’s band and the quiet support of Chairman.

But then Wednesday and something so loathsome that I will not devote another sentence to it. I felt betrayed, destroyed, attacked, and violated.

I know something was wrong because my mother even asked me on the phone if I was okay, which she usually does, but she would not let it go. Then my sister called from Minneapolis, a rarity. Hmm, I think maybe some family communication went on there.

Only late today and tonight, with, again, my key supports, Zadra, Chairman, Peter, Erik, was I able to begin to feel the pain and the hollowness start to fade away. The offer of ice cream cake and shared pain with the zany roomie also a big contribution to the lifting of the blackness.

Why am I telling you this? I am learning that depression is going to be a part of my life from this point on. Not enough to be too terribly medicated but just enough to cripple me occasionally. So, although this blog is meant to be entertaining and stimulating, I feel it is important that the ugly side of the midlife crisis be represented as much as the hilarity and goofiness of re-entering the dating scene. They go hand in hand, often sometimes within moments of each other.

And I want you all, dear readers, to know that I do know you are there. I know that I am loved and, believe me, I am grateful every day when I look around my tiny room, see the photo of Chairman and I on the New York New York rollercoaster from our margarita-ridden weekend in Vegas, my Picasso print from Zadra, the notes from the cast of “Afterplay” (once again, my dearest CB). I am grateful I get to play with you all over and over again. And I am grateful you tolerate and understand my journeys into the blackness and the dark places that my soul likes to go without warning. I appreciate that you’re all still there when I get back. I appreciate more than I can say – especially when I am incapable of saying it – the hands and the hearts that are held out to me when I claim that I cannot see or feel them. I think I know they are there and that is what helps bring me back.

And know that I love you all back as fiercely and as devotedly as I can. I hope to live up to my end of the friendship and I will try not to bitch too much about how nobody loves me, everybody hates me, worms, etc. And even though the events of this week make me terrified to give any pieces of my heart away again, I know that I already have with you all and I trust that those pieces are in gentle care, as all the pieces of yours are in gentle care in mine.