SPACEY-ING OUT

Sometimes the indignation comes easily. Poor Kevin. And by that, I don’t mean to show empathy. Mr. Spacey has long had us wondering when. We’d all heard it. The man is gay. He’ll come out once he feels safe, once his career is solidly on the down slide or maybe once he’s madly in love and about to marry a scholarly British gentleman. Isn’t that why he dashed off to London?

A long time ago, in the ‘90s, many of us wanted him to come out. He could make a difference. As an articulate, Oscar-winning, A-list actor, Kevin Spacey could add an esteemed face to the LGBT movement (back then, mostly L and G). This was when we were dealing with AIDS and hate crimes and hoping people could serve in the military as long as they weren’t blabbermouths about their personal lives. Anti-discrimination and marriage seemed too lofty cherry pies in the sky.

Kevin kept quiet. I don’t recall him trying to pass as straight off-screen. His right. But he was on the wish list. One day, we thought, Spacey, Travolta and Cruise would be grand marshals in Pride parades and continue to receive GLAAD awards even if their big screen roles dried up. How much money did they really need?

We listened to Kevin’s acceptance speeches. Surely, he’d pull a Jodie one day and toss in a cryptic thank you to a lover/partner. Something beyond “good, good friend”, something clearly different than the Damon/Affleck bromance.

I thought the coming out would occur during press interviews for his gay role in 1997’s “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”. Why take the role and then continue to cling to the confines of the closet? Maybe the fact it flopped affirmed Spacey’s fears that being “too gay”—in other words, publicly gay—was career suicide.

So we all continued to wait. Spacey would dodge questions about his sexuality, at one point in a 2007 interview stating, “I’ve never believed in pimping my personal life out for publicity.” Too defensive. It’s not like he was staging a wedding to Nicole Kidman or Katie Holmes. We all trusted that Spacey would balk at any such suggestions from agents, studios and established religious cults. We felt that this many was of good character. That’s why we all wanted him to come out. But then, somewhere along the way, with the passage of time and the Supreme Court recognizing gay marriage, we stopped caring about Spacey’s private life. He and Travolta and Cruise could go on keeping their “secret”. We had Zachary Quinto, Matt Bomer and Sir Ian McKellen. And Ellen and Rosie, too. Good enough.

If you had told me that Kevin Spacey came out today, I’d have shrugged along with everyone else. Okay. Good for him. That’s a weight off, even if no one else viewed it as a weight anymore.

But that, of course, is not how it went down. He didn’t just casually address it—finally!—in an interview. He tweeted it and he did so, at best, as a distraction and, at worst, in self-defense. We’re still in the thick of the Hollywood cause of the moment, its uncovering decades of sexual harassment and assaults. And, as part of that tide, actor Anthony Rapp disclosed that it was a twenty-six-year-old Kevin Spacey who made unwanted sexual advances to fourteen-year-old Rapp. Spacey launched a multi-tiered response: (1) I don’t remember; (2) I must have been drunk; and (3) Hey, by the way, I’m gay. The implication intertwined with his coming out is that he was conflicted over his sexual orientation, driven to drink and did dastardly deeds such as trying to sexually assault a boy. It was the behavior of a self-hating, self-censoring, horribly confused man.

Distraction or excuse, it comes off as sad at the very least. Yes, I have friends who were so conflicted about being gay that they became addicted to drugs or alcohol. It wasn’t good to be gay in the ‘80s. The alleged incident occurred in 1986 when the AIDS crisis went unchecked and the Reagan administration continued to shirk any sense of leadership in speaking with compassion and conviction to address it. Anti-gay sentiment magnified due to falsehoods and fears about AIDS. It would be exceptional for any gay man in the ‘80s not to be plagued with fits of self-hate, an internalized manifestation of society’s widespread revulsion.

But we didn’t go having sex with minors. I was warily aware of a dubious organization called NAMBLA which generated headlines due to its outrageous agenda. This was the North American Man/Boy Love Association, presumably no larger than a society advocating sex with UFOs, but every time I saw any press about this organization, I felt it represented a major setback to gay tolerance and that ultimate of wishful thinking, acceptance.

There were still large segments of society that lumped homosexuality in with criminals, perverts, practitioners of bestiality and pedophiles. I grew up frequently hearing this. How could that not have had a negative impact into a gay person’s identity? Even today, some extreme conservatives raise fear amongst themselves by claiming an LGBT agenda seeks to “recruit” their children.

Perhaps it’s with all this historical background that I cringe even more at Mr. Spacey’s deflection of responsibility. There was a time when, due to his celebrity, he could have helped advance LGBT causes. He passed on that, which is his right. (I presume he offered support in less public ways.) On a day when he is accused of sexually pressuring a minor, I don’t want him trying to climb on the gay bandwagon. It has the danger of perpetuating an old misperception. It smacks of excuse-making for that which is inexcusable.

If anything good can come from this, it’s a reminder that celebrities—whether movie stars or athletes—are not heroes. Their voices are heard more than the rest of us, but they can be as misguided, perhaps more so because of their protectors, their “yes” men, their perceived power and their desperation to retain fame and fortune.

I respected Kevin Spacey. He is indeed a fine actor. I hope something good will come of all that has aired today. Perhaps Spacey can receive counseling. Perhaps there will be a time when Spacey can truly express full remorse toward Anthony Rapp. For now, it’s an egregious mess, a woeful attempt at saving face and a blatant misfire in terms of garnering sympathy.

I wish he’d never come out at all.

WHAT TO SAY

It's the middle of the day on a weekday and I have a hair appointment. I feel myself becoming unsettled as I walk to the salon. My stylist and I live in different worlds due to age and interests so it's always a challenge to keep a conversation flowing during a cut, an ordeal prolonged by the fact I insist on getting my sideburns colored each time as I continue to battle the inevitable gray signs of aging.

I have far less than usual to discuss. I've been in hospital for close to three weeks and I'm not prepared to talk about that. I can't talk about my recent (Canadian) Thanksgiving. Again, in hospital. No pumpkin pie, no roasted veggies. And I didn't have plans for this past weekend. I wasn't sure when I'd be discharged. I'm out of practice in planning a day or any part of it. I've forgotten what it's like to have options. And, honestly, I don't have the energy.

 

I briefly debated telling my stylist I was hospitalized for depression. (Never mind the suicidal tidbit. No need to be a total downer.) But being out with one's depression still comes with a degree of discretion. To my knowledge, there isn't some well-worn chant like, "I'm down. Don't frown. Get used to it."

A disclosure to Melanie might be somewhat cathartic and might even have some educational value for her, but in my mind I went all Jack Nicholson--"You can't handle the truth!" 

Jack and I were proven right after only five minutes. She'd asked me if I was dressing up for Hallowe'en. She talked about Friday the 13^th freaking her out. She bemoaned a broken fingernail and an unsatisfied craving for sour candy. "I was hospitalized for depression" just felt out of place. So I explained away that fact I could come for my midday appointment on a weekday by saying I'd taken a leave of absence.

"Good for you!" she said. "You work too hard." And then she segued into an anecdote about how menacing the mirror at her work station can be when she has a hangover.

I'm not ready for full re-entry into society, I thought. I wanted to flee. I even momentarily longed for the grim isolation of my old room on the psych ward. But then I looked in that menacing mirror and stared down big hair and old man sideburns. I steered the conversation to near silence. I inserted a fake smile in the right places and nodded at times when the scissors weren't too close to my ears. I made it through, departing with my secret still under wraps. Turns out the experience wasn't about bringing Melanie around to some point of understanding; rather, it was a chance for me to practice tolerance. And, these days, that’s something we can all work on, no matter what we’ve endured during the past month.

THE BITCH IS BACK

This blog has evolved. Initially, it was about a single, middle-aged gay man’s struggles with living in a relatively isolated rural area. But, after a decade, I moved back to Vancouver, realizing too much nature and seclusion were detrimental to my well-being. It wasn’t as though rural existence triggered the onset of mental health issues; it just exacerbated them. Farewell, rural adjective. 

I was still a single, (older) middle-aged gay man. It should come as no shock that struggles remained. Not every problem is tightly linked to being gay either, but there usually is a tangential connection at the very least. And so, from time to time, I’ve stuck with my commitment to write honestly and without self-censorship to focus on dealing with depression. Maybe someone else will feel a connection. Maybe he or she won’t feel as alone in coming to terms with significant challenges.

Acknowledging my depression has been my second coming out. It has yielded remarkably similar experiences. In fact, the taboo over mental illness hasn’t been chipped away nearly to the degree that society has become more accepting of homosexuality. Nobody calls me a sinner for being depressed. Not even when suicidal ideation surfaces. No one has insinuated that I’m a danger to society. The shunning is subtler. For many, the gayness and the depression draw the same response: Can we just not talk about it?

I’ll be blunt. Depression’s a bitch. It’s a beast. It pulls you down. It goes away only to return as a most unwelcome surprise. Today I was discharged from hospital, eighteen days after being admitted. Unlike physical illness, they make a point of certifying you. I went in voluntarily, first consulting with my psychiatrist and then going home to carefully pack a few belongings before walking to Emergency. This was, after all, my second stint in a psych ward. (The first was three and a half years ago.) I knew I wanted my own bar of soap instead of having to squeeze gel out of teensy trial packages. A few books, too. (This time I'd be able to pass up six-year-old issues of Time and stacks of Reader’s Digest.) 

And extra underwear! I'd spend my stay in comfort!

As much as I felt I desperately needed to be hospitalized, I wanted out fifteen minutes after going in. Maybe it had something to do with having to remove my clothes as two security guards watched and then surrendering all my belongings. Had I been delusional about having a better experience this time? Alas, once again it would be no spa vacation. A hospital is not a calm, welcoming setting in which to recover from a breakdown. So much for my fanciful images of a pristine white mansion with green lawns where people spend their days playing croquet and trying to catch butterflies in large nets. This was much less a Merchant-Ivory film and much more Cuckoo’s Nest. I was immersed in rooms of chipped-paint beige and “soothed” by the sounds of doors that slammed shut every few minutes, a screaming patient pounding on the walls of his very own “quiet room,” and a public address system paging for housekeeping and announcing Code Blues. 

The objective is to get better in spite of your surroundings.

Generations ago, they treated some forms of mental illness with shock therapy. I’m not sure how much matters have evolved. I certainly experienced significant shock every day of my stay. In the end, I felt more broken, more defeated. And I am left with a higher level and frequency of anxiety than I’ve ever had before. Even greater than the anxiety that arose from my previous hospitalization.

So now I’m free. The wounds are invisible, but I can feel them. The real healing begins now. I don’t have a clear plan for recovery. I must continue to manage unpredictable tearful surges. I hope the chest pains subside. As I drop the survival cloak I shrouded myself in while navigating the psych ward, I know the depression will rise to the surface anew. This time I won’t have to deal with surprise and disappointment. It’s an unwanted houseguest, but I hope to meet it head-on, supported by my family doctor, my private psychiatrist and a new counsellor. Last time around, the sucker hung out for two years. Maybe this time I can limit its stay. Maybe I’ll develop better, stronger coping strategies. Maybe I’ll find the right people in society who will listen rather than donning ear plugs or offering naïve booster advice like, “Smile more” and “Can’t you just cheer up?”

My parting gift from hospital is a new set of prescription meds. The eighteen days in lock-up felt like an eternity. Still, the real journey begins now.