{"id":986,"date":"2008-02-25T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-25T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/and-oscar-goes-tous.html"},"modified":"2008-02-25T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-25T10:00:00","slug":"and-oscar-goes-tous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/and-oscar-goes-tous.html","title":{"rendered":"And the Oscar Goes To…Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"oscars.jpg\"
\nIf anyone deserves an Oscar<\/a> for exceptional acting, it’s a depressive. My guardian angel, Ann<\/a>, told me the other day that she has spent more than half of her life pretending to be a happy person. <\/p>\n

“People have no idea I suffer like I do. When they learn about my manic depression, they shake their heads. Because I appear to be so content and jovial.”<\/p>\n

Ah yes. “Fake it ’til you make it.” My epitaph.<\/p>\n

For at least 18 months, forty-five of my fifty-minute therapy sessions went to acting lessons: how to feign a stable and functional person until I became one. <\/p>\n

Two days out of the psych ward (the second time), I played the part of an author who was throwing a successful pub date party for the release of her book “The Imperfect Mom<\/a>” (which had been compiled pre-breakdown). I wanted desperately to be this person, so I visualized myself with a few good months behind me, confidently discussing the stories I had gathered before an audience of prominent editors and respected writers.<\/p>\n

With sweaty palms and a racing heart, I sent out close to 50 electronic invitations (evites<\/a>) to the classy list of contributors–like journalist Judith Newman<\/a> and Baby Einstein founder Julie Aigner-Clark<\/a>–and to all my publishing friends in New York, most of whom were clueless about my previous year in hell.<\/p>\n


\n
Five days after I sent the evites, my literary agent’s assistant e-mailed me a list of possible caterers, wineries, bar tenders, and places where I could rent coat racks and glasses.<\/p>\n

As I read over his suggestions, I panicked. <\/p>\n

“Oh God. Oh God. I can’t do this,” I said. <\/p>\n

“What’s the matter?” my sister asked. I was in her kitchen (in Cincinnati, Ohio), checking my e-mails from her computer.<\/p>\n

“This New York trip. What am I thinking? I can barely get groceries. I still cry almost every hour. I can’t organize a party for all the publishing people I want to impress. What if I break down in the middle of it? They’ll find out I’m crazy. My career is toast.”<\/p>\n

“Don’t worry. I’ll go with you,” she said. “I know wines (she was a sales rep for Ohio Valley Wine<\/a>). And all we need are some cheeses, crackers, and stuff. Forget the rentals. I can put a party together. It’ll be fine.”<\/p>\n

Next came the hard part: learning my lines.<\/p>\n

“Pretend that I am an editor with Ladies’ Home Journal<\/a>,” my therapist said. “I walk up to you and say, ‘Hey Therese! Good to see you. What have you been up to?’ What will you say?”<\/p>\n

“Oh. Nothing much. Just hanging out in the community room of a psych ward with Allen, an 85-year-old who has slept with 96 women and wants to make it 97.”<\/p>\n

“Try again,” she said. “You are still tutoring at the college, right?” <\/p>\n

“Until the dean discovers a whackjob is teaching tomorrow’s leaders.”<\/p>\n

“And you are writing your Catholic column<\/a>, correct? There’s another conversation. And your kids are always great small-talk subjects. Just stay away from the topic of depression.”<\/p>\n

On the three-hour Amtrak<\/a> ride to New York, I memorized my lines, repeated them over and over again, like I was auditioning for an off-Broadway play.<\/p>\n

I imagined the key players and rehearsed the dialog. “Naval Academy. Catholic column. Kids. No depression.”<\/p>\n

With my sister’s help, I pulled it off! I don’t think anyone suspected that just five weeks earlier I was rooming with an anorexic chick, getting my vitals taken every three hours.<\/p>\n

In fact, so successful was the New York party that I repeated the act again a few weeks later, when I met a magazine editor at the Book Expo America<\/a> in DC. She hugged me tightly and looked at me so sincerely as she asked me, “How are you?” <\/p>\n

I immediately began sobbing, pig snorts and everything. <\/p>\n

So I guess I have a bit more practicing to do before I’m Meryl Streep<\/a> and become truly Oscar-worthy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If anyone deserves an Oscar for exceptional acting, it’s a depressive. My guardian angel, Ann, told me the other day that she has spent more than half of her life pretending to be a happy person. “People have no idea I suffer like I do. When they learn about my manic depression, they shake their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-depression"],"yoast_head":"\nAnd the Oscar Goes To...Us - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/and-oscar-goes-tous.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"And the Oscar Goes To...Us - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If anyone deserves an Oscar for exceptional acting, it’s a depressive. My guardian angel, Ann, told me the other day that she has spent more than half of her life pretending to be a happy person. “People have no idea I suffer like I do. When they learn about my manic depression, they shake their…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/and-oscar-goes-tous.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-02-25T10:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/oscars.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"And the Oscar Goes To...Us - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/and-oscar-goes-tous.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"And the Oscar Goes To...Us - Beyond Blue","og_description":"If anyone deserves an Oscar for exceptional acting, it’s a depressive. My guardian angel, Ann, told me the other day that she has spent more than half of her life pretending to be a happy person. “People have no idea I suffer like I do. When they learn about my manic depression, they shake their…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/and-oscar-goes-tous.html","og_site_name":"Beyond Blue","article_published_time":"2008-02-25T10:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/oscars.jpg"}],"author":"Beyond Blue","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/and-oscar-goes-tous.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/and-oscar-goes-tous.html","name":"And the Oscar Goes To...Us - Beyond Blue","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/and-oscar-goes-tous.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/and-oscar-goes-tous.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/oscars.jpg","datePublished":"2008-02-25T10:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2008-02-25T10:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/9a07cb215ebbbdc185d2b2a55131e7a2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/and-oscar-goes-tous.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/and-oscar-goes-tous.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/and-oscar-goes-tous.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/oscars.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/oscars.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/02\/and-oscar-goes-tous.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"And the Oscar Goes To…Us"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/","name":"Beyond Blue","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Therese J. Borchard","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/9a07cb215ebbbdc185d2b2a55131e7a2","name":"Beyond Blue","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/402\/402821b1a7d57eb8e3888da97f18b37fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/402\/402821b1a7d57eb8e3888da97f18b37fx96.jpg","caption":"Beyond Blue"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/author\/beyondblue"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}