Depression’s like that, kind of. A heavy mood can sometimes be vanquished with skills or medication, but sometimes, before you can really decide what’s happened, you find yourself nose-deep in shit. Consumed.

I’ve become rather used to small victories – had a good run, if you will – so I attributed a meltdown during my sister’s bachelorette to a few too many vodka-sodas and a ugly confluence of possible circumstance. We may or may not have been headed for a gentlemen’s club, and, if we’d been turned away, one could only attribute it to the fact that we were women. Due to my history this would have been enough to trigger angst during the good times, and the stream of self-hating texts I’d sent B!’s way the previous morning indicated that it was not, in fact, good times. Far from.

The next weekend, I went to Maine with my mom and sisters. It was our first vacation with just the girls, and it was lovely! Or it would have been, if I could’ve shaken the feeling that something was horribly askew. Like the world was tilting on its side and no-one could feel it but me. I hid behind my camera and did my best to swallow the burgeoning fear, but I’m not the actress I used to be.

I put up a good show, though.

Until it all stopped.

Something was said that should not have been said, and suddenly B! had contacted not only my therapist, but also, at her urging, my family and the police. Everyone was desperate to find me, because it was now apparent that I’d become a desperate case. A suicide risk. Sounds scary, right? But it wasn’t – not to me.

That’s how you know you’ve been eaten.

I don’t like to post these things, generally, until I’ve made my way through them and have emerged, triumphant, with a bit of snark or a smile. But that’s not this story, friends. Not yet.