BY CANDY PARKER

If asked to describe comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer in just one word, some may go with “ground-breaking.” This would, of course, be accurate. After all, Westenhoefer was the first openly lesbian comic to host her own HBO Comedy Special (1994) and to appear on the “Late Show with David Letterman” (2003). But that one word could never do her justice.

Self-deprecating. Raw. Hilarious. Legendary. Unpredictable. Candid. (That last one is by her own admission — I found it on her website.) All these and more could also be used to describe Westenhoefer, who is brazenly honest, outspoken and spontaneous in her comedy.

Westenhoefer began her stand-up career on a dare and she carries that same risk-taking attitude with her every time she takes the stage. With countless hours of material honed over a  career spanning more than two decades and a penchant for spilling the beans about whatever is currently happening in her life at the moment, Westenhoefer offers up a unique comedy set adventure every time she takes the stage.

Westenhoefer will soon be appearing with fellow veteran comic Jennie McNulty at two benefit performances for the United Church of Christ Coalition for LGBT Concerns. The first performance will be Saturday, May 17, at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, California. Tickets are available through www.brownpapertickets.com. The second show will be held Sunday, May 18, at Peace United Church of Christ in Santa Cruz, California. Tickets can be purchased at www.ticketriver.com. VIP tickets are available at each event and include a meet and greet with both comedians and priority seating.

I managed to catch up with Westenhoefer long enough to get her to answer our Fast 5 questions this week.

1. What are you most looking forward to in 2014?

Touring with Miley Cyrus. It’s not official yet, but a girl can dream.

2. Phone call or text?

Please, I beg you, text!

3. What would be your best piece of relationship advice?

Each partner should have full access to the other person’s phone, email, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts. (We’re pretty sure there’s a great story behind Westenhoefer’s answer on this one, but we maintain a strict five-question policy, so there was no chance for follow up.)

4. What’s the last movie you went to the theater to see?

“Despicable Me 2” with one million toddlers.

5. If you could have one super power, what would you want it to be and why?

To fly, both for the fun of it and to give the big finger to the airlines that rule my life.

Be sure to check out Westenhoefer’s website and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

The post Fast 5 with comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Most of the world was introduced to comedian Erin Foley back in 2000 when she appeared in the iconic Cameron Crowe film “Almost Famous.” My first introduction, however, came seven years later via a Queer Queens of Qomedy show in 2oo7 in which she shared the stage with Poppy Champlin and Jessica Kirson.

Since that time, I’ve become a huge fan of Foley’s intelligent brand of comedy, had the opportunity to film an interview with her and earned a healthy respect for her pool volleyball skills having witnessed her “take no prisoners,” ultra-competitive approach to guarding the net. Trust me, while you may want to be front and center at one of her shows, you do not want to be on the opposite side of a volleyball net when Foley’s in the pool.

(Most) kidding aside, Foley is an accomplished actress and comedian, having appeared on “Chelsea Lately,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” NBC’s “Go On” and debuting on “Conan” last fall.

A New York native now living in Los Angeles, Foley can be regularly seen at the Gotham Comedy Club, Caroline’s on Broadway, The Improv, The Laugh Factory and Stand Up New York. She’s currently touring to promote her new comedy CD “Lady with Pockets” available on iTunes and hosts a weekly podcast called “Sports Without Balls.” (Sadly, she’s a Yankees fan, though we find common ground in our mutual love of the New York football Giants.)

Fresh off an appearance at the Gay Games in Cleveland and in between her “Lady with Pockets” tour gigs, Foley found time to join our Fast 5 club.

1. What’s the last book you read?

A short story collection of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

2. If you could host a dinner party and invite any five people — past or present — to attend who would be on that guest list?

Carol Burnett, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Derek Jeter, Martina Navratilova and Harriet Tubman.

3. Beach or mountains?

Beach

4. Which celebrity would render you totally star struck if you were to meet him/her?

If it was possible, Lucille Ball.

5. Do you have a hidden talent? Do tell!

I’m a really good dancer. Jazz hands and everything.

Be sure to check out Foley’s website and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

The post Fast 5 with comedian Erin Foley first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Photo by: Freedom G Photography

BY CANDY PARKER
Lesbian.com

We all owe one of comedian Sandra Valls’ unnamed ex-girlfriends a sincere “thank you.” Why is that, you ask? Well, some time ago, said ex signed Valls up for a stand-up comedy lesson as an early Christmas present — in effect, giving us all the gift that is Valls’ intelligent, high-energy, brash brand of comedy.

Though the relationship didn’t last, the comedy lesson was well-learned as Valls went on to enjoy a career in which she has appeared in two Showtime hit comedy specials, “The Latin Divas of Comedy” and “Pride: LGBT Comedy Slam!,” been named one of Curve magazine’s Top 10 funniest lesbian comics and, perhaps most enviably, shared the stage with the gorgeous Eva Longoria at the HBO Comedy Festival.

Valls tours regularly with the Latin Divas and Queer Queens of Qomedy and recently wrapped up a stint at the week-long GirlSplash in Provincetown, Massachusetts, but amidst her busy tour schedule she still finds time to give back to the community. Valls volunteers for and produces comedy shows for various causes including benefits/fundraisers for AIDS, sobriety, domestic violence and LGBT rights and was honored in her hometown of Laredo with the International Woman’s Day Award for being a trailblazer and empowering women.

Valls will soon be headed to Michfest, but gladly played along with us in this week’s Fast 5.

1. Which individual has been your greatest professional influence?

Bette Midler. I was very young when I snuck around and watched her HBO Special “Bette Midler Live At Last.” That’s when I knew I wanted to have a career like hers, sans the mermaid outfit, of course.

2. What song can you not get enough of right now?

“Wild Heart” by Stevie Nicks. I love Stevie Nicks! (Editor’s Note: Check out Sandra’s rendition of the tune in the video below — she can sing!)

3. What’s the best thing that’s happened for you so far in 2014?

I bought a Farrah Fawcett t-shirt.

4. Window or aisle seat on the airplane?

Actually it’s the middle seat. I love to be sandwiched between strangers. Feels safe. Oh, especially wedged between large men in short shorts and flip flops that smell like cigarettes. The men — not the flip flops.

5. Tell us one thing about you that most people probably don’t know, but you’re willing to share.

I sleep with a stuffed owl named Owly.

For more on Valls, be sure to check out her website and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Toothbrush tunes with Sandra Valls

The post Fast 5 with comedian Sandra Valls first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Candy Parker

LPGA golfer Ryann O’Toole is ready for the new season and every indication is that 2017 may be her best yet. O’Toole has a lot to look forward to, professionally and personally, having finished up 2016 by inking both a new sponsorship deal with the market-disrupting PXG and an engagement to her girlfriend, Gina Marra, a powersports executive.

A California native and natural athlete, O’Toole spent her time as a young girl surfing and wakeboarding, playing softball and basketball, training in karate, and skateboarding. She was bitten by the golf bug at age 12, honing her skills on the local municipal course in San Clemente before heading to UCLA to compete for the Lady Bruins.

After college, she turned pro in 2009 and went on to literally get her “Big Break” on the Golf channel’s reality competition show of the same name in 2011. Also that year, following her sixth place finish on the show, O’Toole was named as a Captain’s Pick to the Solheim Cup Team, where she recorded a 2-0-2 record while proudly representing the United States.

These days, O’Toole has solidified her place on the LPGA tour and makes her home in Scottsdale, Ariz., with Gina and their four dogs, Bogey, Chloe, Tory and Brodie. When not on the golf course, she can typically be found shopping, working out or practicing yoga.

I was able to speak with O’Toole as she prepared to depart for the Pure Silk Bahamas LPGA Classic, which kicks off the 2017 LPGA tour. O’Toole is hoping to build on her three top 10 finishes in 2016 and was happy to indulge in a quick Fast 5 questions before taking on 18 holes on Paradise Island.

1. Do you have a hidden talent? Do tell!

Yes, I do. I can tear an apple in half with my bare hands. I’m also one step below a black belt in karate.

2. If they started offering free trips to the moon tomorrow, would you go?

Definitely! I’m always up for a new adventure and that sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

3. Early bird or night owl?

Early bird all the way. I’m very committed to my fitness routine and that doesn’t allow for too many lazy mornings in bed.

4. If you could have one superpower, what would you want it to be and why?

I think I’d want my superpower to be the ability to take on anyone else’s superpower. That way, I could always disarm them.

5. Finish this sentence. “I think the key to being happy is…”

…following your heart!

If you want to stay up-to-date with O’Toole during the upcoming season, you can visit her website, or follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

The post Fast 5 with LPGA golfer Ryann O’Toole first appeared on Lesbian.com.

We all know Portia De Rossi from her time on “Ally McBeal” and “Arrested Development” and, of course, as one half of the Hollywood “lesbian It couple” along with wife of six years Ellen DeGeneres. But we managed to turn up these 10 tidbits you might not already know.

1. De Rossi will reportedly be joining the cast of “Scandal” for the upcoming Season 4, portraying an as-yet-unidentified but “formidable” character.

2. De Rossi was born Amanda Lee Rogers in Victoria, Australia, but adopted the name Portia De Rossi at age 15 in an attempt to reinvent herself. “Portia” was drawn from the Shakespeare play “The Merchant of Venice” and paired with an Italian-sounding last name as the actress had a love of all things Italian.

3. De Rossi has been a vegan since 2008.

4. Portia was raised by her medical receptionist mother after her father passed away when she was just nine years old.

5. Before dating DeGeneres, De Rossi was in a relationship with former Beatle Ringo Starr’s stepdaughter, Francesca Gregorini.

6. De Rossi became an American citizen in September 2011.

7. De Rossi Portia struggled with with Anorexia Nervosa and credits DeGeneres for helping her to overcome the disorder.

8. Portia studied law for 18 months at the University of Melbourne before starting her acting career.

9. De Rossi is reportedly a talented puppeteer.

10. De Rossi starred in her first film at age 21, playing Giddy in “Sirens.”

The post Women we love: 10 facts you may not know about Portia De Rossi first appeared on Lesbian.com.

ESPN (rightfully) caught some flack earlier this week when correspondent Josina Anderson filed an on-air report about the locker room showering habits of the NFL’s first openly gay player, Michael Sam.

When asked by an ESPN anchor how Sam was fitting in with the Rams, rather than discuss the rookie hopeful’s on-field performance (he did have two sacks against Cleveland this past weekend) or pranks to which first-year players are typically subjected, Anderson proceeded to ramble on about how Sam appears to be delaying his post-practice showers in deference to his teammates.

Anderson’s report began innocently enough, quoting one Rams’ player as saying that Sam was “just one of the guys.” (So far, so good; right?). Things devolved quickly, though, as she went on to quote another Ram as saying that Sam appeared to be “respecting our space” and “is waiting to kind of take a shower” so as not to make his teammates feel uncomfortable. Even putting aside the super unclear “kind of take a shower” phrase (is that like “kind of pregnant”?), this was about the time one started to get the ominous feeling that Anderson wasn’t exactly headed toward Peabody Award territory with her story.

The ESPN anchor back in the studio was either as oblivious as Anderson, stunned by what he was hearing or teetering on the edge of his seat waiting for salacious details regarding hunky athletes in the shower, because he allowed Anderson to continue the demonstration of her journalistic prowess, such that it was.

She went on to share that other Rams players “didn’t know that specifically” because they “weren’t tracking that,” “that,” of course, being when and with whom Sam is showering. (C’mon, guys! How are you gonna whittle the roster down to 53 players if you’re not “tracking that”? Football is a game of statistics! Sure, sacks and tackles are important, but hygiene counts, too, yo. By the way, guys, you may want to check with Sam’s boyfriend; he may have some historical data to fill in the gaps for you on that.)

Anderson continued down the slippery slope (after all, that’s whatcha get when ya drop the soap in the shower), revealing that Kendall Langford (one of the quoted Rams’ players) hadn’t been in the shower at the same time as Sam, though there could be “a million reasons for that” — Sam could be doing extra work on the practice field; he could be riding his bike; or he could be doing extra cardio. (It was unclear at this point if  Anderson was using the phrase “extra cardio” as a euphemism of some sort.)

Near the end of the report, Anderson seemed to remember that she was a professional sports correspondent on live television (perhaps a producer broke out a taser?) as she managed to work in some actual football-related information about Sam, again quoting Langford as saying, “If he doesn’t make our team, I’m pretty sure somebody will definitely pick him up on another team … he’s shown some flashes.”

Blessedly, Anderson didn’t speculate about the nature of the “flashes” and whether or not they took place on the playing field or in the shower, but the damage was done and the story soon exploded on social media. Perhaps Rams’ defensive end Chris Long best summed up the collective opinion about the ESPN report when he tweeted, “Dear ESPN, Everyone but you is over it.”

Alas, ESPN, it’s sad but true that in that moment you became to the St. Louis Rams’ locker room shower dynamics what CNN was to the disappearance of Malyasia Airlines Flight 370. Enough already; Michael Sam is a gay man who takes showers and the plane is still missing. We get it!

Unsurprisingly, and to their credit, given the backlash, ESPN apologized for the report issuing a statement on Wednesday which read: “ESPN regrets the manner in which we presented our report. Clearly yesterday we collectively failed to meet the standards we have set in reporting on LGBT-related topics in sports.”

Really, ESPN? A report based on outdated stereotypes and which proliferated anti-gay paranoia failed to meet your standards regarding LGBT-related topics in sports? Way to set that bar high!

As offensive as it may be, all the hoopla about with whom Michael Sam is or isn’t showering did serve one positive purpose. It made me very happy that I’m a lesbian rather than a gay man. Because despite the relatively recent coming out stories in women’s sports, not once have I heard speculation about Britney Griner’s or Abby Wambach’s shower schedules or conjecture regarding the timing thereof. Nor have I heard pre-draft commentators ponder how an openly lesbian athlete would be received by her teammates in the locker room. And I don’t recall Twitter exploding with hate at any point when two women kissed on live television during a celebratory moment.

They say it’s good to be a girl and that seems to be very true when it comes to gays and lesbians in sports, not that lesbian athletes haven’t faced their share of discrimination or persecution. But we women-loving-women seem to have a leg up in these matters as while the general public — and specifically the largely male-dominated sports-loving public —  seems to find the idea of a gay man in the locker room shower distasteful or dangerous in some way, the idea of a shower full of lesbians is every guy’s fantasy. There’s a down side to that, of course — I could dedicate countless columns to the objectification of women and the male lesbian fantasy vs. lesbian reality — but all things being equal I’ll take being idealized and fantasized about over being demonized any day.

Watch the controversial ESPN report below.

The post How Michael Sam makes me grateful to be a lesbian first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Yes, the interwebs have gone mad for videos of lunatics dumping buckets of ice on their heads for charity. Apparently, the challenge has raised over $41 million to fight ALS.

ALS is short for its less catchy given name amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also know as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

Here are our favorite lesbian ice bucket challenges.

ABBY WAMBACH

JENNIE McNULTY

DIANA & JESSICA

NICOLE PACENT

CANDY PARKER, Lesbian.com editor and writer

Share your favorite ice bucket challenges in the comments below.

The post Lesbians get wet, wild and cold for charity first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Patricia Yurena Rodriguez posted this photo on Instagram of herself and her girlfriend, Vanesa Cortez, with the caption, “Romeo and Juliet.”

BY CANDY PARKER
Lesbian.com

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but in the case of the former Miss Spain, Patricia Yurena Rodriguez, it’s worth just three – “Yes, I am.”

The former Miss Spain (2008 and 2013) and 1st runner up in the 2013 Miss Universe competition came out via Instagram, posting a photo with her girlfriend, singer and DJ Vanesa Cortez, with the caption “Romeo and Juliet.”

The 24-year-old is the first openly lesbian national beauty queen in the country. Rodriguez told a local newspaper, “I do not regret what I did. I’m thrilled with what is happening to me.”

Rodriguez later posted another photo with a caption thanking her fans for their support.

According to the Costa Rican newspaper La Nación, Rodriguez and Cortez met via mutual friends last year before the 2013 Miss Universe pageant and began dating several months ago.

The post Former Miss Spain comes out as lesbian first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Billie Jean King is a legend in the tennis world — a former No. 1 ranked player with 39 Grand Slam titles, she was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987.

King is also renowned for her efforts toward achieving gender equality, famously defeating Bobby Riggs in 1973’s “Battle of the Sexes” and threatening to boycott the U.S. Open unless the tournament offered equal prize money to both men and women.

More recently, President Obama honored King as a member of the U.S. delegation at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and the celebrated athlete and activist continues to lend her talents to efforts aimed at furthering the rights of women and LGBT citizens.

You may think you know a lot about this lesbian icon, but here are 10 tidbits we think may surprise you.

1. King was one of Time magazine’s Persons of the Year in 1975.

2. Her younger brother, Randy Moffitt, was a pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, Houston Astros and Toronto Blue Jays.

3. From 1965 through 1987, Billie Jean was married to Larry King. (No, not that Larry King.)

4. King once played a judge in a 2007 episode of “Law and Order.”

5. King’s life partner, Ilana Kloss, was inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2006.

6. Elton John’s 1975 #1 hit “Philadelphia Freedom” was written as a favor to King who was a member of the Philadelphia Freedoms professional tennis team.

7. King’s father was an engineer for the fire department and her mother was an Avon representative.

8. King is the founder and first president of the Women’s Tennis Association.

9. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

10. In 1971, King became the first female athlete to win over $100,000.

Want more fun facts about the women we love? Just click here!

The post Women we love: 10 facts you may not know about Billie Jean King first appeared on Lesbian.com.

As details continue to emerge in the tragic suicide death of Robin Williams, it occurs to me that one of the things that makes depression so insidious is the stigma (and – judging by some of the reactions surfacing in the media, social or otherwise – ignorance) which surrounds the disease.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my almost 53-years, it’s that there is very little in this human experience that is truly unique – and yet many continue to suffer alone with their challenges, whether that be depression, mental illness or something else – because we are embarrassed, believing our feelings, thoughts or circumstances are exclusive to us. We view others’ lives as more perfect, more in control, more successful; simply put – happier.

We’re embarrassed to reveal our weaknesses, our imperfections for fear of embarrassment or ridicule. So we bottle them inside and our insecurities and negative thoughts become the stuff of which sleepless nights are made and those sleepless nights amplify the insecurities and negative thoughts and the downward spiral continues until those destructive thoughts become our only – and seemingly inescapable – reality.

Taking a cue from an acquaintance who “came out” on Facebook regarding her own struggles with depression, I’m going to take one tiny step toward dispelling the stigma and ignorance of the disease by sharing that I, too, went through a time about four years ago where I required therapy and medication to recover from a period of depression. While I never want to be in that murky, irrational, hopeless place again – nor would I ever wish it upon anyone else – I can say that it provided me with insight I’d not previously had regarding the disease.

We can read all the “10 things not to say to someone who’s depressed” or “5 differences between being sad vs. being depressed” or “10 ways to support someone who’s depressed” articles we want, but – much like child birth – unless someone has actually been there, it is impossible to fully comprehend how the mind functions while afflicted – how alone, how angry one feels; how insurmountable the situation seems; how nonsensical our thought processes become.

I don’t presume that my experience with depression is universal; I feel quite fortunate in that my episode was “event-induced” and fairly easily overcome. (My recovery was actually far shorter in duration than was my initial suffering as I waited ten months to seek help.) I know that there are nuances to each person’s experience and, sadly, some struggle a lifetime with the disease. But I want to share some of the signs I should have seen as I sank further into the abyss four years ago.

Please bear in mind that I do not purport to be a mental health or medical professional of any sort and the list below doesn’t constitute an official “are you depressed?” litmus test. That said, if you see yourself feeling or thinking or experiencing several of these things and you aren’t already talking to a therapist or doctor, please consider doing so.

“It’s everyone else!”

What I mean here is that as things progressively worsened for me, I found myself with an increasingly short fuse and blaming everyone else for every confrontation. Already not the most passive driver or best sufferer of fools, my tolerance for the even the tiniest mistake or act of incompetence on the part of someone else set me off. I was angry all the time – less patient with co-workers, more likely to lay on the horn for any perceived traffic infraction and far more apt to storm out of a line at the post office or grocery store grousing about ineptitude. Once restored to my more rational self via the wonders of modern medicine, it became crystal clear to me that at any point in one’s life when it appears everyone else is wrong all the time, there is a problem. Because “everyone else” can’t be wrong all of the time. It just doesn’t work that way. The problem was me; I just couldn’t see it.

“Sleep, you are not my friend.”

Or rather, sleep was a friend who abandoned me in my hour of greatest need. I went weeks – probably months – without getting more than a few hours of sleep at night. While some may think that the fast track to productivity, it’s also the express train to hopelessness. My most memorably miserable moments all seem to have occurred between 2am and 5am, for during those hours my mind would shift into overdrive, churning with questions to which I had (and, really, there were) no answers, thoughts of “woulda, coulda, shoulda” haunted me and, as I approached Full-blown Depression Depot, thoughts of ending it all in some form or fashion crept into my consciousness.

If you’re single, there are few times more lonely than 2am to 5am, regardless of the coast on which you reside. I found myself not wanting to “bother” my friends with a call, either due to the late hour or because they’d already heard my rehashing of events too many times to recount. (I should explain that my depression was triggered by the end of an 8-year relationship.) Mostly, though, I knew that there was nothing they could say to make me feel better – if that were possible, they’d already have said it. The standard issue advice – just give it time, you’ll get over her; she wasn’t good for you anyway; you deserve better – just doesn’t register when you’re depressed

In reality, when your mind, and hence your emotions, are completely out of whack, off kilter due to the chemical imbalance that is depression, nothing makes sense; there are no answers and there is no hope. Yet, at least in my case, my mind worked overtime to pose the questions over and over and over again and to search for answers that didn’t exist. As a result, I didn’t get the precious sleep that I needed then, more than ever. And that only made things worse.

“Tears fall like rain.”

Already a sap known to cry at everything from lesson-laced sitcoms to major sporting event outcomes, my tear ducts shifted into high gear as I slipped further into the depression. How I, a normally rather rational individual, didn’t realize that it simply wasn’t “normal” to wake up every morning and cry in the shower, or for a simple work-related question from a colleague to trigger tears, is beyond me now. But I cried morning, noon and night, again with those frustrating hours of 2am to 5am seeming to be my most prolific.

I cried because I felt angry; I cried because I felt sad; I cried for seemingly no reason at all. And many times, particularly late at night, the crying wasn’t of the gentle spring rain variety – it was the torrential downpour of agony, a wailing inspired by an emotional pain so deep, so unrelenting, and – perhaps most revealing of an issue – so completely unrelated to anything that was actually happening in my life at the moment. Unless you’re suffering from a hormonal imbalance of some sort, when you’re sobbing uncontrollably at 3am countless nights in a row for no apparent reason, there’s a problem.

“They’d be better off without me.”

This is where things get really dark and dangerous. In my irrational state, I actually started to enumerate the ways in which those around me would be better served should I no longer exist on the planet. My status as a mom served double-duty here – one minute I was thinking about how my son would be set for life financially if I were to kill myself (making it appear as an accident, of course, so as not to void my life insurance policy) and the next I was thinking how terrible it would be to burden him with the task of clearing out the garage by himself if I went through with it. Mind you, I wasn’t considering how upset he might be that his mom was gone – I’d discounted my own worth sufficiently by then so as not to factor that into the equation at that point – but rather I fretted about inconveniencing him with a day’s work of sorting and purging.

If we’re honest, there’s probably not one of us who doesn’t reach a certain age without having had a momentary thought about suicide. It’s one of those things that, as humans, may flit through our minds quickly, but never truly takes root. But when I was depressed, that thought settled in and made itself comfortable. It branched out from a late night notion about over the counter sleeping medications to broad daylight impulses to gun the engine of my Mustang and point it toward the closest and sturdiest roadside obstacle. And it was on the heels of such a thought that I made a beeline to my general practitioner’s office, unannounced and without an appointment. I’d perhaps not yet hit rock bottom, but I knew if I stretched out my toes it was within reach. I remain thankful that she and her staff welcomed and consoled me that day and set me on the path to recovery.

So those are the notes from my depression story. Yes, the woman many know as the life of the party with the huge smile and the quick one-liners has come out as once having been clinically depressed. Some may find it more surprising than the fact that I was married (to a man) for 11 years, and honestly, it’s a secret I’ve kept from far more people than I have my sexual orientation.

I share these bits of my personal story not to garner sympathy or accolades, but rather with the hope that someone may recognize herself in the reflection of my experience and seek help as a result. If you’re going through a rough time, reach out to a friend or a relative; talk to your doctor; call a suicide hotline. It doesn’t matter what time of the day or night it is, there is always someone to talk to somewhere. And while true depression cannot be healed by mere words – there’s no “cheer up” pep talk to overcome the chemical imbalance – those words may be just enough of a lifeline to hold you over until you can get the help you need.

Most importantly, please remember – regardless of what your irrational mind may be telling you at the moment – you are not alone; you are not weak; what you’re feeling is not permanent; you are loved; and you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed about in seeking help. All you have to do is “come out” about your disease.

You can reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by calling 1-800-273-8255. Their phones are staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The post ‘Coming out’ to erase the stigma of depression first appeared on Lesbian.com.