David McElroy

Actress Dawn Wells’ death today at the age of 82 brought back memories of the old debate from my childhood. Do you prefer Ginger or Mary Ann?

Gilligan’s Island was a ridiculous sitcom that many of us loved anyway. The show was old enough that I grew up seeing it in late-afternoon syndication. My sisters and I often watched it every day after school.

At some point, most people who watched the show took up the question of which of the two young single women in the cast was more desirable. Ginger was the glamorous movie star who had a huge ego. Mary Ann was the small-down girl from the Midwest who was the quintessential “girl next door.”

If you were a man, your choice said something about the sort of woman who appealed to you. If you were a woman, your choice said something about who you really wanted to be.

I felt a little lost in such debates — because I didn’t think either of them represented my ideal woman.

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I’m having a slow-motion breakdown lately.

It’s not so different from what a lot of people experience, but the difference is that I’m talking with you about it. I need to talk about it, because that stops it from getting out of control.

I spent so much of my younger life pretending that everything was OK with me — so much that I believed it was true — that I can live a perfectly normal life while I’m breaking down inside. I can move through the world as I always do. I can say and do all the right things. The people around me have no idea that anything‘s going on.

I had to learn that pattern as a child, because any hint of weakness or pain or unhappiness was met with sharp disapproval from my father. I learned to put a happy face on everything. I learned not to show people what I felt. I learned how to be numb to what I felt.

As I eventually learned how to be emotionally healthy, I became more honest with myself about what’s going on inside my head and heart. But I never unlearned the habit of acting as though all is normal. So I wear the mask people see in public.

But I sometimes have to talk about it — or else cracks eventually show up in the mask. And I could eventually lose control in a way that I’ve never allowed to happen. So I need to talk about it. Right now.

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I fell into a hole last night. I was pulled in by an obsession which I can’t always fight.

I couldn’t climb out of the hole. I couldn’t distract myself from the unfilled need. I couldn’t sleep. I fought this obsession all night, but nothing would distract me from its grip. Exhausted and unsettled, I finally fell asleep about 7:30 a.m.

I don’t fall into this hole very often, but it’s always there — always reminding me it’s waiting. There’s something inside that calls to me like the sirens called the Greek heroes of legend.

I like to pretend the hole doesn’t exist. What else can I do? It’s like a giant sinkhole running through my life, but I don‘t want people to know it’s there. I don’t even want to believe it’s there. I’m like a scared man who walks very fast and whistles loudly as he’s forced to travel through a graveyard which frightens him.

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