Man, you picked the wrong Facebook
profile to post that on, ma'am.
I posted that Greg Giraldo passed
away from an overdose he suffered a few days ago, and
the first response was this:
"i always find it hard
to be sad for those that kill themselves with
drugs. he was a funny man, its too bad he had to
resort to drugs"
Nothing I hadn't heard
before, and I responded softly...
"As someone who has
felt the depression this industry can put on you,
and who came so very close to having no hope
whatsoever - I guess I'm in a very special place to
understand EXACTLY what this man went through. It
hits so close to home with me from as recent as 2
weeks ago... I'm absolutely beside myself. Please
try and understand how overpowering the pressures
can be if you don't have a good support system
around you. This is heartbreaking."
And then I sat on it for a
minute. When I first heard Greg overdosed a few
days ago, the spookiness from what had happened to me
last month struck me. That horrible vision of my
demise (inadvertently from the Indy video)
foreshadowed this same tragic ending. Throw in earlier
this month being... well, lower than I ever admitted?
It was so tough to see a fellow entertainer overdose.
Accidental or not, I get it. I really, really get it.
Then when he died and that
was someone's first reaction? Again, I tried to
respond softly... but I got pretty angry as the
minutes passed. I knew what was coming. I grabbed
the camera...
Quick aside - I shaved today
simply because I got new headshots and
I look so drastically different shaven, I
simply have to have those headshots. No one forced
me to do it as I was explaining in the video. What
I was trying to get across was there's a very
real possibility that that look sells, and
I may end up going long stretches not seeing
"me". I went through it with The Egos on CBS. I had
to dye my hair and wax my eyebrows to be Spencer...
and then go in each week and spray my hair brown
and add eyebrows to be "Adam". It took 45 minutes
to look like "me". You feel a little lost no matter
how strong you are.
I know very little about
Greg's career to know if that was what he was feeling.
Obviously what has hit me so hard was that
THIS MONTH, I was really, really in a bad
place. I wasn't making that shit up about staring at
the blue sleeping pills. I made several calls to
friends but stayed vague as I didn't want to
burden them... but the truth is? I simply couldn't
wrap my head around why I should wake up the next day.
It's frightening as hell to write about this knowing
I'm repeating a time from 2002 that I thought
I was well past. 2 more divorces and skyscraping
career falls you're brewing a perfect storm, and here
I was again. I'm lightyears away from that now...
but it's IN ME. And when you have no support?
When any friendly voice is 2000 miles away? When you
have 10 HEARTBREAKING years behind you and no one
in the industry will return a call
(OR EVEN SAY
THEY GOT THE DVD YOU SHIPPED THEM MONTHS AGO)?
You, start, to, break. And to have ANYONE act
dismissive of Greg Giraldo because he overdosed on
drugs? As if you can barely stand to be sad for
him? Oh HELL No. Nooooo. I will not
respond softly to that. You will get an entire entry
and video and I'll be damned if I'm gonna sugar-coat
what happened to me out of embarrassment earlier this
month. The overwhelming majority of people could, not,
do, what, we, do. It's the definition of insanity. It
is beating your head against the same wall hoping
THIS time you'll crash it down. And for whatever
reason, at 44 years old - Greg felt the need to resort
to pills to try and get by.
Let me be incredibly honest and
clear to those who know me and are reading this:
I don't dabble in pills or drugs. I barely
ever drink (Indiana Jones drinking contest aside) and
my vices/issues have always been around food. So when
I bring up relating to him? It was not because
I'm self-medicating, it's cause I was ready to end it
all. There would be no accidental in my case. I am now
fully aware that the synapses in my brain will
short-circuit if I don't have the support around
me that I need. Sadly, I've been like this my
entire life. I listened to an old audio journal
when I was FIFTEEN and I was struggling with it
then. I shit you not. Then of course the time in
2002, and now 2010. Of course now it takes an
INORDINATE amount of heartbreak for me to get there...
but it's there. And I've never been more determined to
surround myself with loving people that will, not,
let, me, fall...even when I can't be everything
THEY need. I almost fell. I almost FELL.
(sigh)
I didn't though. I am here.
I am stronger than I've been in a loooooooong
time. As I said in the last entry my excitement
comes not from any specific gig, those will come...
it's from the feeling of SUPPORT. Personal
AND career support. The lack of support with my
career seems fictional.
It's not. And it's not happening again.
Alright, gotta end this. To Greg's
family I absolutely weep for you. I am so, so,
heartbroken and I have to say that when
I was in the place I was a couple weeks ago?
Making those calls? Not one word could have been said
to change my mind. I can't be more clear about
this. At that point? You're lost. The guilt people
feel for "not being there" when tragedy strikes is way
too heavy. Inevitably for me it was thinking of the
pain I would caused those loved ones I was
hanging up on. Them thinking for a second had they
just not been sleepy when I called, or had they
not inadvertently joked with me not knowing the place
I was in. However, that just means I wasn't
there... yet. So to anyone reading this feeling that
guilt because of a a similar moment? You have to stop.
For anyone's brain to even rationalize suicide?
There's a switched that has flipped. There's some
synapses that simply don't fire right. I feel
remarkably fortunate to know that... and to know that
for the rest of my life, it's going to be a priority
to surround myself with people that love me that are
CLOSE to me. 'Cause I'm not leaving this industry. I
have way too much to offer. I'm just gonna find better
ways to cope.
To the precious people in my life
that are across the country... I love you
dearly. I cannot thank you enough for your
outpouring of love. Lovely, your heart...
lovely.
