If you think that’s a story I’m about to tell you, you’re wrong. There is no story. I was twenty years old. I wasn’t a child bride. I wasn’t being forced, but I hadn’t figured it out any more than my friends had. I just thought, Well . . . that’s enough. And then boom, I wasn’t a virgin anymore. And then came the regret. Not regret over losing my virginity—regret over my rush to do it. It had seemed so important that it had become a project for me. How would it happen? Who would it happen with? Where would it happen? Would I be a grown-up afterward? Would I suddenly become a sexy woman with a small waist, big boobs, and a big ass? Would I be Jessica Rabbit or Beyoncé? The answer was no. I didn’t become any of those things, and the where, how, and who of it all left me disappointed as well.
Don’t worry! At least I got the dude’s full age and name beforehand. He didn’t have a middle name, and I thought, Wow. Your parents didn’t love you enough to give you a middle name. What a shame. And just to make sure I’d never have to see him again, I shared that thought with him.
He looked at me, and then he laughed. He thought I was funny. That was enough for me so I banged him.
Are you judging me? Remember, you were super shitty at twenty years old, possibly shittier than I was. You remember that!
For a while afterward, I kept trying to make sex feel good, but it didn’t. Not with anyone. And I really tried. I’d go after guys who were very attractive, but they didn’t feel any better than ugly guys. I’d try guys who really wanted to be in a relationship with me, but they didn’t feel any better than the guys just looking for something to do on a Friday night. I tried to make a game out of it. I’d try on a character to see if she had more fun, but she did not. I kept thinking that the problem was each individual guy. Like I said, I really tried. But it always felt the same. Cold. Emotionless. Empty.
This was a very strange time in my life. I was slipping into a depression, and while I didn’t super love sex, every encounter at least became something I could focus on to distract me from the fact that I was severely unhappy with everything in my life.
I didn’t see it then, but that phase of pseudopromiscuity was a part of my depression, not a distraction from it. Poor, stupid, slutty Gabby. To be clear, it wasn’t a lot of men. It was a few. This is what I did, though, off and on between the ages of twenty and twenty-two. I call it my Hoe Phase.
Here’s the thing about therapy and why it is so important. I love my mom, but there’s so much I couldn’t talk to her about during my Hoe Phase. I couldn’t tell her that I couldn’t stop crying and that I hated everything about myself. My mom has always been an independent person with lots of friends who love her and think she is the most talented person ever. Her life at the age of twenty was nothing like mine. Whenever I did try to open up, my mom seemed unconcerned. When I was sad about something, she told me to “get a thicker skin”; when I was upset, she told me to “stop nitpicking.” My mom has always had faith that things would be okay—but saying “Tomorrow will be a better day” wasn’t enough for me. When I first told her I was depressed, she laughed. Literally. Not because she’s a terrible person, but because she thought it was a joke. How could I not be able to feel better on my own—like her, like her friends, like normal people?
So I just kept thinking my sad thoughts. Thoughts about dying. I couldn’t sleep at night. Eventually, morning would come, and it would be time to go to class. I was attending City College of New York, a five-minute walk from my apartment, but by the time I’d get to school every morning, I’d be crying and sweating profusely, struggling to breathe, thinking I was going to die. For a while, I thought I was having asthma attacks. I didn’t realize until later that these were actually panic attacks. I was a mess.
I stopped eating. For days at a time, I wouldn’t eat anything at all. Often, when I was too sad to stop crying, I drank a glass of water and ate a slice of bread, and then I threw it up. After I did, I wasn’t as sad anymore. I finally relaxed. So I never ate anything until I wanted to throw up, and only when I did could I distract myself from whatever thought was swirling around my head. I was a real joy to be around.
Eventually, I decided to get a doctor involved. I was a college student and poor, which meant I had really good health care: Medicaid. (Oddly enough, as a thirty-three-year-old working actor, I can’t afford now what I could afford at the age of twenty-two. America yo!) I found a doctor and told her everything that was wrong with me. I’d never run down the entire list before, but as I heard myself, I could sense that dealing with this on my own was definitely no longer an option.
The doctor asked me if I wanted to kill myself.
I said, “Meh. Not yet, but when I do, I know how I’ll do it.”
I wasn’t afraid to die, and if there was a button I could’ve pushed to erase my existence from Earth, I would’ve pushed it, because it would’ve been easier and less messy than offing myself. According to the doctor, that was enough. She prescribed an antidepressant and also suggested therapy. Dialectical behavioral therapy. I know, right? What’s that?!
My doctor explained that dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) was a cognitive behavioral therapy designed to help treat borderline personality disorder. I was eligible for a six-month treatment program with group-therapy classes designed to help manage emotions and behaviors that could be symptoms of borderline personality disorder. Classes were Monday through Friday, from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Did I have borderline personality disorder? Nope. Not at all. But my doctor thought it was the best treatment my bomb-ass insurance could buy for me. And because I was failing out of college anyway, I had nothing but time. I was basically the perfect candidate for DBT even though my actual diagnosis was only depression with a bit of an eating disorder. (I say “only” and “a bit” like this wasn’t absolutely ruining my life. I was going to die. LOL.) My doctor was really excited to get me into the program. Possibly too excited, I remember thinking at the time.
As my doctor described DBT and what it could do for me, I sort of stopped listening. I nodded my head whenever she paused; every now and then, I said, “Oh. Okay.” But I couldn’t focus on anything back then. Not even someone talking directly to me in a quiet room. I was thinking about how I’d have to drop out of school to do this therapy and whether or not it would be worth it. I was thinking about how I’d tell my family.
I got home from the doctor’s with a bottle full of antidepressants and a new lease on life. I broke the news to my brother first. I told Ahmed how I’d been feeling and how I had to get help for it. He suggested that I read the Bible and watch church on TV with him on Sunday mornings. He also told me he was sorry to know how badly I felt and that he wished he’d known, wished he could have helped. I should’ve told him sooner. I’d figured my brother was as self-centered as any twenty-something guy. I didn’t trust other people to care about me. In the case of Ahmed, I was wrong.