I picked up the September issue of your new magazine and I want to congratulate you for coming out. On the cover no less.
Your words were inspiring: ``I am hoping maybe I will be a reference point for someone . . . I have been there too. You can survive it. You will survive it."
It was touching to see you acknowledge that people suffer when others--especially public figures with lots of influence-- don't speak out. I loved what you said: ``I believe that one person's story does help another. You think, `Okay, maybe I'm not so alone, not so abnormal.'"
That is so true. ``One person's story" does give people struggling with the same issue a sense of hope, a sense that it's possible to come to terms with themselves.
Take Mike Wallace from ``60 Minutes." When he came out, he helped people realize it was possible to be open and still have a great career.
Or the author of ``Sophie's Choice," William Styron. When he came out, he helped people realize it was possible to share their terrible secret and still be respected.
You, Mike Wallace and William Styron are courageous people for revealing your struggles with depression. But Mike Wallace and William Styron aren't gay, and that makes your coming out about depression a little puzzling to people who are.
You see, there are lots of celebrities who've revealed their struggle with depression, but there are only a small number of celebrities who've revealed their struggle with their sexual orientation.
With so few role models for lesbian teenagers and gay women why not come out on the issue needing the most visibility?
It just doesn't seem fair, Rosie. My girlfriends can get your support if they're depressed, but not if they're lesbian.
You devoted almost the entire September issue of your magazine to depression. You said you did it because you could no longer be silent, that you had to speak out. You said, ``I am convinced that of the many damaging things that happened to me, this [silence] was the worst. Shame surrounds silence, infecting the already wounded part."
Here's the part I don't understand, Rosie, and I was hoping you could explain it to me. You said the only way to break free is to break the silence. If that's true for depression, why isn't it true for sexual orientation?
Silence and shame surround both depression and homosexuality. Both can destroy family relationships, both can result in suicide. Help me understand, Rosie, why you chose to break the silence about one intensely personal issue you've struggled with and not the other.
I have a lesbian friend whose parents won't call her at home because they're too afraid her girlfriend will answer.
I have another friend whose parents pretty much disowned him after he came out. He stopped by their house recently, just to say hello, just to re-establish some degree of normalcy.
Upon knocking, his mother looked through the window and saw that her son's boyfriend was waiting in the car. She never opened the door, Rosie. She never opened the door to her own son. She told him to come back when he was alone.
The irony is that my friend's mother watches your show all the time. She loves you. She won't let her own son in the house, but she'll let you into her living room everyday at 4 p.m. There is something so sad about that. So very sad.
You could help change people's minds, Rosie. You could help my friends get their families back, just like you're helping people with depression get theirs back.
Remember how good it felt when someone you looked up to -- like Mike Wallace and William Styron -- acknowledged that they suffered from depression? Remember how relieved you felt that you weren't the only one going through it? Remember how it filled you with hope? Remember how grateful you were that they took risks to speak their truth?
That's all I'm asking in this letter, Rosie. That you remember.
(Michael Alvear's e-mail address is michaelalvear@mediaone.net.)