Of the smorgasbord of mental health news in my email box this morning was a press release on a UCLA study that found lesbians, gays and bisexuals are twice as likely as heterosexual men and women to seek help from mental health professionals. I do not find this surprising.

The ignorant masses out there – who believe that homosexuality is an unholy plague – probably aren’t surprised either. They will likely claim that the study is proof that homosexuality is an illness and that these people really want to be “cured.”

I see it differently. According to the study, gays, lesbians and bisexual are twice as likely as heterosexual men and women to seek help from mental health professionals. Researchers collected data on 2,074 people for a new survey known as the California Quality of Life Survey. They found that 48.5 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals reported receiving treatment in the past year, compared with 22.5 percent of heterosexuals. Overall, lesbians and bisexual women were most likely to receive treatment, and heterosexual men were least likely.

“This is consistent with emerging findings from national surveys showing that many individuals who receive mental health treatment do not have a diagnosable disorder but may have other symptoms, such as psychological distress or impairments in functioning, that lead them to seek care,” according to the press release.

Another explanation could be, “discrimination, violence and other stressful life events may be greater among sexual and gender minorities and homosexuality and issues associated with it may be construed as mental health problems — particularly among racial and ethnic minorities — which may encourage people to seek treatment. Further, in gay and lesbian communities, therapeutic services are considered appropriate places for coping with the stresses associated with being a sexual minority.”

It could also be that gays, lesbians and bisexual are braver and smarter than the rest of us. The gays, lesbians and bisexual folks I know have some serious to-thine-own-self-be-true fortitude and perseverance – way more than a lot of heterosexuals I know. And you must have patience and tolerance of steel to put up with the harassment, ignorance and stigma that sill exists against …

This has been a weird vacation. Normally I spend weeks – even months – researching a destination, scheduling travel arrangements and planning an itinerary. I always said I enjoyed the planning as much as the vacation.

Well, this year everything went to hell. You can’t say I didn’t try. Work schedules and bank accounts would not cooperate. There were no reasonably priced rentals on the Gulf of Mexico that would take dogs – and I had to take my dog and I had to have sunsets. Even a cheap cruise that seemed perfect was booked solid.

Something was wrong. I shouldn’t have to work this hard to relax. My vacation mojo had vanished. I got anxious. I started to feel sorry for myself – “Woe is me, I have no one to go on vacation with.” I had two weeks looming before me and nothing to show for it. I was pushing too hard, trying to force the proverbial square peg into a round hole.

THAT was the problem – the square peg in the round hole. Before I was diagnosed with depression and bipolar I viewed the square-peg-in-the-round-hole conundrum as a challenge – a gauntlet that I must run. I pushed people, places and things to fit my expectations. I pushed hard – very hard. In hindsight, I rarely achieved what I thought I wanted.

I created a lot of resentments. No one likes to be squeezed like that. I caused a lot of anxiety. Would the travel-stars align as I had planned? Would everyone behave themselves so I could relax? I was not a happy camper.

I have learned that this kind of behavior stokes my depression and bipolar. I have learned to see and feel when I am pushing the square peg into the round hole. When it happens – and it happens a lot – I am supposed to stop what I am doing. Let it go. See what happens.

So, I am looking at these two weeks as God doing for me what I could not do for myself. I gave God the keys and let him drive and I sat in back. There have been …

Every Sunday I read Randy Cohen’s column, The Ethicist, in the New York Times. Cohen settles moral dilemmas with humor and common sense. This week’s ethical conundrum: A mentally ill neighbor.

The writer moved into an apartment in a small town. A woman with schizophrenia lives across the street: “She regularly accosts me, shouting insults with apparent lucidity…Other locals treat her as a harmless nuisance, speaking to her as if she were a child, but I’d feel awkward doing that since she is twice my age. How should I respond to her?”

Cohen’s response began: “Assuming your amateur diagnosis is correct, you should respond courteously and briefly. As you know, you should not chide someone mentally ill for her rudeness.” (I added the bold.)

God bless you Randy Cohen. Just for emphasis, let’s allow Randy say it again: “As you know, you should not chide someone mentally ill for her rudeness.” And one more time, Randy, because you make it sound so common sensical: ”As you know, you should not chide someone mentally ill for her rudeness.”

Nor should we ridicule, berate, deride, ignore or shame someone mentally ill for his/her rudeness. However, it seems like we have a caste system for mental illness and our etiquette depends upon the position a specific a mental illness holds within that system. Often it is easier to pardon rudeness when the person is clearly psychotic and delusional. But how do we treat – how should we treat – the obnoxious alcoholic, the panhandling addict, the “lazy” person with depression or the boiling diatribes and vengeful behavior of those in the throes of their mania?

Good question. Hey, I am as guilty as anyone. I cannot tell you how many times I have “chided” an obnoxious drunk – even though I am an alcoholic. Until I experienced, and was finally diagnosed, with depression I berated others – especially those with dysthymia – as weak and lazy. And apparently I – little Ms. Bipolar – must have  missed – or wasn’t paying attention – during the Sunday school lesson on “Judge Not Lest Ye Shall Be Judged.” But the delusional rages or mutterings of someone with schizophrenia …

I am on vacation in the Florida Keys. I had dinner tonight with a friend at a restaurant on the Gulf of Mexico. The sunset was postcard over-the-top stunning – pink, orange, lavender, yellow. After dinner we walked across the street and watched in the moon rise on the Atlantic ocean.

I started the day with my favorite breakfast: greasy hash browns, sausage, scrambled eggs and coffee. Then I spent a couple of hours on the bottom of the ocean with thousands of yellow tail snapper, psychadelic parrot fish, sharks, eels, lobster, conch, hog snapper and coral so intricate and delicate that I have no doubt there is a God.

I takes a day like this to make me grasp the depth of my depression. I watched moon silver waves on a black ocean and wondered, “How could I ever have wanted to leave this? How could I have ever wanted to kill myself?”

That is how strong depression is. So strong that no matter how much love and beauty are in our lives we want to die. Maybe not all of us. But I did want to die and even tried it a couple of times. There are so many people who love me deeply and so much natural beauty around me but all I wanted was out.

I am getting ready for bed. Tomorrow morning I will get up early, have another unhealthy breakfast, ride on the bow of a boat into the sunrise and dive to the bottom of the ocean again – and then again in the afternoon.

On Friday I will leave the Florida Keys with deep respect for nature, God and my mental illnesses. I have no doubt that my depression is real. Only a terribly ill woman would want to kill herself surrounded by this much love and beauty.

Good night.

On my bedside table there are stacks of books, most on depression. On the table next to my beside table, there are stacks of book, most on depression. I have not read any of them. Sometimes I read a few pages from one. Then I put it back on the stack.

I did not buy these books. My friends gave them to me. I appreciate every one of those books. Each book represents someone trying to help me. I am grateful and touched by each book. That is why I keep them on my beside table and the table beside my bedside table.

The oddity of this struck me upside the head yesterday. I accepted an invitation to have lunch with a group of journalists to discuss the fate future of journalism. Someone asked me about writers who have influenced me. I easily named other hard-core news journalists whose work I admire. But mental health writers, I could only think of one: Sylvia Plath – my teenage role model)

It is not because there are no good writers writing about their struggle with mental illness. I mean, William Styron was a brilliant writer. But I only read a couple dozen pages of his classic, Darkness Visible, and then put it down. I haven’t even cracked Kay Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind or Noral Vincent’s Voluntary Madness. I really should read these books. I really want to read these books. I can’t seem to do it.

I don’t want to read about another person’s misery right now. Been there. Done that. Don’t want to read about it. Believe me, I get the irony. Using my own logic, why would anyone want to read my writing? Good question.

I know this: I could not read or write – two of my greatest passions – when I was depressed and that scared the hell out of me. I could not read the newspaper I had been writing for over 20 years. I asked over and over, “It’s going to come back, right? I’m going to be able to read and write again, right?”

“Yes,” my therapist and nurse practitioner assured …