True You (14 page)

Writing, recording, promoting, and touring for
janet
was hard work, and I loved it. But I’m talking about four years of eighteen-hour workdays, six to seven days a week—nonstop work. Trying to look the way other people thought I needed to be, I was exhausted. No, I’m not going to point fingers and accuse anyone of manipulating me. I take responsibility for my choices.

During this same time, rumors began to spread that I had had a rib removed. The rumors were crazy, but they hurt nonetheless. The fact that I had achieved my look through discipline, not surgery, was important to me. It’s no fun when people lie about you. And it can be infuriating when others pass judgment on you when they really don’t know the truth, which happens frequently in the media today, especially with the growth of the Internet. That cutting remark, that carelessly cruel comment, can scar someone—especially a child—for life. That being said, when people are unkind, I remind myself to pray for them. I’m my mother’s daughter. I’m a Christian. I can’t be a hater.

Meanwhile, the relationship I was in that had brought comfort now showed signs of serious strain. Eventually it would collapse. I’m legally prohibited from detailing this relationship, but, in truth, I entered it of my own free will. Again, it was a choice for which I take responsibility. I don’t believe in making excuses. Nor do I believe in blaming others. In the end, that does no good.

I began to understand that my view of people—especially some who were very close to me—had not been as clear as I had imagined. Doubts crept into my mind. Self-condemnation crept
into my heart. I was assaulted by harsh thoughts:
How could my judgment have been so poor? How could I have been so naïve? How could I have fooled myself into believing that I was actually a good entertainer?

I was unrelentingly critical of everything I did. This not only caused weight fluctuations; it also caused my moods to change a lot.

There were times around
Rhythm Nation
and
janet
that I fell into deep despair. I internalized what I was told about the difference between my public image and how I really looked. It reminded me of my childhood admiration of my sister Rebbie. It’s strange how the public was complimenting my appearance while at the same time I hated what I saw in the mirror. I would literally bang my head against the wall because I felt so ugly. I was inconsolable. To the outside world, everything seemed perfect; now everyone knows that it wasn’t.

No matter, I forged ahead. The work ethic that had been such an essential part of my upbringing served me well. After the
janet
tour, I disappeared from public view. What should have been the happiest experience of my life left me lost. But why? My music was well received. My popularity had risen dramatically. Yet the lesson I was learning had not come into focus—I hadn’t found my essential core. The concept of the true you was still many years ahead of me.

I now understand that my inability to voice my pain had to do with the way I was raised.
Keep your problems to yourself.
I was afraid of burdening others with my anxieties. I didn’t want to be a whiner. In a later song, “In Better Days,” I wrote, “I don’t want to waste nobody’s time.”

My escape was to do what I’ve always done—work. The demands of show business both helped and hurt me: helped by keeping me active; hurt by allowing me to sweep the dirt under the rug. I acted as though nothing was wrong.

I forged ahead. I had a new album to prepare, new songs to write, dance routines to learn, a world tour to plan. I expressed my emotional confusion in terms of a metaphor. I called the project
The Velvet Rope
. The meaning is open to a wide range of interpretations. To me, the rope represents a kind posh prison in which I found myself. Psychologically, I couldn’t break free from a place of darkness to a place of light—so I wrote about it.

Literally, the velvet rope is the barrier that keeps partygoers outside a nightclub from getting to where they want to be. You can look at these partygoers in many ways, however. It’s those people who simply want to have fun but are unable to gain admission to the fun room. It can also be those people who are seeking relief from the weight of their problems, and people looking to belong. To get beyond the rope—at least the rope that exists in my imagination—requires, in the words of the songs, not putting people down, but rather freeing ourselves from feelings of hatred and oppression.

One writer called
The Velvet Rope
“a dark masterpiece.” Of course, I appreciated the highly complimentary term
masterpiece,
but at first I was taken aback by
dark
. I didn’t—and still don’t—see myself as an artist who operates in darkness. My aim has always been to put a smile on your face. But I realized that that very pressure—to entertain at any cost, to be positive, to act carefree, to present a public face in contrast to my true feelings at
the time—was contributing to my psychological confusion. I had to work through my fears through music. That was my way of taking care of myself.

“I’m trying to get past my own velvet rope,” a fan wrote.

During my
Velvet Rope
days I had no choice but to face what were some serious blues. In spite of the fact that people responded positively to the record, I continued to withdraw inside myself. I didn’t really want to call my condition “depression,” because I’ve never been comfortable with labels. I knew, though, that no matter what the term, I was being assaulted by a negativity that threatened to overwhelm me. I sought the advice of friends and professionals. I’ve said it before but need to say it again—I’m not a preacher or a psychologist. All I can do is summarize the good counsel given to me. These are ideas that came from people who were genuinely concerned about me and offered loving help.

Depression is serious. It has a life force, but also the potential
to be a death force. It has an energy that is powerful and capable of imprisoning you. You can’t ignore it and hope it’ll go away. You can’t simply say “Oh, I’ll get over it.” It isn’t a matter of willpower. You have to recognize its immense strength. You have to fight it, as you would any other enemy.

There’s a big difference between being depressed and merely feeling temporarily depressed. Please don’t let your depression define you. It can be one of many elements that impact your life on any given day. It’s good to acknowledge it when it’s there and then decide how you will fight it. Depression is so real and dangerous that it must be figured out. Whatever your path, please don’t ignore it. Use every resource, your faith, or a mentor, and don’t be ashamed to get professional help if you’re not making progress. There is free help available online, there are twenty-four-hour crisis call centers, but no one can help you if you don’t open up. I’ve heard people say, “Oh, eventually it will pass.” Sadly, that isn’t always true. I’m still grieving about teenagers who were clearly depressed and committed suicide recently because they felt trapped, with nowhere to turn. I wish I could have talked to every one of those kids. I know how real depression is, and that’s one reason why I’ve written this book. Speaking openly about depression takes away its power.

Depression wants you to feel hopeless. But there are other resources that live within our hearts—prayer, resilience, joy, gratitude, love, compassion for yourself and your emotional fragility—that will surface and give you not only hope but strength. Still, sometimes depression is so overwhelming that we can’t find our
resilience and strength on our own. At such times we need others to show us that those qualities still live inside us.

Just when you’re convinced that this is the day the cloud is starting to lift, it returns for another day, another week, another month. That’s reality. Just as we have to be patient with others, we have to be patient with ourselves and the brutal mood disorders that assault our sanity. We have to be patient with our impatience. The cloud will lift. It always does, but not always when we need it to.

By now you know that I’ve always worked hard, and I’m grateful for that. In the past, I’ve used my work ethic as a defense against depression. I’m the kind of person who pulls herself together and goes out and does what needs to be done. I know it isn’t easy and that, yes, even getting out of bed can seem impossible. But work for me was sometimes a blessing and a way to avoid dealing with my problems. I now accept that work alone will not conquer depression, not entirely. For many years I continued to struggle with overeating. I realized that even though my life was different in many ways, I had so much more in common with other people. I began hearing about others who grew up as the only person of color in their community, feeling isolated in their community: people who felt like outsiders; people whose families were successful, but their success didn’t transfer into their own lives; people who felt less-than. I would wonder. I would ask about discrimination they had experienced; in some cases yes, in others no. But it did not surprise me to see how many people connected with what I was expressing in my music.

I was recently in Paris and met a young man of color who warmed my heart when he told me that
The Velvet Rope
had saved his life. I don’t know his entire story, but I felt the truth in his eyes. He was shaking as he approached me and when we talked, even though it was briefly, with very few words, our hearts connected. He told me that he was using the Internet in a wonderful way. He said he was building a website where people could come and just have a dialogue about their lives, about their pain. What he gave me was precious. I felt such joy to know that the music I had written in 1996, as I opened up, has helped others deal with their own lives and struggles with depression. It’s so good to talk about our troubles together.

Work helped. It always does. But it didn’t chase all the blues away. I continued to struggle, and struggling often meant overeating. The comfort of food seemed to ease the discomfort of my moods. I received more meaningful comfort, though, from family, friends, and fans who, having sensed my discomfort in
The Velvet Rope
, opened up their hearts.

So many things can block the true you. For example, racism is very real and powerful. My thoughts go to Reg, who had a privileged background and didn’t feel authentically black.

“I wasn’t even sure what ‘authentically black’ meant,” he said, “but that didn’t matter. I knew I lacked authenticity. Other guys were from the projects or the streets. Even if they came from
middle-class neighborhoods, those neighborhoods were predominantly black. Once again, I felt like an outsider. When I was rejected for membership in a black fraternity, I retreated into a shell and stayed there for the next four years. I made good grades and graduated with honors, but I never got past the velvet rope.”

Reg’s next move was to Europe. He lived in Paris, learned French, and got a job as the assistant to the publicist of a famous designer.

“No matter how well I spoke the language and did my job,” he said, “I still felt inauthentic. I loved the culture, I loved the work, loved the people I met, and yet I couldn’t shake this notion that I was trying to be something I wasn’t.”