When I hear the words, “I can’t see the future,” as a psychiatrist, I get very concerned. These words were spoken by Colin Firth as English Professor George Falconer in the recently released independent film, “A Single Man,” that I saw with my husband last night. The words were spoken by Professor Falconer after he lost his younger lover, Jim, in a car accident.

As the older partner in an intergenerational gay relationship, I have until recently always assumed I would die first, and my concerns had been about how Doug would go on after my death. When the younger member of a gay a gay couple who have been friends of ours recently died unexpectedly, my thoughts began to shift to, “How would I survive it if I am the one left alone?”

Depression and grief, although over-lapping in their symptoms, are not the same things. Grief is about the realistic elements of life without someone you love; it responds to the support and reassurance of family and friends that no matter how tough a loss is, you’ll make it through.

Depression sets in sometimes following grief, and thinking begins to get distorted. It involves sleep disturbance, slowed and sticky thinking, lack of energy and concentration, and despair. Much like in a terminal illness, it is being unable to see a future where one can survive while being alone. It is the feeling of being alone and unimaginable pain that feels worse than being terminally ill.

One writer criticized the movie for moving in places with a “glacial pace,” but that is precisely how depression works. Time gets distorted and each minute goes on endlessly. Anyone who has been depressed will see that the movie perfectly captures the distortion of time that occurs when one is depressed.

The high rate of suicide in LGBT youth has begun to capture the interest of society, as well it should, but I have found no references in the medical literature to studies which include sexual orientation among the risk factors for suicide for older gay men and women, although I believe it might be significant.

Much of the pain of coming out for either youth or mature men and women trapped in a world between gay and straight is the result of the loneliness one feels, believing that no one else has ever been through what one is experiencing. It sets the stage for depression, alcohol and substance abuse, and suicide. It is my belief that a feeling of hopelessness that does not respond to support and reassurance is central in a person’s decision about suicide.

The movie is set in the 1960’s, the decade when baby boomers were just coming of age, and with Lucky Strike cigarettes, bees hive hair-do’s and beautiful period costumes, the movie drew me back to a time when “gay’ was never heard and “homosexuality” was rarely even whispered

Remember when everyone smoked, even in college classrooms? Remember when people felt they had to “present themselves” as straight so they could pass in a heterosexual world, and when gay lovers were not invited to “family only” funerals? Oh, wait. That still happens.

The movie has a very poignant scene where Julianne Moore’s character says to Falconer, “You’re relationship with Jim was only a substitute for the real thing.”

The movie’s references to the “Cuban Missile Crisis” returned me to memories of having drills where we hid beneath our desks as if it would have saved us from an atomic attack. This “Crisis” is a metaphor for my generation. The enemy was not the Russians, but fear, and fear of homosexuality, our own or others, was just another one of those irrational fears, one of which some people are still unable to let go.

This movie presents a gay love story as just a love story. The gay characters and those relate to them are nuanced, not blatant references to stereotypes. The cinematography captures stunningly beautiful close-ups – some have compared it to perfume ads – and the beautiful male bodies may give even strictly heterosexual men some second thoughts. It re-creates the world that gay baby boomers will remember, much of which contributed to feeling trapped between the worlds of gay and straight.

“A Single Man” has been nominated for and received several awards. This is a movie you must see, even if you have to sneak off alone to see it.