DR FJL, yes you were played.
By a very talented and capable person, though. I can't imagine if what we thought and expected she'd bring to the project weren't worth trying to put this type of stuff out of our minds, it would need looking at emails to see what went on. (At least based on the back emails I've happened across so far, it seems the main problem that her reaction was these communication breaks, and lack of consideration for what anyone else was putting in to the writing. Mainly a feeling like from a sitcom: "If you don't know why I'm upset, I'm not gonna tell you." But it feels like the truth is we wanted what she was doing, but all the other 3 pretty much sat and waited through the absences, never knowing when the absences would be over.
I think in what I read yesterday, there was actually an exchange that felt like: I'm so mad that you're upset about my unannounced unexplained cooling-off break, that I just have to take another cooling-off break.